Well good evening everyone. Let me start by thanking my friend Mike Enzi for not just a thoughtful introduction, but just a wonderful introduction. I don’t know that I deserve this award but I’m not going to give it back and I’m very grateful to Mike for what he said. I said to him as he was leaving this taping today (and we were taping this around noon today about eight hours before the dinner); I said I should really be giving this award to you. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Mike Enzi for about a dozen years.
I first heard about him when I was governing, while I was chairman of the National Governors Association. He was a great partner to the governors, and I’m a recovering governor. We were looking for partners in the Congress and Mike Enzi turned out to be a great partner. He was results-oriented. He was focused on getting things done; he was great with respect to common sense. He’s very respectful of the rights of states. He saw the states as fifty laboratories of democracy that the Congress should work with, and I loved working with him then and even more now. Even though we didn’t end up with a bi-partisan healthcare bill (which is unfortunate), it wasn’t for a lack of trying on his part and on mine as well.
I want to congratulate Joel tonight for — I think he’s going to be receiving his award later today, but Amy Overton is a friend of yours in my office. She gives you her best and just a little shout out of congratulations to you. I just want to say congratulations to Bryce Harlow who I never met. When I came — was elected to Congress in ’82 — I never had the chance to meet him but the idea that somebody that lived that long ago, was that active over literally five decades, made such an impact. Thirty years later we’re still honoring his memory and not just honoring his memory, but actually honoring his memory by trying to instill in others today the kind of values that he lived by and the idea of integrity, which is what do we say about integrity? If you have it nothing else matters. If you don’t have it nothing else matters. The idea of him trying to instill that in certainly my colleagues and myself, but also those who serve, where you’re happy to serve your corporations and trying to work with government so we can get things done and to use some common sense and to do what’s right.
That’s a great legacy for him. So I just want to say to Linda Dooley and everybody that’s part of the foundation, thanks for keeping his memory alive and to those who worked very hard to make tonight’s event a success. I want you to know that I appreciate your efforts. I’m sorry we can’t be there in person. Our day job has gotten in the way. We’re actually doing a vote-a-thon, vote-a-rama tonight. We’re voting, I think, all night about every fifteen minutes on a different amendment. Sometime tomorrow we’ll probably collapse and call it a day and I’ll look forward to maybe getting on a train sometime late tomorrow night and going home.
I want to talk a little bit about Mike Enzi, as he mentioned our core values. We share these core values, and they’re worth repeating. The way I was raised — I was raised in — born in West Virginia, grew up in Danville and Roanoke Virginia. Right across the street from the house where we lived in Danville, Virginia was Woodlawn Baptist Church. My mom used to drive my sister and me there every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night and just about every Thursday night. Most people don’t think they have church on Thursday night but they did at that Woodlawn Baptist church.
More often than not we were there. My mom wanted to make sure that my sister and I understood the difference between right and wrong so we’d be more inclined to do what was right. She wanted to make sure that we internalized the golden rule to treat other people the way we wanted to be treated. I think that’s maybe the most important value that we can carry with us in our lives. My father retired as a chief petty officer in the Navy. I spent about twenty-seven years in the Navy. My dad used to say “the chiefs run the Navy; the chief petty officers run the Navy”. I found that later, he was right. He was tough as nails and my sister and I would know this when we had a job to do.
When we wouldn’t do it very well, he would just say (not this nicely) but he would say if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. He must have said that a thousand times. But like your parents probably said things to you that you eventually internalized, we internalized that as well. Everything I do I try to do it well and one of my core values is if it isn’t perfect, make it better. I try to instill that in every organization I’m a part of. My dad also would say to my sister and me, we’d pull some bone-headed stunt as kids, and he’d say just use some common sense. He didn’t say it that nicely. But he would say, just use some common sense.
One of the things I endeavor to do in all the roles I play in the Navy and state government and federal government and other endeavors, is I always try to use some common sense. My dad would be pleased to look down tonight to see that it finally, finally soaked in. The other thing is whenever I meet people who have done amazing things with their lives, one of the things I like to ask them is to what do you attribute your success? A lot of people say I just work very hard. Some people say I was just lucky and there’s a lot of truth to really both of those.
But a number of people say — I remember Ariel Sharron in particular, this was before he was stricken, said to me and I just had a moment together in Jerusalem, and I said to him to what do you attribute your great success? You’ve been on top, you’ve been on bottom, you’ve been thrown out of government, you’ve been sort of like cast aside and at the time he’d been resurrected and was leading the nation of Israel. I said to what do you attribute your success? He said I never give up. He kind of growled it out, “I NEVER GIVE UP.”
I find that a lot of people who are successful in life get that way because they just don’t give up. I know a lot of people who could have been somebody, could have done something. Whether it was healthcare reform — whether you agree with it or not, but the idea is you’re not giving up. You can get a lot done and it can inspire a lot of people as well. I have some guiding principles, and Mike Enzi’s heard me talk about these before. They guide me and the way I think and try to get things done in the Senate.
One of those is I believe — and it’s interesting Michael said this as well in his remarks — we believe that a major role of government is to provide a nurturing environment for job creation and job preservation. That’s not the only role of government. We don’t expect government to be a lap dog for business. But if in my business, if you’ve got companies that are successful, they’re making money, they’re paying taxes, they’re hiring people to work coming out of colleges and universities, out of high schools, off of unemployment rolls or coming off of welfare rolls or that sort of thing; if you’ve got that going for you, really the rest is pretty easy. So I’ve focused a lot of my life on trying to provide that nurturing environment.
I believe the role of government — I kind of agree with Lincoln who said that the role of government is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves. I found that David Osborne said it just a little bit differently. David used to say the role of government is to steer the boat, not to row the boat. To steer the boat, not to row the boat. I think that’s a good foundation, underpinning for me and again the understanding that we need a nurturing environment for job creation.
If people have a job, companies are successful and we’re going to get a lot done in this country. The role of government, again, is to do for the people what they can’t do for themselves. Another guiding principle for me is something that Albert Einstein used to say. I don’t know a lot of people who quote Einstein, but I do. One of the things that Einstein used to say a lot; he said in adversity lies opportunity. Think about that. In adversity lies opportunity. When I see nuclear waste — spent nuclear fuel lines piling up in nuclear power plants — I’m an advocate of nuclear power. I think there’s opportunity there. When I see carbon dioxide coming out of coal fired power plants, I think there’s opportunity there. When I see our huge and growing dependence of foreign oil, I see an opportunity there and a lot of times we see economic opportunities which can turn into job creation and innovation and technology for us and for our country. Part of the role of government is to help us to realize that potential.
I want to close this, if I can, with just a couple of other thoughts and one of those is I’m going to go back to the core value that Mike and I share. That is to treat other people — we want to treat other people the way we want to be treated. There’s a guy named Barry Black; some of you have heard of him, former Navy Admiral; he’s chief of chaplains for the Navy and Marine Corps; First African-American to hold that job, first African-American to the chaplain for the United States Senate. Barry Black likes to say the cliff notes of the New Testament is really the Golden Rule — treat other people the way we wanted to be treated. It’s something that all of us, I think, would be wise to remember, including the young people that are there tonight who are enjoying fellowships because of the money that’s raised this evening.
So keep that one in mind; to treat other people the way we wanted to be treated. I think if we do that, if we all remember to do that, that’s just a huge thing for us to do. I remember, going back to that Einstein quote about in adversity lies opportunity; I remember when I was 17 years old in high school, I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. I had been a Civil Air Patrol Cadet and I wanted to fly airplanes and I applied for the Air Force Academy. I applied too late to be considered in my senior year. I was very disappointed and I came from a family without a lot of money.
I remember sitting in homeroom one day — you probably remember sitting in homerooms in your own high school. But sitting in homeroom one day and the announcement on the PA during morning announcements. Anybody interested in wining a Navy scholarship, go see your guidance counselor. And I went to see my guidance counselor because I knew I needed help to go to college. And she told me about something called Navy ROTC. At the time I could not spell ROTC. In any event, if I managed to win the scholarship and go to a college, they’ll help pay your tuition, books and fees and send you off to be trained as a naval officer.
And I said boy, that’s for me and I applied and I won the scholarship of my life. It just gave me a chance to see the world, make great friends, and learn a lot about leadership and the opportunities I have today. I was the only one in my school who went to see the guidance counselor to find out about that scholarship.
In 1970 I ran for state treasurer when I was 29. Nobody else wanted to run; I was the only one in the Democratic Party who said we’d run. The Republicans had a good candidate. Nobody wanted to run against him and I did because nobody else wanted to. I got to run six years later for Congress. Nobody wanted to run; we had a three term incumbent Republican Congressman and nobody wanted to run against him. I said that I would and I got to run against Senator Bill Rock in 2000 because no one else wanted to. And so in adversity lies opportunity and it’s easy to find that opportunity within that adversity.
Last thing I want to say, if I can. Again, this is more to the young people there that are being trained to the careers that a lot of you have realized. But the idea that it’s important to figure out what’s the right thing to do and just do it. Really, don’t… sometimes my staff comes to me and says, well you should do this because politically it’s the right thing, the easier thing to do; less controversial thing to do. I just say, what’s the right thing to do? Let’s just figure that out and let’s do that. And I find it’s a lot easier when we use that as our benchmark.
Let me close again by saying how grateful I am to those of you who have seen fit to allow me to follow in the footsteps of Rob Portman and Steny Hoyer and John Boehner and a bunch of others who’ve been honored in previous years; a bunch of my buds. I’m honored to be in their company; honored to be introduced by my friend Mike Enzi. I got to work in a building called the Hart Building — named after Philip Hart, former Senator from Michigan. And I’ll close with his words; at least I’ll paraphrase his words. He said something like this when he was leaving the Senate. I’m not leaving just yet, but he said, I leave much as I arrived, understanding fully the nature of the challenge that we face in this nation, but confident that if we give it our best, we’ll come close to realizing the goals that we set for us as a nation.
These are challenging times for our nation. You know that and I know that. But as Einstein said, in adversity lies opportunity and we’ve overcome a lot in the history of this country and we have a lot of good years ahead of us. If we keep that in mind — in adversity lies opportunity — keep in mind the words of Philip Hart, and if we keep in mind the example of Bryce Harlow, we’ll do just fine. Thanks so much. God bless. Thank you.