Hilary Clinton's perfect speech last night:
I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack Obama.
My friends, it is time to take back the country we love.
Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now to
unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the same team,
and none of us can sit on the sidelines.
This is a fight for the future. And it's a fight we must win.
I haven't spent the past 35 years in the trenches advocating for
children, campaigning for universal health care, helping parents
balance work and family, and fighting for women's rights at home and around the world ... to see another Republican in the White House squander the promise of our country and the hopes of our people.
And you haven't worked so hard over the last 18 months, or endured
the last eight years, to suffer through more failed leadership.
No way. No how. No McCain.
Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our president.
Tonight we need to remember what a presidential election is really
about. When the polls have closed, and the ads are finally off the air,
it comes down to you — the American people, your lives, and your children's futures.
For me, it's been a privilege to meet you in your homes, your
workplaces, and your communities. Your stories reminded me everyday
that America's greatness is bound up in the lives of the American
people — your hard work, your devotion to duty, your love for your
children, and your determination to keep going, often in the face of
enormous obstacles.
You taught me so much, you made me laugh, and ... you even made me
cry. You allowed me to become part of your lives. And you became part
of mine.
I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism,
didn't have health insurance and discovered she had cancer. But she
greeted me with her bald head painted with my name on it and asked me
to fight for health care.
I will always remember the young man in a Marine Corps T-shirt who
waited months for medical care and said to me: "Take care of my
buddies; a lot of them are still over there ... and then will you
please help take care of me?"
I will always remember the boy who told me his mom worked for the
minimum wage and that her employer had cut her hours. He said he just
didn't know what his family was going to do.
I will always be grateful to everyone from all fifty states, Puerto Rico and the territories, who joined our campaign on behalf of all those people left out and left behind by the Bush Administration.
To my supporters, my champions — my sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits — from the bottom of my heart: Thank you.
You never gave in. You never gave up. And together we made history.
Along the way, America lost two great Democratic champions who would
have been here with us tonight. One of our finest young leaders, Arkansas Democratic Party Chair, Bill Gwatney, who believed with all his heart that America and the South could be and should be Democratic from top to bottom.
And Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones,
a dear friend to many of us, a loving mother and courageous leader who
never gave up her quest to make America fairer and smarter, stronger
and better. Steadfast in her beliefs, a fighter of uncommon grace, she
was an inspiration to me and to us all.
Our heart goes out to Stephanie's son, Mervyn, Jr., and Bill's
wife, Rebecca, who traveled to Denver to join us at our convention.
Bill and Stephanie knew that after eight years of George Bush, people are hurting at home, and our standing has eroded around the world. We have a lot of work ahead.
Jobs lost, houses gone, falling wages, rising prices. The
Supreme Court in a right-wing headlock and our government in partisan
gridlock. The biggest deficit in our nation's history. Money borrowed
from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis.
Putin and Georgia, Iraq and Iran.
I ran for president to renew the promise of America. To rebuild the middle class and sustain the American Dream,
to provide the opportunity to work hard and have that work rewarded, to
save for college, a home and retirement, to afford the gas and
groceries and still have a little left over each month.
To promote a clean energy economy that will create millions of green collar jobs.
To create a health care system that is universal, high quality,
and affordable so that parents no longer have to choose between care
for themselves or their children or be stuck in dead end jobs simply to
keep their insurance.
To create a world class education system and make college affordable again.
To fight for an America defined by deep and meaningful equality — from civil rights to labor rights, from women's rights
to gay rights, from ending discrimination to promoting unionization to
providing help for the most important job there is: caring for our
families. To help every child live up to his or her God-given
potential.
To make America once again a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.
To bring fiscal sanity back to Washington and make our government an instrument of the public good, not of private plunder.
To restore America's standing in the world, to end the war in Iraq, bring our troops home and honor their service by caring for our veterans.
And to join with our allies to confront our shared challenges, from poverty and genocide to terrorism and global warming.
Most of all, I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to their government for eight long years.
Those are the reasons I ran for president. Those are the reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you should too.
I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine
and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer
while raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom
surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in
this country who feel invisible?
We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend
of American confidence and optimism that has enabled generations before
us to meet our toughest challenges. Leaders who can help us show
ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity, and
innovative spirit, there are no limits to what is possible in America.
This won't be easy. Progress never is. But it will be impossible if we don't fight to put a Democrat in the White House.
We need to elect Barack Obama because we need a President who
understands that America can't compete in a global economy by padding
the pockets of energy speculators, while ignoring the workers whose
jobs have been shipped overseas. We need a president who understands
that we can't solve the problems of global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies while ignoring opportunities to invest in new technologies that will build a green economy.
We need a President who understands that the genius of America has always depended on the strength and vitality of the middle class.
Barack Obama began his career fighting for workers displaced by the
global economy. He built his campaign on a fundamental belief that
change in this country must start from the ground up, not the top down.
He knows government must be about "We the people" not "We the favored
few."
And when Barack Obama is in the White House, he'll revitalize
our economy, defend the working people of America, and meet the global
challenges of our time. Democrats know how to do this. As I recall, President Clinton and the Democrats did it before. And President Obama and the Democrats will do it again.
He'll transform our energy agenda by creating millions of green jobs
and building a new, clean energy future. He'll make sure that middle class families get the tax relief they deserve. And I can't wait to watch Barack Obama sign a health care plan into law that covers every single American.
Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq responsibly and bring our troops home _a first step to repairing our alliances around the world.
And he will have with him a terrific partner in Michelle Obama. Anyone who saw Michelle's speech last night knows she will be a great first lady for America.
Americans are also fortunate that Joe Biden
will be at Barack Obama's side. He is a strong leader and a good man.
He understands both the economic stresses here at home and the
strategic challenges abroad. He is pragmatic, tough, and wise. And, of
course, Joe will be supported by his wonderful wife, Jill.
They will be a great team for our country.
Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend.
He has served our country with honor and courage.
But we don't need four more years ... of the last eight years.
More economic stagnation ... and less affordable health care.
More high gas prices ... and less alternative energy.
More jobs getting shipped overseas ... and fewer jobs created here.
More skyrocketing debt ... home foreclosures ... and mounting bills that are crushing our middle class families.
More war ... less diplomacy.
More of a government where the privileged come first ... and everyone else comes last.
John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John McCain
doesn't think that 47 million people without health insurance is a
crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social Security. And in 2008, he
still thinks it's OK when women don't earn equal pay for equal work.
With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities. Because these days they're awfully hard to tell apart.
America is still around after 232 years because we have risen to
the challenge of every new time, changing to be faithful to our values
of equal opportunity for all and the common good.
And I know what that can mean for every man, woman, and child in America. I'm a United States senator because in 1848 a group of courageous women and a few brave men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York, many traveling for days and nights, to participate in the first convention on women's rights in our history.
And so dawned a struggle for the right to vote that would last
72 years, handed down by mother to daughter to granddaughter — and a
few sons and grandsons along the way.
These women and men looked into their daughters' eyes, imagined
a fairer and freer world, and found the strength to fight. To rally and
picket. To endure ridicule and harassment. To brave violence and jail.
And after so many decades — 88 years ago on this very day — the 19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote would be forever enshrined in our Constitution.
My mother was born before women could vote. But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for president.
This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the odds and never give up.
How do we give this country back to them?
By following the example of a brave New Yorker, a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad.
And on that path to freedom, Harriet Tubman had one piece of advice.
If you hear the dogs, keep going.
If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.
If they're shouting after you, keep going.
Don't ever stop. Keep going.
If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to keep going.
I've seen it in you. I've seen it in our teachers and
firefighters, nurses and police officers, small business owners and
union workers, the men and women of our military — you always keep
going.
We are Americans. We're not big on quitting.
But remember, before we can keep going, we have to get going by electing Barack Obama president.
We don't have a moment to lose or a vote to spare.
Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our children hang in the balance.
I want you to think about your children and grandchildren come
election day. And think about the choices your parents and grandparents
made that had such a big impact on your life and on the life of our
nation.
We've got to ensure that the choice we make in this election
honors the sacrifices of all who came before us, and will fill the
lives of our children with possibility and hope.
That is our duty, to build that bright future, and to teach our
children that in America there is no chasm too deep, no barrier too
great — and no ceiling too high — for all who work hard, never back
down, always keep going, have faith in God, in our country, and in each
other.
Thank you so much. God bless America and Godspeed to you all.
At least 30% of my long weekend was spent on working, so exhausted... i hope that i can catch a breath and blog here soon, maybe this wkend? Doesn't look so good but i'll try!!
