I'm here today with a simple message for George W. Bush: pretty pictures
of you landing on an aircraft
carrier doesn't make up for a failed economic policy and for union-busting,
it doesn't make up for
degrading our environment, doesn't make up for standing in the way of civil
rights, and it won't convince
America to let you privatize our Social Security.
I'm running for President to turn America around.
Americans deserve a government that has as much faith in the ideals of
America as they do. They
deserve leaders for whom citizenship and responsibility and service are
principles, not punch lines.
Yet for this Administration, those words too often become little more than
commonplace backdrops for
political events - background music for their march to replace shared sacrifice
with selfishness.
With George Bush in the White House, we have seen a "get mine and get out"
ethic that glories a creed
of greed. Polluters are given a free pass. Powerful corporations
enjoy sweetheart deals at the expense
of everyday Americans. Lobbyists come in from the cold to write laws
favoring the companies that pay
their lavish bills. Insiders ride a revolving door between the White
House and major industries. Failed
CEOs get golden parachutes while their employees get pink slips.
And, for the first time in this nation's
history, the most privileged among us get enormous tax breaks during a
time of war.
I'm running for President to bring leadership to the White House that puts
country before campaign
contributions.
And when I'm President, we'll have an Administration that puts our values
into action, not just into
words; that shows compassion in our achievements not just in our rhetoric.
At every turn, this Administration sides with the insiders, the influential
and those who parade their
power behind closed doors. I'm running for President because I have
a very different vision for America.
There have always been two views in this country. On one side there's
the idea that if you give those at
the top enough, they'll be kind and compassionate enough to share their
riches with everyone else.
That's Calvin Coolidge economics - and under George Bush, it's brought us a Herbert Hoover economy.
Then there's the Democratic view. We believe America is built by everyday
men and women who do their
part and do what's right. They raise their kids, help their neighbors,
and love their country. They don't
ask for special favors; all they want is a fair break and a chance to get
ahead.
But they're not getting that under George W. Bush. They're getting
the short end of the stick. They're
getting left behind. They're getting ignored.
It is time we had a President who is on the side of the many, not the few
- a President with a real
economic strategy to get this nation moving again. That means investing
in people; it means restoring
fiscal discipline, and it means that when an Enron bilks the retirement
savings of ordinary investors and
shatters consumer confidence, those greedy few at the top are going to
go to jail.
Never before in our country has there been an economic reversal this dramatic
and this fast. In this
Bush bust, we have gone in record time from record surpluses to record
deficits; from high growth to no
growth and low growth; from creating jobs to destroying jobs
Since George Bush took office, we have lost nearly 3 million jobs. No President
since World War II has
lost jobs during their tenure, but George Bush is ready to make history.
I think everyone in this room
knows that the one person in this country who needs to be laid off is George
Bush.
You see, for this Administration, "jobs" is a four letter word. But
we know how to spell relief; it's called
taking back the White House in 2004.
I'm running for President to put jobs back at the top of our national agenda.
I'm running for President because the right to organize is a basic right
for American workers and it should
never be weakened, never be curtailed, never be taken away.
I'm running for President to make our public schools a focus for excellence
not a photo-op for tomorrow's
front pages -- and I am going to criss-cross this country and hold George
Bush accountable for making a
mockery of the words 'Leave No Child Behind.'
I'm running for President because instead of spending $50,000 a year for
a young person's jail cell, we
should be investing $10,000 a year for a young person's future with early
childhood education, child
care, Head Start, Smart Start, Healthy Start, a real start on the road
to full citizenship.
I'm running for President because it is long since overdue that the United
States of America stops being
the only industrialized nation on this planet that doesn't have health
care available for all of its citizens.
I'm running to make health care in America a right and not a privilege
- to bring costs under control and
to cover the uninsured.
I am running for President because we have to stand up to Republican attempts
to strip the very security
out of our Social Security.
I'm running for President to make America energy independent - to secure
our nation, protect our
environment, and create jobs.
I am running for President because polluters shouldn't be calling the shots
in this White House. We
need make sure our families have clean water to drink and clean air to
breathe. And arsenic in drinking
water is not an environmental policy; it is an environmental obscenity.
And I am running for President because after September 11th, we need a
President who has the
experience and the vision to make this country safer, stronger and more
secure.
Throughout this last century, Democrats have been the party that provided
Americans with security at
home. We're the party of economic security - of the minimum wage,
of workplace safety, of the right to
organize. And we're the party of retirement security - of Medicare
and Social Security.
But we have also been the party of national security - of the tough-minded
strategy of international
engagement and leadership forged by Wilson and Roosevelt in two world wars
and championed by
Truman and Kennedy in the Cold War.
They spoke out for an America strong because of its ideals as well as its
arms. They recognized that
America's safety depends on energetic leadership to rally the forces of
freedom. And they understood
that to make the world safe for democracy and individual liberty, we needed
to build international
institutions dedicated to establishing the rule of law over the law of
the jungle.
For us today, the past truly is prologue. The same principles and strength
of purpose must guide our
way. Our task now is to update that tradition, to forge a bold progressive
internationalism for the global
age.
As I said last summer in New York, for Democrats to win America's confidence
we must first convince
Americans we will keep them safe. You can't do that by avoiding the subjects
of national security, foreign
policy and military preparedness. Nor can we let our national security
agenda be defined by those who
reflexively oppose any U.S. military intervention anywhere...who see U.S.
power as mostly a malignant
force in world politics...who place a higher value on achieving multilateral
consensus than necessarily
protecting our vital interests.
Americans deserve better than a false choice given by this Administration
between force without
diplomacy and diplomacy without force. I believe they deserve a principled
diplomacy...backed by
undoubted military might...based on enlightened self-interest, not the
zero-sum logic of power politics...a
diplomacy that commits America to lead the world toward liberty and prosperity.
A bold, progressive
internationalism that focuses not just on the immediate and the imminent
but insidious dangers that can
mount over the next years and decades, dangers that span the spectrum from
the denial of democracy,
to destructive weapons, endemic poverty and epidemic disease. These are,
in the truest sense, not just
issues of international order and security, but vital issues of our own
national security.
If Democrats do not stand for making America safer, stronger, and more
secure, we won't win back the
White House - and we won't deserve to.
Because this Administration is timid when it should be bold, bumbling when
it should be smart - and to
borrow a phrase, when it comes to homeland defense, this Administration
has left those on the
front-lines high and dry.
A bold President would have sent American forces, not Afghan warlords,
into Tora Bora to attack and
capture Osama bin Laden and the leaders of Al Quaeda.
A truly strong President would recognize that the war against terrorism
will span time and continents -
that you can't be flown to an aircraft carrier and proclaim victory as
if that will make it so. Today even in
Iraq the challenge goes on - and it reaches across the Middle East - to
Europe, to Asia, and to our own
shores. Today we have 200,000 troops in and near Iraq. We face other
threats in many other places.
We need allies to share intelligence, to share the burdens, to win this
war which is why I and others
thought it was so important for the President to build a broader coalition
because it takes the targets off
the backs of US soldiers. And we need a President who sees the issues
of war and peace not just from
the perspective of the Situation Room, but from the perspective of the
frontlines.
Terrorism is the new Fascism, the new Communism, the new totalitarianism
- a grave and global threat
to our values and our way of life. We can defeat it; we must defeat
it; and we will defeat it - not just
with hard words, but with the intelligence, the experience and the strength
to make the right long term
decisions.
Nowhere is that more urgent than in homeland security. Firefighters, police
officers, first defenders are
also soldiers on the frontlines of this conflict - and they deserve to
be equipped and supported and
treated like the brave Americans they are.
George Bush can talk all he wants about the heroes of September 11th, but
he never quite gets around
to mentioning that the firefighters, police officers and other workers
who went up those stairs were not
only heroes, they were card-carrying members of organized labor.
And one other thing: If this nation stands for democracy in Iraq, as we
say we do, then we ought to
honor and safeguard democracy at home. And that means we have to
elect a new President and
remove John Ashcroft as Attorney General - and stop turning the Department
of Justice into the
Department of Injustice. It's the terrorists who win if we undermine, deny,
and destroy the basic rights
of Americans.
So America needs stronger leadership abroad and at home. From jobs to health
care to education,
America needs strong leadership that's on your side, not in the pockets
of powerful interests. America
needs strong leadership that appeals to what is best in us, to our hopes
and not our fears. America
needs a new Democratic President - and I ask your help in that cause, not
just for the sake of party, but
for our country.
So I ask for your help - and in return, I give you this pledge: As President,
I will lead - and we will make a
strong America even stronger.
We will make a weak economy strong again.
We will make education a priority and health care available and affordable for every family in this nation.
We will advance the cause of an America that is fully free and truly equal
for all Americans - including
women and minorities and gays and lesbians - and we will never let the
far right take away the
fundamental, inalienable rights all of us deserve.
We will take the "For Sale" sign off the government of America and crackdown
on the insiders, not coddle
them.
And we will ask all our people to serve, to contribute, to give something
back - because now more than
ever, the real question we face is not what America can offer to us, but
what each of us owe to America.
All these things are worth fighting for. They go to the heart of
our ideals as Democrats and our idea of
America; they define in the truest sense our commitment to progress and
to patriotism. For if we love
America, we cannot let America be less than it can.
My friends, we can do these things - but it isn't going to happen without
people getting out of their
seats, getting out in the streets and carrying our message, confident that
we as Democrats have a
vision of the future worth fighting for.
We're going to remind this president that the American flag and patriotism
doesn't belong to any political
party - it belongs to all of us as Americans.
We're going to remember that GOTV doesn't stand for "go on TV," it means
talking to Americans
one-on-one and reminding them what's at stake.
And we're going to embrace our best traditions.
America doesn't need a Democratic Party that says "yes but less" or "yes
but slower" to Republican
policies that take us backward. It doesn't need a Democratic Party that
is satisfied with defending our
past achievements from Republican attack without also pursuing high ambitions
for the future. I say to
you: America doesn't need two Republican parties.
America needs a Democratic party to stand up for America. And you need to lead the way.
Stand up for jobs. Stand up for our rights. Stand up for the
environment. Stand up for a secure
America. Stand up for Social Security. Stand up for health
care for all. Stand up for social justice and
fundamental fairness.
Stand up for all these things, but in 2004 we're not going to just stand
there - we're going out to build a
better America.
It is time for America to hear us. And it is time for us to lead
America again.