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A. First, my Cabinet will be made up of a cross section of the best people in both parties. I will have what F.D.R. used to call "dollar-a-year men," but I won't pay them a dollar, and they'll be a cross section of both parties. If you have followed my efforts at all, you have heard me say a thousand times to the volunteers, "If you elected Solomon as President, he couldn't solve these problems, the wisest man who ever lived, and don't think I can alone. And unless you will stay in the ring with me after November, there's no point in doing this, because we'll all be failures."
Now then, if millions of people will stay in the ring with me and assert their role as owners of the country, and if, see, when we have these town-hall presentations, Congress, the Cabinet, the leaders in that particular field, it won't be me telling the people. It's not a fireside chat. We will really be explaining this to the people. Congress will be in the middle of it.
If you look for me after the election, you won't find me doing what Presidents have been doing in recent years. I will be buried night and day in meetings with the leaders of Congress. And if you ever see me get up every morning and throw rocks at Congress, just have me led away quietly, because I understand that Congress is my equal.
In my sleep I am a better consensus leader than anybody who's up there now, and if you don't think so, just talk to the guys I work with, and if you don't think so, talk to the Texas legislature on the two times I've been down there, got everything I wanted passed, et cetera, et cetera. O.K.
I will be buried with leaders. I will make them part of the process. I will be listening, listening, listening to their ideas. They will have ideas better than my ideas. In all probability, what we finally do may be their ideas. It will probably be some first-term Congressman who shouldn't have had an idea that good, but it's the best idea, and we take these ideas to the people, present them to the people. The people say let's do it, and now we have a system out of gridlock and a system that works. That's the process I'll use.
Q. So in other words, these electronic town meetings would be your way of going over the heads of Congress to put citizen pressure on Congress?
A. No, no. Who did I say would be presenting with me? Congress.
Q. How are you going to deal with an institution, the U.S. Congress, that's not structured like a corporation where you can just talk to the three or four top guys?
A. O.K. Humor me. Get out of your stereotype cliches that a guy who runs the company is, you know, an autocrat.
Q. What --
A. Just wait a minute. Wait a minute. Look at everything that has been written about me. Look at every speech I've ever made to business schools, to business leaders and what have you. It is the reverse of telling people what to do. Now, facts probably don't matter. But if facts do matter, there's a very clear record here that I get things done by building consensus, and that's what you have to do. The point is, give the people a vote.
The next rational question is, Will the people make mistakes? Sure. We all make mistakes.