I am Carol Moseley Braun, and I am running for President. I am a former United States Ambassador and United States Senator. I was a county executive in my hometown, Chicago. And I served ten years in the Illinois state legislature. I am a public servant, and I am a mother. I am an African-American, and I am a woman. Most of all, I am an American, and yes, I am a patriot.

Fellow Democrats, I want to tell you today why I am running for President. I am outraged about the damage the current Administration is inflicting on our great country. I passionately believe that we can do much better. My vision for progress and prosperity, and the path we can take to get there grows out of love of this country and a desire to see our generation achieve the greatness for which we will be proud to be remembered.

We face an historic moment. Within a few days, the men and women of our armed forces may be at war. Today, we have 100 thousand Americans massed in the nation of Kuwait, and many more in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, poised to wage an invasion of Iraq. We all pray their safe return.

But it is our patriotic duty to ask how did it come to this, and why are we on the brink of a war not of necessity, but of choice, and what can we do to get our government to choose another way?

We who ask the questions…We who hold our government to account…We who are not afraid to speak truth to power…We are the patriots.

We want an America as good as it is mighty, and we will not be intimidated by the disparaging of our allies, the threatened destruction of our international institutions, such as NATO and the United Nations or by popular folly that renames French fries.

My friends, this rush to war does not benefit the American people. Invading Iraq may benefit the energy conglomerates and defense contractors, but for ordinary Americans, there are no benefits – only costs.

They won’t tell us what this war will cost the American people, but we can begin to make a list:

• We know it has cost us the worldwide sympathy, support and solidarity against terrorism that we had after 9/11;
• We know they have disclosed costs of between $60 and $200 billion dollars if military action is short, but that estimate does not include the $27 billion they’ve tried to pay Turkey or the $25 million they’re promised Pakistan. We may not know for a long time how many payments have been made to purchase a coalition for this war.
• We know the costs to our domestic security. Not a single hijacker on September 11th was Iraqi. The administration’s treatment of prisoners, their targeting of immigrants from selected countries, their coded language of “Good and Evil” has only increased worldwide resentment against us, and probably impaired our ability to work with others in a global fight against terrorism;
• The cost can be measured in the assault on our fundamental freedoms. The Attorney General has decided that the Patriot Act is not enough; he is proposing a Patriot II that is even worse. This Administration had the audacity to propose a comprehensive program called Total Information Awareness to monitor ordinary Americans and tap phones and email at will. This is not science fiction. This is government policy.
• The cost is measured in the risk – God forbid – to human life. Our leaders seem to have forgotten what war really means. Perhaps that is because the rich and the privileged rarely come face to face with it.

George W. Bush has mismanaged the economy in ways that are neither compassionate nor conservative.

To have transformed a budget surplus into a $300 billion deficit in two years gives conservative a bad name.

To give tax cuts to the richest Americans while passing along a ballooning debt to our children is the opposite of compassionate.

To wreak havoc on the economy, creating the uncertainty that feeds recession and inflation simultaneously is an outrage and America deserves better.

Friends, these are costs the American people have every right to question and that we have every reason to oppose.

This Administration’s extreme political agenda will bleed the very lifeblood of our liberty under cover of war and leave us more vulnerable to surveillance and control than we have ever had to endure in this country. I am running for President because I don’t want my generation to be the first one to leave its children with less liberty; with less economic security; with less opportunity.

I believe we can salvage the freedom, the hope, the opportunity this land can still give. Our government must play its part to prepare Americans for good jobs; to ensure they can earn a living wage; to ensure they can raise their children, live with dignity, and retire with some confidence in their quality of life.

The cornerstone of this American dream is still education. This Administration has hijacked the concept of leaving no child behind and turned it into an empty slogan. The very programs they have passed are being cut back in the President’s latest budget. Head Start is under attack. After-school programs, which do so much to protect our children from drugs and crime, are to be gutted by 40 percent. Meanwhile, our public schools are still crumbling.

Today, the federal government contributes about 6 percent to the funding of our schools. As long as this is true, no amount of clever experimentation with school choice and mandatory testing will give our children the education they deserve.

As President I will reform the way we pay for schools, and lift the cost of school funding off of the local property tax. There is no education reform without investment, and I will fight for Federal investment to rebuild and equip our schools, so that once again our children can have the world’s best education. The rungs of the ladder of opportunity are crafted in the classroom, and our nation’s economic security depends on our commitment to quality education for every child and higher education for every person who wants it. Good schools must become a national priority. We can make it so. And when we do, we will build a 21st Century workforce that will keep our country strong.

Our health care system is unfair, inefficient, and a drag on our economy as well. Forty percent of Americans have no health insurance. They use our hospitals in the most expensive way – in the emergency rooms. They have no access to preventive care.

Our current system benefits only the insurance companies – not doctors, not patients, not employers. We can the solve the chronic health care crisis and give the power to decide to patients and providers. As president I will stand up and fight for universal health coverage, with no compromise on quality and use my legislative experience to actually get it done!

When we invest in our schools and repair our broken health system we will begin to give our economy the boost it needs to grow.

I will roll back the irresponsible tax cuts; I will balance the budget; I will direct our nation’s resources to the benefit of its working people and small businesses, through sound fiscal policy and priorities that reflect confidence in our future.

I will be an advocate for our stewardship of the planet. We will not accept a backward-looking energy policy – and my advisors will not be kept secret, because they won’t be the robbers who tried to rip off the state of California!
Nobody who looks like me has ever been President of the United States. But these difficult times demand that we come together to chart new directions based on the best contributions we can muster. Our generation can be the generation that finally embraces the core values of the American dream and makes it a reality.

My grandfather fought in France in WWI. When he returned to this country he could not vote or sit in the front of a bus. But he volunteered to serve because he believed that over time, this country would live up to its highest ideals. It was not America the materialistic or America the world power that motivated his love of this country, but America the hopeful and good and free.

Women and people of color deeply cherish America’s promise of inclusion and freedom and opportunity. We have had to fight and even die for equality and justice. That is why a woman’s right to reproductive freedom, civil rights and equal pay for equal work matter so much to us.

That is why the values that matter to every American call us to contribute to this country in the best way we can.

We are patriots because we have had to struggle for citizenship, and we value it as a dear and rare and precious gift of this country.

I believe the time has come when the American people will welcome my contribution and the leadership I can give to resurrect the American dream. I believe we can together take the next bold step toward an America as good as its promise.

It is time for a change of direction. It is time for new leadership.

It is time for Democrats.

Thank you, delegates, for your service and your patriotism, and for all you do to build this Democratic Party into a force for good in our country.

Your activism will inspire a rebirth of confidence across this country that the American dream still lives, and that hope abides at the heart of our national character. Thank you for this opportunity to share with you.

I am the only candidate in this race for your nomination who brings together the very heart and soul of the Democratic Party. I want to bring Democrats together to reclaim the White House, and I want to bring Americans together to reclaim our country. We are the patriots – and we’re going to take our country back.