SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON: Our next candidate, John Edwards, was born in South Carolina and raised in a small town in North Carolina, where he learned the values of hard work and opportunity from his father, who worked in the textile mills and his mother who went to work at the Post Office to get health care for her family.  A proud product of public schools, John Edwards became the first person in his family to attend college by working his way through North Carolina State University.  He then earned a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

For the next 20 years, John Edwards dedicated his career to fighting for injured families and children by standing up to the powerful insurance industry and their armies of lawyers.

He and his wife Elizabeth have had four children including Catherine, a student at Princeton University, 5-year old Emma Claire, and a 3-year old son Jack.  Their first child Wade died in 1996.

In 1998 John Edwards took his commitment to fighting for regular people into politics by going against the odds and defeating an incumbent Republican Senator.   In the Congress Senator Edwards quickly emerged as a champion for the issues that matter to working families.  Now he's running for president with a detailed policy agenda for getting our economy back on track, bringing health care coverage to every child, and guaranteeing access to higher education for all who are willing to work for it.

Please join me in welcoming Senator John Edwards.

[Music Bruce Springsteen "Small Town].

SEN. EDWARDS: Three years ago George W. Bush stood on a stage at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia and criticized and attacked Bill Clinton and Al Gore and repeated the same phrase over and over.  You remember it.  He said, they have not led, we will.  Yeah, he's led us all right.  Has he led us to more jobs?  [Audience "No."]  Has he led us to better health care?  ["No."]  Has he led us to better schools?  ["No."]  Has he led us to a safer world?  ["No."]  He's led us from the edge of greatness, the edge of greatness, to the edge of a cliff, and it is time for us to lead George W. Bush out of town.

We are all, we are all angry with George W. Bush; we should be angry with him, for what he's done to our country, for what he's done to our values, for what he's done to the things that we believe in.  But anger won't change America, action will.  If we are the party of anger in 2004, we will not win.  But if we transform that anger into a positive vision for America, we will win in 2004 and more importantly the American people will win in 2004.

We are the party of optimism and America is hungry for us to lead.  The road to the White House starts right here in Iowa and it is time for us to choose a new president of the United States.

And no one is better prepared or understands better what has happened in America.  We have had a sea change in America over the last 20 years.  We've gone from a country where middle class working families 20 years ago were putting money aside, saving money.  They had a little nest egg, had some financial security.  Today both parents are working.  They have a terrible time paying their bills.  They sit on the edge of bankruptcy and they are one medical emergency, one lay-off from going over the cliff.

And George W. Bush wants to shift the tax burden in this country from wealth and the wealthy to those working class families.  Their backs are already breaking.  They can't stand it.  What we ought to do is we ought to strengthen and lift up working middle class families in this country and I'll tell you one thing, when I am president of the United States millionaires sitting by their swimming pool getting their investment statements will no longer pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries are paying.  Not in my America; not in our America.

We need to strengthen these families.  We need to help 'em buy a house.  We need to help 'me save.  We need to help 'em invest.  We want to create wealth in America, but not just for those who already have wealth--for those who need financial security.  I will create five million jobs in the first two years of my presidency.  We will make health care a birthright for every child born in this country.  We will make college available to every single young person who's willing to work for it.  This is the America I believe in.  This is the America I will fight for, and I'll tell you something else, I will never, ever put down this great Democratic party that we are all so proud of.

And these families who are struggling so much to make ends meet, to try to pay their bills, to try to put a loved one into a nursing home, to try to take care of their kids and give them a chance to go to college, what do they see when they look around the country?  They see politicians yelling at each other.  They hear politicians talking so much about what they're against, they can't even remember what they're for.

Well I remember what I'm for.  And I will never forget who I am fighting for.  You know I am so ready for this fight.  Like a lot of these candidates who are in this race, I come from a very different place.  I have not spent my entire life in politics, and most people think that's actually a good thing, not a bad thing.

But I did spend almost 20 years in courtrooms fighting for kids and families against big corporate America and for those people I won most of those fights; I'm proud of those victories.  But for those people who say to me, John Edwards, are you ready for this fight?  Do you have what it takes inside to take on George W. Bush?  You ask those insurance companies if John Edwards is a nice guy; they'll tell you the answer.

I have fought and clawed and worked every way I know how to be in this place I am today.  And when you fight and work to get to this place you never look down on anybody, not on a single person.  I want you to know, I want you to know that I have won races in places where we're not supposed to win elections.  I did it, I did it by standing up for what I believe and presenting a positive vision for America.  And in the process I am proud of the fact that I got rid of a protégé of Jesse Helms.  That's a good thing.

We stand on the edge of greatness.  We do.  It's hard to see because of all the damage that George W. Bush has done, but FDR saw it and he gave us Social Security.  John Kennedy saw it and he gave us civil rights.  We are at our best when we let our actions speak louder than our words.  This election is about more than ending George Bush's presidency.  This is about a new beginning for America.

We are the party that believes in lifting people up, not looking down on them.  We are the party that believes in bringing people together, not tearing them apart.  We are the party that believes in America that the family you're born into and the color of your skin should never control your destiny and we are still the party that believes that the son of a millworker can beat the son of a president for the White House.  That's the America I will fight for as your president in 2004.

Thank you.  God Bless you and God Bless the United States of America.  Thank you all.

[Music "Small Town"].

Copyright © 2003  Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in Action.