RNC Chairman Reince Priebus
2016 RNC Summer Meeting Address
Cleveland, Ohio
July 13, 2016

Good afternoon and welcome to our Summer Meeting.
 
In just a few days we will start our Convention, and I want to start out by thanking the city of Cleveland for the incredible hospitality they have shown us and the dedication of so many officials who have worked out all the logistical and security details.
 
We are coming down the home stretch of one of the most important and most historic elections of any of our lifetimes.
 
And I’m glad to be on the front lines with you as we strive to put a Republican president back in the White House.
 
For five and a half years I have been Chairman of the Republican Party. It has been a great honor.
 
And I’m proud to say that I stand before you here today overseeing the best-trained and best-equipped political party in American history.
 
With apologies to the Democrat Party…the Whig Party…the Federalist Party…and any other political party…the Republican Party of today surpasses all of them in building up a long term infrastructure for sharing our message and winning elections.
 
We at the RNC have used all the resources at our disposal to scale up, build out, and go all in for this election.
 
Back in 2011 we had no field organization ahead of the election. In spring 2012 we were parachuting staffers in 6 months before November.
 
This time, we began building a robust ground game in 2013, allowing us to build relationships with voters in battleground states over the course of several years.
 
This cycle we’ve had a 148-week head start on Hillary Clinton and the DNC in getting staff on the ground, and we’ve got nearly 500 staffers and tens of thousands of volunteers in the field right now.
 
In those battleground states with a permanent RNC field presence, Republican turnout in the primaries was up nearly 60% from 2012.
 
The work our Party has done in building this ground game is unprecedented, and it will live on permanently, so that we can win at all levels, year in and year out.
 
Last year we launched our Republican Leadership Initiative, which is recruiting and training thousands of GOP volunteers from all backgrounds, who are committed to spreading the Republican message in the places they call home. We had nothing like that in 2011.
 
Since 2011 we’ve invested $100 million dollars to revamp our data efforts, and we’ve made 20-plus years of voter data available to all Republican campaigns up and down the ballot. We’re identifying and reaching voters in smarter ways than ever before.
 
Since 2011, we’ve scaled up our digital department and developed cutting-edge tactics for engaging voters online, and we’re reaching them on social media platforms across the board.
 
In 2011, we hired new staff to restart a dialogue with communities we hadn’t been to in a long time, and held listening sessions with business and community leaders around the country to find out the concerns and priorities of all voters.
 
We have recommitted to being the Party of the open door, because we want everyone to experience the blessings of liberty.
 
That’s why our Party has been working hard every single day to put us in position to win at all levels, both now and for years to come.
 
And that’s why we need to stop Hillary Clinton.
 
If we don’t stick together as a party and stop her, then the only alternative is to get comfortable with the phrase “President Hillary Clinton.”
 
The country can’t afford a dishonest career flip-flopper who is chomping at the bit to rubber stamp more of the extreme Obama agenda.
 
We know if given the chance she will stack the Supreme Court with another activist, liberal judge who will treat the Constitution like a doormat.
 
During her tenure the State Department became a revolving door for Democrat lobbyists and insiders.
 
She lied to the families of the victims of the Benghazi attacks that an internet video was behind their deaths.
 
45 times she praised the TPP trade deal, which was a centerpiece of her agenda as Secretary of State. She called it the “gold standard” of trade deals. Now she can’t run away from it fast enough.
 
There’s no way someone who couldn’t properly handle something as simple as her email account, and lied over and over about it to the American people, should get near the presidency.
 
When the head of the FBI tells the whole world that Hillary Clinton is a liar in the way she handled precious national security secrets, that alone should disqualify her from the White House.
 
We at the RNC are holding her feet to the fire every day for her above-the-law mentality. Our Communications and Research teams are monitoring her every public event and digging through decades of documents to hold her accountable for her track record of cover-ups and dishonesty.
 
The Clinton Machine is on the warpath against Donald Trump because they’re desperate to hide all the flaws in her own candidacy.
 
In closing, let’s not lose sight of the stakes of the election.

Either we keep traveling down the road of big government failure, or set a new course for an America that is as strong and confident as ever.

It’s our job to stand united as a Party so we can recover opportunity and security for every American.

So we can recover liberty.

So we can recover the future.

Since we are in Ohio, I thought it appropriate to use a quote from Edward Tiffin, who was the first Governor of Ohio in the early 1800s. He had a vision for his country that still applies today.

He said, “Our government, like a tree of liberty, will extend its shelter over all our citizens, and cause all men to contemplate our rising greatness with amazement, and our people to cry out, ‘Here dwells liberty! Here is my country!”

We want our children and our grandchildren to have that same vision of being a great and free nation.
And it’s on us to make it come true.

For 162 years, we Republicans have stood together because we believe in the promise of this country.

We know America is an exceptional nation, and we must work together if we want to keep it that way.

Now is the time to stand united as Republicans.

Now is the time to stop Hillary Clinton and elect Donald Trump.

Now is the time to win up and down the ballot this November.

Thank you, and God Bless America.
 
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