Senator Bob Dole Accepts Nomination on August 15, 1996 in San Diego, California.
The folks in Hollywood would be happy to know that I finally found a movie I liked -- the one I just saw.
This is a big night for me, and I'm ready. We're ready to go.
Thank you, California. And thank you, San Diego for hosting the greatest Republican convention of them all. The greatest of them all.
Thank you, President Ford and President Bush. And God bless you, Nancy Reagan for your moving tribute to President Reagan.
By the way, I spoke to President Reagan this afternoon, and I made him a promise that we would win one more for the Gipper. Are you ready?
Thank you. And he appreciated it very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, delegates to the convention, and fellow citizens, I cannot say it more clearly than in plain speaking. I accept your nomination to lead our party once again to the Presidency of the United States.
And I am profoundly moved by your confidence and trust, and I look forward to leading America into the next century. But this is not my moment, it is yours. It is yours, Elizabeth. It is yours, Robin. It is yours, Jack and Joanne Kemp.
And do not think I have forgotten whose moment this is above all. It is for the people of America that I stand here tonight, and by their generous leave. And as my voice echoes across darkness and desert, as it is heard over car radios on coastal roads, and as it travels above farmland and suburb, deep into the heart of cities that, from space, look tonight like strings of sparkling diamonds, I can tell you that I know whose moment this is: It is yours. It is yours entirely.
And who am I that stands before you tonight?
I was born in Russell, Kansas, a small town in the middle of the prairie surrounded by wheat and oil wells. As my neighbors and friends from Russell, who tonight sit in front of this hall, know well, Russell, though not the West, looks out upon the West.
And like most small towns on the plains, it is a place where no one grows up without an intimate knowledge of distance.
And the first thing you learn on the prairie is the relative size of a man compared to the lay of the land. And under the immense sky where I was born and raised, a man is very small, and if he thinks otherwise, he is wrong.
I come from good people, very good people, and I'm proud of it. My father's name was Doran and my mother's name was Bina. I loved them and there's no moment when my memory of them and my love for them does not overshadow anything I do -- even this, even here -- and there is no height to which I have risen that is high enough to allow me to allow me to forget them -- to allow me to forget where I came from, and where I stand and how I stand -- with my feet on the ground, just a man at the mercy of God.
We are the party that trusts in the people. I trust in the people. That is the heart of all I have tried to say tonight.
My friends, a presidential campaign is more than a contest of candidates, more than a clash of opposing philosophies.
It is a mirror held up to America. It is a measurement of who we are, where we come from, and where we are going. For as much inspiration as we may draw from a glorious past, we recognize American preeminently as a country of tomorrow. For we were placed here for a purpose, by a higher power. There's no doubt about it.
Every soldier in uniform, every school child who recites the Pledge of Allegiance, every citizen who places her hand on her heart when the flag goes by, recognizes and responds to our American destiny.
Optimism is in our blood. I know this as few others can. There once was a time when I doubted the future. But I have learned as many of you have learned that obstacles can be overcome.
And I have unlimited confidence in the wisdom of our people and the future of our country.
Tonight, I stand before you tested by adversity, made sensitive by hardship, a fighter by principle, and the most optimistic man in America.
My life is proof that America is a land without limits. And with my feet on the ground and my heart filled with hope, I put my faith in you and in the God who loves us all. For I am convinced that America's best days are yet to come.
May God bless you. And may God bless America. Thank you very much."
