DNC Day 3: Speeches
Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/6c7z3g
Democratic Vice Presidential Nominee Joe Biden - Click Here
Fmr. President Bill Clinton - Click Here
Senator John Kerry -Massachusetts
Thank you so much. Four years ago, you gave me the honor of fighting our fight. I was proud to stand with you then, and I am proud to stand with you now, to help elect Barack Obama as President of the United States.
In 2004, we came so close to victory. We are even closer now, and let me tell you, this time we’re going to win. Today, the call for change is more powerful than ever, and with more seats in Congress, with more people with more passion engaged in our politics, and with a President Obama, we stand on the brink of the greatest opportunity of our generation to move this country forward.
The stakes could not be higher, because we do know what a McCain administration would look like: just like the past, just like George Bush. And this country can’t afford a third Bush term. Just think: John McCain voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time. Ninety percent of George Bush is just more than we can take.
Never in modern history has an administration squandered American power so recklessly. Never has strategy been so replaced by ideology. Never has extremism so crowded out common sense and fundamental American values. Never has short-term partisan politics so depleted the strength of America’s bipartisan foreign policy.
George Bush, with John McCain at his side, promised to spread freedom but delivered the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. They misread the threat and misled the country. Instead of freedom, it’s Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and dictators everywhere that are on the march. North Korea has more bombs, and Iran is defiantly chasing one.
Our mission is to restore America’s influence and position in the world. We must use all the weapons in our arsenal, above all, our values. President Obama and Vice President Biden will shut down Guantanamo, respect the Constitution, and make clear once and for all, the United States of America does not torture, not now, not ever.
We must listen and lead by example because even a nation as powerful as the United States needs some friends in this world. We need a leader who understands all our security challenges, not just bombs and guns, but global warming, global terror and global AIDS. And Barack Obama understands there is no way for America to be secure until we create clean energy here at home, not with a little more oil in five, 10 or 20 years, but with an energy revolution starting right now.
I have known and been friends with John McCain for almost 22 years. But every day now I learn something new about candidate McCain. To those who still believe in the myth of a maverick instead of the reality of a politician, I say, let’s compare Senator McCain to candidate McCain.
Candidate McCain now supports the wartime tax cuts that Senator McCain once denounced as immoral. Candidate McCain criticizes Senator McCain’s own climate change bill. Candidate McCain says he would now vote against the immigration bill that Senator McCain wrote. Are you kidding? Talk about being for it before you’re against it.
Let me tell you, before he ever debates Barack Obama, John McCain should finish the debate with himself. And what’s more, Senator McCain, who once railed against the smears of Karl Rove when he was the target, has morphed into candidate McCain who is using the same “Rove” tactics and the same “Rove” staff to repeat the same old politics of fear and smear. Well, not this year, not this time. The Rove-McCain tactics are old and outworn, and America will reject them in 2008.
So remember, when we choose a commander-in-chief this November, we are electing judgment and character, not years in the Senate or years on this earth. Time and again, Barack Obama has seen farther, thought harder, and listened better. And time and again, Barack Obama has been proven right.
When John McCain stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier just three months after 9/11 and proclaimed, “Next up, Baghdad!”, Barack Obama saw, even then, “an occupation of “undetermined length, undetermined cost, undetermined consequences” that would “only fan the flames of the Middle East.” Well, guess what? Mission accomplished.
So who can we trust to keep America safe? When Barack Obama promised to honor the best traditions of both parties and talk to our enemies, John McCain scoffed. George Bush called it “the soft comfort of appeasement.” But today, Bush’s diplomats are doing exactly what Obama said: talking with Iran.
So who can we trust to keep America safe? When democracy rolled out of Russia, and the tanks rolled into Georgia, we saw John McCain respond immediately with the outdated thinking of the Cold War. Barack Obama responded like a statesman of the 21st century.
So who can we trust to keep America safe? When we called for a timetable to make Iraqis stand up for Iraq and bring our heroes home, John McCain called it “cut and run.” But today, even President Bush has seen the light. He and Prime Minister Maliki agree on – guess what? – a timetable.
So who can we trust to keep America safe? The McCain-Bush Republicans have been wrong again and again and again. And they know they will lose on the issues. So, the candidate who once promised a “contest of ideas,” now has nothing left but personal attacks. How insulting to suggest that those who question the mission, question the troops. How pathetic to suggest that those who question a failed policy doubt America itself. How desperate to tell the son of a single mother who chose community service over money and privilege that he doesn’t put America first.
No one can question Barack Obama’s patriotism. Like all of us, he was taught what it means to be an American by his family: his grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line in World War II, his grandfather who marched in Patton’s army, and his great uncle who enlisted in the army right out of high school at the height of the war. And on a spring day in 1945, he helped liberate one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald.
Ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama’s uncle is here with us tonight. Please join me in saluting this American hero, Charlie Payne. Charlie, your nephew, Barack Obama, will end this politics of distortion and division. He will be a president who seeks not to perfect the lies of Swift boating, but to end them once and for all.
This election is a chance for America to tell the merchants of fear and division: you don’t decide who loves this country; you don’t decide who is a patriot; you don’t decide whose service counts and whose doesn’t.
Four years ago I said, and I say it again tonight, that the flag doesn’t belong to any ideology. It doesn’t belong to any political party. It is an enduring symbol of our nation, and it belongs to all the American people. After all, patriotism is not love of power or some cheap trick to win votes; patriotism is love of country.
Years ago when we protested a war, people would weigh in against us saying, “My country right or wrong.” Our answer? Absolutely, my country right or wrong. When right, keep it right. When wrong, make it right. Sometimes loving your country demands you must tell the truth to power.
This is one of those times, and Barack Obama is telling those truths.
In closing, let me say, I will always remember how we stood together in 2004, not just in a campaign, but for a cause. Now again we stand together in the ranks, ready to fight. The choice is clear; our cause is just; and now is our time to make Barack Obama the next President of the United States.
Thank you.
Senator Jack Reed - Rhode Island
As someone who had the privilege of commanding paratroopers, I know the tremendous sacrifices our troops and their families are making. They deserve leadership worthy of their sacrifice. Leadership that unites us, drawing on that unique American spirit which, at every stage in our nation’s history, has enabled us to turn adversity into advancement, and tragedy into triumph. That’s the type of leadership that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will provide.
Each day, our servicemen and women risk their lives and do everything in their power to seize the objective. But the strength and security of our nation is not solely the charge of those who serve in uniform. It rests with each and every one of us—in the choices we make; the values we teach our children; the commitments we keep to family, community, and country. The power of American ideals will always remain unsurpassed, so long as we, as citizens, accept the responsibility to advance the causes of freedom and equality.
My father was a school janitor after serving in the Navy during World War II. Like many parents, he and my mother valued education and civic duty. My dad would often go in early to help kids get to school safely, and stay late so folks could hold community meetings. They taught me there is heroism in every citizen willing to sacrifice to strengthen our society. Barack Obama shares these values. He was raised with these values. And for over two decades, he has lived them through public service.
Recently, I joined Senator Obama and Senator Chuck Hagel on a bipartisan trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. We were all impressed with the heroism and dedication of our troops. What truly struck me was the astounding level of admiration, enthusiasm and respect that our troops have for Senator Obama. Everywhere we went Barack was surrounded by soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who simply wanted an opportunity to shake his hand and thank him for his efforts and leadership. Our men and women in uniform know a leader when they see one.
The pace of our trip was grueling. Many days began at 0500 hours. Many days were filled with visits to forward operating bases, military hospitals, meetings with troops and briefings with senior officials late into the night. Barack Obama demonstrated, like he has time and again, that he will be a great commander-in-chief.
There is a clear choice in this election. For eight years, John McCain has fallen in line with every one of George Bush’s national security decisions, and now he offers up four more years of the same failed policies. Barack Obama has proven he has the judgment to deliver the change we need.
While Senator McCain was a cheerleader-in-chief for the Bush Administration’s rush to a war against a nation that posed no imminent threat, Barack Obama and I opposed the war in Iraq from day one.
While Senator McCain said that we’d be greeted as liberators in Iraq, Barack Obama warned of “occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences.”
While Senator McCain supported policies that took the pressure off al-Qaida and allowed bin Laden to remain at large, Barack Obama said as early as 2002 that we needed to focus on finishing the fight against bin Laden and al-Qaida. As commander-in-chief, he will keep that commitment.
The courage of our soldiers and the generosity of the American people is limitless, but after eight years of the Bush Administration, our national security resources are limited. We cannot keep sending our troops to fight in Iraq, on tour after tour, without a clear mission and a strategy for success. Our military is overstretched, our military families are overburdened and other pressing security threats go unchecked.
But Senator McCain wants to stay in Iraq indefinitely, spending $10 billion a month while Iraqi politicians sit atop a $79 billion surplus. We cannot afford more of the same. It’s time to responsibly end the war in Iraq, and that’s what Barack Obama will do. Barack Obama will work with our military commanders to begin the phased redeployment of our troops out of Iraq in 16 months. He will only keep troops in Iraq to target al-Qaida, protect our forces, and train Iraqi troops. Barack Obama will rebuild our military and shift more resources to finish the job George W. Bush has failed to do: hunt down bin Laden and destroy his network.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden have laid out a strategic vision to end the war in Iraq and strengthen our nation at home. They will use every tool in our diplomatic, economic and military power to meet these goals. And after eight years of a politics based on division, they will once again summon Americans to a common purpose.
And together, with Barack Obama and Joe Biden at the helm, America will rise to meet the challenges of our time and turn the page to a new, more hopeful, more prosperous and more secure chapter in our nation’s great history.
Thank you.
Fmr. Secreatary of State Madeline Albright
In high school, I won the Rocky Mountain Empire Award for reciting, in alphabetical order, the 51 members of the United Nations. Back then, the task was not so hard, but the world now is more fragmented, with more countries, multiple centers of power and many sources of danger. We have learned that American foreign policy is not foreign anymore.
Overseas problems, if unaddressed, inevitably come home to America. They affect the lives of our fighting men and women; the size of our pay checks; the security of our borders; the health of our environment; and the ability of our families to work and play free from the threat of terror.
We cannot afford four more years like the past eight years—policies that embolden our enemies, undermine our economy, and place an unfair burden on the heroes of our armed forces. John McCain asks that we trust Republicans to safeguard our national security. To which we can only reply: why would we?
The Bush-Cheney decision to invade Iraq was an assault advertised as a strike against terror that distracted from the fight against terror, and a blow aimed at extremists that strengthened radicals. Senator McCain says that American troops should remain in Iraq perhaps as long as they have been stationed in Korea and Japan, as if there were no difference in history, religion or culture between our friends in Asia and those in the Middle East.
Senator McCain claims to already know everything a president needs to know, but the first qualification any leader needs to have is the ability to learn. We need a president who is not wedded to 20th century thinking, who can forge a network of power and principle that will keep America strong and safe in the 21st century.
On Inauguration Day, President Barack Obama will speak to the generation now coming of age.
He will summon all to a new era where technology is harnessed to improve people’s lives; where partnerships are forged to address global challenges; where democracy is promoted, not imposed; and where alliances are strengthened to turn back the tides of intolerance and hate.
No president can be expected to solve every problem, but Senator Obama has already shown that he has the toughness and good judgment needed to confront our enemies without alienating friends; to defeat the practitioners of terror without creating more terrorists; and to demonstrate that the American dream still has meaning for people everywhere.
Senator Obama speaks to our hopes, to our belief in ourselves, to the future and to the better angels of our nature. With his superb choice for vice president, Senator Joe Biden, he will keep our country secure while returning it to its rightful place as the world’s most respected champion of law, prosperity and peace.
This year’s election is among the most critical in our nation’s history. We cannot afford once again to make the wrong choice or to be taken in by the politics of fear. With our help, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will win in November, and so will America. Barack Obama will work hard every day as our president. So let us work hard every day to see that he has that chance.
Thank you very much, and God bless.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
The history of the last hundred years has been a toxic mix of oil and war.
Wars were funded by, impossible without, and usually fought over oil. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, the Nazi invasion of Russia, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and countless other conflicts have been based in whole or in part on the world’s addiction to oil. Even today, dictators and authoritarians from Venezuela to Russia, from Sudan to North Korea, base their actions—and their power to oppress their citizens and threaten their neighbors—solely on access to or sale of oil on the world market.
Since the turn of the new century, those hard facts have come home to America in the most vicious way. Attacked at home by oil-funded terrorists, at war abroad with oil-funded insurgents, threatened in global markets and faced with acquisition of our industrial base by oil-funded multinationals, we must defend America or face her utter destruction.
If we continue to follow this slippery, oil-slicked, downward-winding path, our citizens will shiver in darkness as our resources hemorrhage to Third World thugs whose only virtue is their control of petroleum-based energy.
These threats are real, they are immediate, and they are potentially overwhelming. And the saddest part, the most terrible irony, is that we finance them every time we pump gas or pay utility bills.
The threats are not new, nor is their solution. President Carter warned us about it in the 1970s when he proposed real solutions—conservation, fuel efficiency, and alternative fuels—to what he correctly named the “moral equivalent of war.” His proposals were ridiculed by Republicans who forgot that both Presidents Nixon and Ford had joined him in calling for America’s energy independence.
That bipartisanship, however, became partisan as this nation entered an era of oil industry dominance when, for the 28 years since 1980 except for the Clinton presidency, former oil industry executives have been president or vice president of the United States and indeed, for the past eight years, have filled both offices at once.
For the past eight years, the man in the Oval Office has tipped his hat over his eyes, kicked back his chair, and snoozed at his desk. Charged with protecting our national interests, he slept on duty while his vice president conspired with oil industry cronies. Tasked with cutting off funding to terrorists, he slept on duty while oil shortages worsened, oil prices soared, and dollars by the ton were delivered to terrorists’ banks in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Faced with a new kind of war, this president and his vice president helped their friends the old-fashioned way:
through war profiteering, tax cuts for billionaires, and in many cases out-and-out corruption.
There are honest answers to the problems we face, but they call for hard solutions and common sacrifices, the kind of sacrifices that this administration has only asked the American people to bear when it lined the pockets of the obscenely rich.
There’s an answer, but only if someone will speak truth to power.
There’s an answer, but only if someone will unite Americans to share common burdens to reach common goals.
There’s an answer, but only if someone has the values, the virtues, and the vision to lead us through these troubled waters to that beckoning shore.
There’s an answer. There’s a man. Barack Obama.
Barack Obama is unique. So are we all. Each of us brings to the world our own strengths and weaknesses.
What qualities then, have earned him our support for the highest executive office? Even his opponents agree Senator Obama is smart and thoughtful. His biography proves he’s committed to basic American values like hard work and fair play, and that he is honest and forthright. He articulates a vision of energy independence that is comprehensive and based on sound science and sound policies, science we know will work.
These policies include the answers we discussed at our energy summit in Las Vegas last week: wind, geothermal, and solar power generation and the development of efficient power transmission. Even more importantly, they include conservation measures ignored and indeed ridiculed by the current administration: smarter vehicles, more efficient and accessible mass transit, energy-effective building codes, and retrofitting all have their place in Senator Obama’s vision of an energy-smart America.
But John McCain has a vision too, which in fairness I must address.
When doctors screen out the quack nostrums and phony remedies we call snake oil, they use two fundamental principles: the maxim “first, do no harm” and the question “is it safe and effective?”
In Congress, as in medicine, when we are offered snake oil as a remedy for the nation’s energy ills, our question should be: “Is it safe and effective? Does it do more harm than good?”
Senator McCain and the Republicans have centered their answer to our vital energy needs on one solution: off-shore drilling. Senator McCain calls for it in every speech; his party has demagogued the issue in both houses of Congress.
So, is off-shore drilling energy policy or snake oil? Let’s review the facts. White House analysts, congressional analysts, and the oil industry all agree that off-shore drilling won’t add one drop to our energy pool for at least ten years. The way things are going now, in another ten years we won’t need more oil; nobody will be able to afford it.
T. Boone Pickens said it right: “We can’t drill our way out of this crisis.”
But even if Doc McCain’s magic off-shore oil elixir won’t work, will it do any harm?
The answer is, we just don’t know, and neither does he. It might not ruin tourism in the Gulf or on the California coast. It might not destroy vital fisheries. It might not pollute our waterways.
Nobody really knows. But kindly old Doc McCain would like to sell it to you anyway.
The simple fact is that the promise of more oil isn’t part of the solution; it’s part of the problem. At best this is an 18th century answer to a 21st century crisis; at worst it’s pure baloney.
There are no quick and easy answers here, folks. For over a quarter of a century, the Republicans have sold their magic beans with a promise of a giant beanstalk and gold over the horizon. Look what they’ve done to our country. Look what they’ve done to our planet.
It is time to bring our nation back to reality. It is time for an energy policy that recognizes national security means ending dependence on oil and that the future is about new ideas and change for the better, not snake oil and quackery.
It is time for recognition that threats to our planet are threats to our great country.
It is time to understand that in the long run, indeed in the short run, we must wean ourselves of addiction to oil.
It is time, my friends, to elect Barack Obama as President of the United States.
Rep. Robert Wexler - Florida
It is my honor to be here representing the great state of Florida.
Today, American influence abroad wanes. Our advice is not sought. Our warnings are not heeded. Our standing in the world is at an all-time low. For seven long years, America has paid a dear price for the national security mistakes of President Bush and John McCain.
We entered into an unnecessary war and remain bogged down in Iraq, as Afghanistan backslides, and the architects of Sept. 11 remain free. On Bush and McCain’s watch, we have witnessed the growing influence of a belligerent Iran that has destabilized the Middle East and threatens our ally, Israel.
Americans have a clear choice in November. John McCain offers more of the same failed policies that endanger America and Israel. Barack Obama offers the change we need. Barack Obama will responsibly end the war in Iraq, prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and turn our focus back to defeating al Qaeda. And he will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security.
In his heart, in his gut, Barack Obama stands with Israel. Not only his words, but his deeds, bear testament to this fact. Barack Obama, not John McCain, led the fight in the Senate by introducing divestment legislation that would deliver powerful economic sanctions against Iran.
Barack Obama has seen, with his own eyes, the genuine threats faced by Israelis every day. He recently traveled to Sderot, along the Gaza border, and met young families who want nothing more than to go about their lives in security and peace. Instead, as they go to work, as they take their children to school, they have suffered under the daily terror of rocket attacks.
Barack Obama understands the threats Israel faces from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. And as president, Barack Obama will strongly support Israel’s right and capability to defend itself, and finally make progress toward the goal of a two-state solution that preserves Israel’s security as a Jewish state.
During his recent trip to Israel, Barack visited Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial, where he recommitted himself to combating anti-Semitism and ending the genocide in Darfur. Because Barack Obama knows that the words “never again” must have real meaning in our time.
That’s the leadership we need to keep America strong and allies like Israel secure. Leadership that restores our strength and America’s global standing under the next great President of the United States, Barack Obama.
Senator Charles Schumer - New York
Sixty-nine days from now, the journey that was launched in Springfield, Illinois, and continues here today will culminate with millions of Americans coming out to elect Barack Obama our next president. And with President Obama leading the way, in 2009 we will take the next step on that path to reverse the disastrous course that George Bush, John McCain and their friends in Washington have set for this country.
But Barack Obama cannot do it alone. Without a strong Democratic majority in the Senate, his ambitious agenda will be thwarted by the defenders of the status quo whose goals can be boiled down to a single word: no.
Without a large Democratic majority, President Obama might even have to pare back the breadth and strength of what he proposes. We know what John McCain and his friends in the Senate will do, because we’ve seen it far too many times in the last two years. Ninety-two times, they filibustered important legislation to change the direction of this country.
When the American people demanded change in Iraq, John McCain and his friends said no. When you demanded legislation to lower the price of gas, John McCain and his friends said no. When you demanded middle-class tax relief, John McCain and his friends said no. When Barack Obama wins in November, John McCain will go back to the Senate, and he and his friends will go back to saying no, no, no, to the change our country needs.
Can we stop them? You know the answer: yes we can. But to do it, we need your help. The opportunity is too great and the stakes too high to allow President Obama’s agenda to be blocked by the special interests and their allies in the Senate. So of course we must elect Barack Obama president, but when we do, we also must elect many more Democrats to the Senate so that we can help Barack Obama lead America on a new course.
There are 17 states where we have a good chance to beat Republicans. Many are states where for decades Democrats have struggled, but now have a chance to win. This is, ladies and gentleman, a once in a generation opportunity. So help us win in Virginia, Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico and New Hampshire where our candidates are ahead today. Help us win in Minnesota, Mississippi, Maine, Oregon, Kentucky and North Carolina, where our candidates are locked today in neck-and-neck races. Help us win in Georgia, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Idaho, where no one ever thought our candidates would run strong races—but they are.
Go to the web site of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee at www.dscc.orghttps://webmail.dscc.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://webmail.dscc.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.dscc.org/ and sign up today. Every day, a new secretive 527 or 501 front group fueled by millions of undisclosed dollars emerges from the shadows to attack our candidates, and we need your help now. The special interests and the defenders of the status quo have shown they will go to any length to stop us from changing Washington. And we need you to help us answer their attacks.
We can and we must elect a stronger Democratic majority to the Senate to overcome the obstructionism that threatens Barack Obama’s agenda, and with your support, we will.
So join us and our great group of candidates, and help us elect a Senate that will work with President Barack Obama every day for the change this country needs.
