US Sen. Barack Obama at the Kohl Center
Our time has come
Americans are losing. We are going to put this game to an end.
    It’s a game where lobbyists write check after check that Exxon turns right to profits while you pay the price at the pump. That’s what happens when
lobbyists set the agenda and that’s why they won’t drown out your voices anymore while I am president of the United States. It’s a game where trade deals
like NAFTA shift jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wages and local fast food joints or Wal-Mart. That’s
what happens when the American worker doesn’t have a voice at the negotiating table, when leaders change their positions on trade with the politics of the
moment. And that’s why we need a president who will listen not just to Wall Street, but also to Main Street, a president who will stand with workers not just
when it is easy, but when it’s hard. And that’s the kind of president that I intend to be when I am the president of the United States of America.
    “It’s a game where the only way the Democrats can look tough on national security is by talking and acting and voting like Bush-McCain Republicans
while our troops are sent to fight tour after tour of duty in a war that should have never been authorized. That’s what happens when we use 9/11 to scare up
votes instead of bringing the people together around a common purpose. That’s why we need to do more than end the war. We need to end the mindset
that got us in the war. That’s the choice in this primary. It’s not whether we choose to play the game or whether we choose to end it. It’s change that polls
well. It’s change that we actually can believe in. It’s the past versus the future. It’s about whether we are looking backwards or whether we are marching
forward. And when I am the Democratic nominee for president, that will be the choice we have in November. Understand this. John McCain, the likely
Republican nominee, is an American hero. We honor his service to our nation. We honor his service, but his priorities don’t address the real problems of the
American people because they are grounded in the failed policies of the past. George Bush won’t be on the ballot this November. And my cousin, Dick
Cheney, won’t be on thisballot. The Bush-Cheney war and the Bush-Cheney tax cuts for the wealthy will be on the ballot. When I am the nominee, I will
offer a clear choice. John McCain won’t be able to say that I ever supported this war in Iraq because I opposed it from the start. Senator McCain said the
other day that we might be mired for 100 years in Iraq. 100 years, which is reason enough not to give him four years in the White House. If we had chosen a
different path, the right path, we could have finished the job in Afghanistan and put more resources into the fight against Bin Laden. Instead of spending
hundreds of billions of dollars in Baghdad, we could have put that money into our schools and our hospitals and our roads.
    “I admired Senator McCain when he stood up to and said he couldn’t support the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy in a time of war. He couldn’t support a tax
cut where so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate. That’s a quote. But somewhere along the road to the Republican nomination, the Straight
Talking Express lost its wheels because now he’s all for those big tax cuts. Well, I am not. We can’t keep spending money that we don’t have in a war that
should have ended. We can’t keep mortgaging our children’s future. It’s time to turn the page and write a new chapter. “That’s our calling, to reaffirm that
fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper. We believe we are a nation of one people. It’s time to stand up and reach for what
is possible because people around the country can change it. When I start talking like this, I have to say that some people will tell you that I have my head
in the clouds, that I’m still offering false hope, that I need a reality check, that I am a ‘hopemonger’. My own story tells me that in the United States of
America, there has never been anything false about hope, at least not when you work hard for it, not if you’re willing to struggle for it, not if you’re willing to
fight for it. I should not be here today. I was not born into money or status. I was born to a teenage father. That father left us when I was two. But my family
gave me love. They gave me an education. And most of all, they gave me hope, hope that the American Dream is not beyond our grasp if we reach for it,
fight for it and work for it. Understand this. Hope is not blind optimism. Hope is not ignorance of the barriers and the challenges that stand between you and
your dreams. I know how hard it will be to change America. I know it won’t be easy to provide health care for all Americans like I have proposed. If it was
easy, it would have already been done. I know that it won’t be easy to change our energy policy. Exxon-Mobil made $11 billion last quarter. They don’t want
to give those profits up easily. I know how hard it will be to alleviate poverty that has built up over centuries. I know how hard it will be to improve our
schools, especially because improving our schools will involve more than just money. It will require a change in mindset, a belief that every child matters,
that’s it’s not somebody else’s problem, a belief that parents can parent and shut off the television set and put away the video games and as students, raise
the standards of excellence. It’s going to take a change in attitude, a change in hope.
    “I know it’s hard because I have fought those fights. I fought them on the streets of Chicago as a community organizer to bring jobs to the jobless in
the shadow of a shuttered steel plant. I fought in the courts as a civil rights lawyer to make sure people weren’t denied their rights because of what they
look like or where they came from. I fought in the legislature to take away power from lobbyists and to provide health care for those didn’t have any, fix
a criminal justice system that was broken. And I’ve won some of those fights, but I’ve lost some of them too. I’ve seen good legislation die with good
intentions. I know how hard these things are. The politics of hope does not mean hoping that things come easy. But I also understand that nothing
worthwhile in this country happened unless someone, somewhere is willing to hope, somebody who is going to stand up when the polls say no you can’t.
And instead they say ‘Yes, we can,’ That’s how this country was founded. A group of patriots declared independence against the mighty British Empire.
Nobody gave them a chance, but they said ‘Yes, we can.’ That’s how slaves and abolitionists resisted that wicked system and how a new president in charge
ensured that we would not remain half slave and half free. That’s how the Greatest Generation, my grandfather fighting abroad and my grandmother staying
at home with a baby and still working on an assembly line, how the Greatest Generation overcame Hitler and Fascism and also lifted themselves up out of
the Great Depression. They said ‘Yes, we can.’ That’s how immigrants traveled from distant shores where people said your fate would be uncertain. ‘Yes, we
can.’ That’s how women won the right to vote and how workers won the right to organize.
‘Yes, we can.’ That’s what hope is, that moment when we shed our fears and doubts, when we stand up against what cynics say we have to accept.
Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom. When we instead join arm in arm and decide we are going to remake this country block by block, precinct by precinct,
county by county, state by state, that’s what hope is. There is a moment in the life for every generation when that spirit has to come through if we are going
to make our mark. And this is our moment. This is our time. We’re better to affirm our ideals right here in Wisconsin where a century ago, the Progressive
movement was born. It was rooted in the principle that the voices of the people can speak louder than special interests, that citizens can be connected to
their government and to one another and all of us share a common destiny, the American Dream. Yes, we can reclaim that Dream.
Yes, we can build this nation. We will cast off our doubts and fears and cynicism because our dream will not be deferred and our future will not be
denied and our time for change has come.”