Obama speaking in Des Moines, Iowa
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There is a spirit that brought us here tonight.
A spirit of change and hope and possibility.
And there are few people in this country who embody that spirit
more than our friend and our champion, Senator Edward Kennedy.
He has spent his life in service
to this country, not for the sake of glory or recognition,
but because he cares deeply in his gut about the causes
of justice and equality and opportunity.
So many of us here have benefitted in some way or another
because of the battles he's waged,
and some of us are here because of them.
We know he's not well right now.
But we also know that he's a fighter.
And as he takes on this fight, let us lift his spirits tonight by letting Ted Kennedy know
that we are thinking of him, that we are praying for him,
that we are standing with him and Vicky
and we will be fighting with him every step of the way.
You know, 15 months ago,
in the depths of winter,
it was in this great state
where we took the first steps
of an unlikely journey to change America.
The skeptics predicted we wouldn't get very far.
The cynics dismissed us as a lot of hype,
and a little too much hope.
And by the fall, the pundits in Washington
had all but counted us out.
But the people of Iowa had a different idea.
From the very beginning, you knew that
this journey wasn't about me,
or any of the other candidates in this race.
It was about whether this country
at this defining moment,
will continue down the same road that has failed us for so long,
or whether we will seize this opportunity to take a different path.
To forge a different future for this country that we love.
That's the question that sent
thousands upon thousands of you
to high school gyms and PFW Halls, to backyards and front porches,
to steak frys and JJ dinners.
Where you spoke about what the future would look like.
You spoke of an America where working families
don't have to file for bankruptcy just because a child gets sick.
Where they don't lost their home
because some predatory lender tricks them out of it.
Where they don't have to sit on the sidelines of the global economy
because they couldn't afford the cost of a college education.
You spoke of an America where our parents
and our grandparents don't spend their retirement
in poverty because some CEO dumped their pension.
An America where we don't just value wealth
but we value work and the workers who create it.
The wealth.
You spoke of an America where we don't send
our sons and daughters on tour after tour of duty
to a war that has cost us thousands of lives
and hundreds of billions of dollars, but has not made us safer
You spoke of an America
where we match the might of our military
with the strength of our diplomacy,
and the power of our ideals.
A nation that is still the beacon of all that is good
and all that is possible for humankind.
You spoke of a future where the politics that we have
in Washington finally reflects the values
we hold as Americans. The values we live by
here in Iowa. Common sense and honesty.
Generosity and compassion.
Decency and responsibility.
These values don't belong to one class
or one region or even one party.
They are the values that bind us together
as one, as one country.
That is the country...
That's the country I saw in the faces of crowds
that would stretch far into the horizon of our heartland.
Faces of every color, of every age.
Faces I see here tonight.
You're democrats. You're democrats who are tired of being
divided, but you're also republicans who no longer
recognize the party that runs Washington.
And independents who are hungry for change.
You're the young people who are being inspired for the very first time
and those not so young folks who've been inspired
for the first time in a long time.
You're veterans and church goers,
sportsmen and students, farmers and factory workers,
teachers and business owners, who have varied backgrounds and different traditions.
But the same simple dreams for your children's future.
Many of you have been disappointed by politics and politicians.
More times than you can count.
You've seen promises broken.
Good ideas drowned in the sea of influence,
point scoring, and petty bickering that's consumed Washington.
And you've been told over and over and over again
to be cynical and doubtful,
and even fearful about the possibility that things
could ever be different, could ever be better.
And yet in spite of all the doubt and disappointment,
or perhaps because of it,
you came out on a cold winter's night in January,
in numbers that this country has never seen,
and you stood for change.
You stood for change and because you did,
a few more stood up, and then a few thousand stood up,
and then a few million stood up.
And tonight, Iowa,
in the fullness of spring,
with the help of those who stood up from Portland to Louisville,
we have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates
elected by the American people.
And you have put us within reach
of the democratic nomination
for President of the United States of America.
You know,
the road here has been long.
There have been some bumps along the way.
I've made some mistakes.
But also, it's partly because
we've travelled this road with one of the most formidable
candidates to ever run for this office.
You know, in her 35 years of public service,
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has never given up
on her fight for the American people,
and tonight I congratulate her on her victory in Kentucky.
We've had our disagreements during this campaign,
but we all admire her courage and her commitment and her perseverance.
And no matter how this primary ends,
Senator Clinton has shattered myths, and broken barriers,
and changed the America in which my daughters
and your daughters will come of age, and for that we are grateful to her.
Now some, some may see the millions upon millions
of votes cast for each of us,
as evidence that our party is divided.
But I see it as proof that we have never been more energized,
and united in our desire to take this country
in a new direction.
More than anything, we need this unity
and this energy in the months that come because while our primary
has been long and hard fought, the hardest
and most important part of our journey still lies ahead.
We face an opponent, John McCain,
who arrived in Washington nearly three decades ago
as a Vietnam war hero,
and earned an admirable reputation for straight talk
and occasional independence from his party.
But this year's republican primary was a contest
to see which candidate could out-Bush the other,
and that's a contest that John McCain won.
The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans,
that once bothered John McCain's conscience,
are now his only economic policy.
The Bush health care plan
that only helps those who are already healthy and wealthy,
is now John McCain's answer to the 47 million
Americans without insurance, and the millions more
who can't pay their medical bills.
The Bush Iraq policy, that asks
everything from our troops and nothing of Iraqi politicians,
is John McCain's policy too,
and so is the fear of tough and aggressive diplomacy
that has left this county more isolated
and less secure than in any time in recent history.
The lobbyists who rule George Bush's Washington,
are now running John McCain's campaign.
And they actually had the nerve the other day to say
that the American people won't care about this.
Talk about out of touch, I think the American people care plenty about that.
I will leave it up to Senator McCain to explain
to the American people whether his policies and positions
represent long held convictions or Washington calculations.
But the one thing they don't represent is change.
Change is a tax code that rewards work instead of wealth,
by cutting taxes for middle class families
and senior citizens and struggling home owners.
A tax code that rewards businesses
that create good jobs here in America,
instead of the corporations that ship them overseas.
That's what change is.
Change is a health care plan
that guarantees insurance to every American
who wants it, that brings down premiums for every
family who needs it. That stops insurance companies from
discriminating and denying coverage to those who need it most.
That's what change is.
Change is an energy policy that doesn't
rely on buddying up to the Saudi royal family
and then begging them for oil.
An energy policy...
Change is an energy policy that puts a price on pollution,
and makes the oil companies invest their record profits in clean,
renewable sources of energy
that will create millions of new jobs, and leave our children
a safer planet. That's what change is, Iowa.
Change is giving every child a world-class education
by recruiting an army of new teachers with better pay
and more support. By promising four years
of tuition to any American willing to serve
their community and their country.
By realizing that the best education
starts with parents who turn off the TV and
take away the video games and read to their children once in a while.
That's what change is.
Change is ending a war
that we never should have started.
Change is finishing a war against Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan
that we never should have ignored.
Change is facing the threats of the 21st century.
Not with bluster or fear mongering,
or tough talk, or suspending due process.
But with tough diplomacy and strong alliances.
And confidence in the ideals that have made this nation
the last, best hope on Earth.
That is the legacy of Roosevelt
and Truman and Kennedy.
That, Iowa, is what change is.
That is the choice in this election.
The same question that first led us
to Iowa 15 months ago,
is the one that's brought us back here tonight.
It's the one we will debate from Washington to Florida,
from New Hampshire to New Mexico.
The question of whether this country, at this moment,
will keep doing what we've been doing for four more years,
or whether we will take that different path.
It's more of the same versus change.
It's the past versus the future.
It has been asked and answered
by generations before us,
and now it is our turn to choose.
We will face our share of difficult
and uncertain days in the journey ahead.
The other side knows they have embraced yesterday's policies,
so they will also embrace yesterday's tactics
to try and change the subject.
They'll play on our fears, and our doubts.
They'll try to sew discord and division
to distract us from what matters to you
and your future.
Well, they can take the low road if they want.
But it will not lead this country to a better place.
It will not work in this election. It won't work
because you will not let it work. Not this time.
Not this year.
Yes we can! Yes we can!
My... My faith
in the decency and honesty
and generosity of the American people,
is not based on false hope,
or blind optimism,
but on what I've lived and what I've seen in this very state.
For in the darkest days of this campaign,
when we were dismissed by all the polls and all the pundits,
I would come to Iowa
and see that there was something happening here that the world
did not yet understand.
It's what led high school
and college students to give up their vacations
to stuff envelopes and knock on doors.
It's why grandparents have spent all their afternnoons
making phone calls to perfect strangers.
It's what led men and women who can barely pay their bills,
to dig into their savings and write five-dollar checks
and ten-dollar checks, and why young people
from all over this country have left their friends
and their families for a job that offers little pay
and less sleep.
Iowa, change is coming to America.
Change is coming.
It's the spirit that
sent the first patriots to Lexington and Concord,
and led the defenders of freedom to light the way
north on an underground railroad.
It's what sent my grandfather's generation
to beachheads in Normandy, and women to Seneca Falls,
and workers to picket lines and factory fences.
It's what led all those young men and women
who saw beatings and billy clubs on their television screens
to leave the safety of their homes and get on buses
and march through the streets of Selma and Montgomery.
Black and white, rich and poor.
Change is coming to America, Iowa.
It's what I saw all those years ago on the streets
of Chicago when I worked as an organizer.
That in the face of joblessness
and hopelessness and despair,
a better day is still possible
if there are people who are willing to work for it, and fight for it,
and believe in it.
That's what I've seen here in Iowa.
That's what is happening in America.
Our journey may be long, our work will be great,
but we know in our hearts
we are ready for change. We are ready to come together.
And in this election we are ready to believe again.
Thank you Iowa, and God bless you. God bless America.
Thank you.