| | |  Americas & Beyond | August 2008 
Clinton: Time to Unite Behind Obama
 Philip Elliott - Associated Press
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| "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?"
- Hillary Rodham Clinton | | |
Hillary Rodham Clinton closed the book on her 2008 presidential bid with an emphatic plea for the party to unite behind Barack Obama.
Now the Democratic convention spotlight turns to her husband, as former President Bill Clinton takes to the prime-time television stage Wednesday evening. He is expected to launch attacks on the Republican's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, and on the Bush administration.
Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Obama's choice as a running mate, will get prime-time exposure as well.
Hillary Clinton, who won 18 million votes but still failed to earn her party's nomination, planned to meet with delegates who still want to cast ballots for her during the nominating roll call Wednesday evening — a symbolic move before Obama is nominated, presumably by acclamation. Clinton has not indicated whether she would have her name placed in nomination or seek a formal roll call vote.
Clinton's aides said it remained unclear how exactly the meeting with the delegates would play out, or how her supporters will react.
"It's not Hillary's job to bring this party together," said Jennie Lou Leeder, a Clinton delegate from Llado, Texas. "It's Barack Obama's job to bring this party together."
It's the kind of talk that Clinton tried to discourage. "I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me?" she said Tuesday night in her convention speech, addressing her supporters.
Clinton used her prime-time convention appearance to try to silence infighting over how to honor Clinton's campaign without distracting from Obama's upcoming contest against McCain.
"Barack Obama is my candidate, and he must be our president," she said.
Even so, bringing the Democratic Party together is going to take more than a single speech. The best unifier among Democrats going into the final sprint might just be McCain.
"Arizonans are also proud of their political tradition, from Barry Goldwater to Mo Udall to Bruce Babbitt. There's a pattern here," Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano told delegates Tuesday as part of the chorus eviscerating McCain. Goldwater, Udall and Babbitt all sought the presidency; none succeeded.
"Speaking for myself, and for at least this coming election, this is one Arizona tradition I'd like to see continue," Napolitano said.
Republicans, meanwhile, struggled for a bit of the spotlight. McCain has been airing commercials quoting critical comments from Obama's former rivals. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a potential running mate for McCain, came to Denver and said, "Barack Obama is a charming and fine person with a lovely family, but he's not ready to be president."
Bill Clinton, whose reputation took some hits during the primary season, stayed away from his wife and daughter Chelsea — who introduced her mother on stage Tuesday evening. Instead, he watched his wife's speech from convention floor box seats.
"She was great," Clinton told The Associated Press as he left the convention hall. "Weren't you proud of her?"
Obama, 47, formally receives the nomination Wednesday. He delivers his acceptance speech Thursday night at a football stadium. An estimated 75,000 tickets have been distributed for the event, meant to stir comparisons with John F. Kennedy's appearance at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960.
McCain and his yet-unnamed vice presidential pick are scheduled to receive their formal nomination at the Republican convention in Minneapolis next week.
"Were You in This Campaign Just for Me?"
Hillary Clinton, Democratic National Convention
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Remarks as prepared for delivery.
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 Administrtation.
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 okay 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, Harriett 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. |
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