Coin toss, Senator Edwards, you begin.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

Thank you, Gwen.

Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for being here.

You know, when I was young and growing up, I remember coming down the steps into the kitchen, early in the morning, and I would see the glow of the television.

And I'd see my father sitting at a table. He wasn't paying bills, and he wasn't doing paperwork from work.

What he was doing was learning math on television.

Now, he didn't have a college education, but he was doing what he could do to get a better job in the mill where he worked. I was proud of him. I'm still proud of him.

And I was also hopeful, because I knew that I lived in a country where I could get a college education.

Here's the truth: I have grown up in the bright light of America. But that light is flickering today.

Now, I know that the vice president and the president don't see it, but you do.

You see it when your incomes are going down and the cost of everything -- college tuition, health care -- is going through the roof. You see it when you sit at your table each night and there's an empty chair because a loved one is serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. What they're going to give you is four more years of the same.

John Kerry and I believe that we can do better. We believe in a strong middle-class in this country. That's why we have a plan to create jobs, getting rid of tax cuts for companies outsourcing your jobs; give tax cuts to companies that'll keep jobs here in America.

That's why we have a health care plan. That's why we have a plan to keep you safe and to fix this mess in Iraq.

The truth is that every four years you get to decide. You have the ability to decide where America's going to go. John Kerry and I are asking you to give us the power to fight for you, to fight to keep that dream in America, that I saw as a young man, alive for every parent sitting at that kitchen table.

IFILL: Vice President Cheney?

CHENEY: Gwen, I want to thank you.

It's been a privilege to serve as your vice president these last four years and to work alongside President Bush to put our economy on an upward path.

We've cut taxes, added 1.7 million new jobs in the last year, and we'll continue to provide opportunities for business and for workers.

We won't be happy until every American who wants to work can find a job.

We believe that all Americans ought to have access to available -- to medical care and that they ought to have access to the finest schools in the world.

We'll do everything we can to preserve Social Security and to make certain that it's there for future generations.

I've worked for four presidents and watched two others up close, and I know that there's no such thing as a routine day in the Oval Office.

We saw on 9/11 that the next president -- next decision a president has to make can affect the lives of all of us.

Now we find ourselves in the midst of a conflict unlike any we've ever known, faced with the possibility that terrorists could smuggle a deadly biological agent or a nuclear weapon into the middle of one of our own cities.

That threat -- and the presidential leadership needed to deal with it -- is placing a special responsibility on all of you who will decide on November 2nd who will be our commander in chief.

The only viable option for winning the war on terrorism is the one the president has chosen, to use the power of the United States to aggressively go after the terrorists wherever we find them and also to hold to account states that sponsor terror.

Now that we've captured or killed thousands of Al Qaida and taken down the regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, it's important that we stand up democratically elected governments as the only guarantee that they'll never again revert to terrorism or the production of deadly weapons.

This is the task of our generation. And I know firsthand the strength the president brings to it.

The overall outcome will depend upon the ability of the American people and the strong leadership of the president to meet all the challenges that we'll face in the days and years ahead.

I'm confident we can do it.

IFILL: And with that, we come to the end of tonight's debate.

On behalf of the commission and the candidates, I'd like to extend a special thank you to the students and administration here at Case Western Reserve University.

A reminder: The second presidential debate takes place this coming Friday at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Charles Gibson of ABC News will serve as moderator of that encounter, where the candidates will field questions from an audience.

Then, on October 13th, from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, Bob Schieffer of CBS News will moderate a debate on domestic issues.

For now, thank you, Vice President Cheney, Senator Edwards.

From Cleveland, Ohio, I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you, and goodnight.

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