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2008 DNC: Hillary Clinton Speech for Barack Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention
This page contains both the video and the text of the speech delivered by Hillary Clinton at August 26, 2008, in which she asks her supporters to vote for Barack Obama
Following is the full text of the 2008 DNC Hillary Clinton Speech:
I am honored to be here tonight. A proud mother. A proud
Democrat. A proud American. And a proud supporter of Barack
Obama.
My friends, it is time to take back the country we love.
Whether you voted for me, or voted for Barack, the time is now
to unite as a single party with a single purpose. We are on the
same team, and none of us can sit on the sidelines.
This is a fight for the future. And it’s a fight we must
win.
I haven’t spent the past 35 years in the trenches advocating
for children, campaigning for universal health care, helping
parents balance work and family, and fighting for women’s
rights at home and around the world . . . to see another
Republican in the White House squander the promise of our
country and the hopes of our people.
And you haven’t worked so hard over the last 18 months, or
endured the last eight years, to suffer through more failed
leadership.
No way. No how. No McCain.
Barack Obama is my candidate. And he must be our President.
Tonight we need to remember what a Presidential election is
really about. When the polls have closed, and the ads are
finally off the air, it comes down to you -- the American
people, your lives, and your children’s futures.
For me, it’s been a privilege to meet you in your homes, your
workplaces, and your communities. Your stories reminded me
everyday that America’s greatness is bound up in the lives of
the American people -- your hard work, your devotion to duty,
your love for your children, and your determination to keep
going, often in the face of enormous obstacles.
You taught me so much, you made me laugh, and . . . you even
made me cry. You allowed me to become part of your lives. And
you became part of mine.
I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids
with autism, didn’t have health insurance and discovered she
had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head painted with
my name on it and asked me to fight for health care.
I will always remember the young man in a Marine Corps t-shirt
who waited months for medical care and said to me: “Take care
of my buddies; a lot of them are still over there….and then
will you please help take care of me?”
I will always remember the boy who told me his mom worked for
the minimum wage and that her employer had cut her hours. He
said he just didn’t know what his family was going to do.
I will always be grateful to everyone from all fifty states,
Puerto Rico and the territories, who joined our campaign on
behalf of all those people left out and left behind by the Bush
Administrtation.
To my supporters, my champions -- my sisterhood of the
traveling pantsuits – from the bottom of my heart: Thank you.
You never gave in. You never gave up. And together we made
history.
Along the way, America lost two great Democratic champions who
would have been here with us tonight. One of our finest young
leaders, Arkansas Democratic Party Chair, Bill Gwatney, who
believed with all his heart that America and the South could be
and should be Democratic from top to bottom.
And Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a dear friend to many
of us, a loving mother and courageous leader who never gave up
her quest to make America fairer and smarter, stronger and
better. Steadfast in her beliefs, a fighter of uncommon grace,
she was an inspiration to me and to us all.
Our heart goes out to Stephanie’s son, Mervyn, Jr, and Bill’s
wife, Rebecca, who traveled to Denver to join us at our
convention.
Bill and Stephanie knew that after eight years of George Bush,
people are hurting at home, and our standing has eroded around
the world. We have a lot of work ahead.
Jobs lost, houses gone, falling wages, rising prices. The
Supreme Court in a right-wing headlock and our government in
partisan gridlock. The biggest deficit in our nation’s history.
Money borrowed from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis.
Putin and Georgia, Iraq and Iran.
I ran for President to renew the promise of America. To rebuild
the middle class and sustain the American Dream, to provide the
opportunity to work hard and have that work rewarded, to save
for college, a home and retirement, to afford the gas and
groceries and still have a little left over each month.
To promote a clean energy economy that will create millions of
green collar jobs.
To create a health care system that is universal, high quality,
and affordable so that parents no longer have to choose between
care for themselves or their children or be stuck in dead end
jobs simply to keep their insurance.
To create a world class education system and make college
affordable again.
To fight for an America defined by deep and meaningful equality
- from civil rights to labor rights, from women's rights to gay
rights, from ending discrimination to promoting unionization to
providing help for the most important job there is: caring for
our families. To help every child live up to his or her
God-given potential.
To make America once again a nation of immigrants and a nation
of laws.
To bring fiscal sanity back to Washington and make our
government an instrument of the public good, not of private
plunder.
To restore America's standing in the world, to end the war in
Iraq, bring our troops home and honor their service by caring
for our veterans.
And to join with our allies to confront our shared challenges,
from poverty and genocide to terrorism and global warming.
Most of all, I ran to stand up for all those who have been
invisible to their government for eight long years.
Those are the reasons I ran for President. Those are the
reasons I support Barack Obama. And those are the reasons you
should too.
I want you to ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just
for me? Or were you in it for that young Marine and others like
him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while
raising her kids? Were you in it for that boy and his mom
surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the
people in this country who feel invisible?
We need leaders once again who can tap into that special blend
of American confidence and optimism that has enabled
generations before us to meet our toughest challenges. Leaders
who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our
ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit, there are no
limits to what is possible in America.
This won’t be easy. Progress never is. But it will be
impossible if we don’t fight to put a Democrat in the White
House.
We need to elect Barack Obama because we need a President who
understands that America can’t compete in a global economy by
padding the pockets of energy speculators, while ignoring the
workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas. We need a
President who understands that we can’t solve the problems of
global warming by giving windfall profits to the oil companies
while ignoring opportunities to invest in new technologies that
will build a green economy.
We need a President who understands that the genius of America
has always depended on the strength and vitality of the middle
class.
Barack Obama began his career fighting for workers displaced by
the global economy. He built his campaign on a fundamental
belief that change in this country must start from the ground
up, not the top down. He knows government must be about “We the
people” not “We the favored few.”
And when Barack Obama is in the White House, he’ll revitalize
our economy, defend the working people of America, and meet the
global challenges of our time. Democrats know how to do this.
As I recall, President Clinton and the Democrats did it before.
And President Obama and the Democrats will do it again.
He’ll transform our energy agenda by creating millions of green
jobs and building a new, clean energy future. He’ll make sure
that middle class families get the tax relief they deserve. And
I can’t wait to watch Barack Obama sign a health care plan into
law that covers every single American.
Barack Obama will end the war in Iraq responsibly and bring our
troops home – a first step to repairing our alliances around
the world.
And he will have with him a terrific partner in Michelle Obama.
Anyone who saw Michelle’s speech last night knows she will be a
great First Lady for America.
Americans are also fortunate that Joe Biden will be at Barack
Obama’s side. He is a strong leader and a good man. He
understands both the economic stresses here at home and the
strategic challenges abroad. He is pragmatic, tough, and wise.
And, of course, Joe will be supported by his wonderful wife,
Jill.
They will be a great team for our country.
Now, John McCain is my colleague and my friend.
He has served our country with honor and courage.
But we don’t need four more years . . . of the last eight
years.
More economic stagnation …and less affordable health care.
More high gas prices …and less alternative energy.
More jobs getting shipped overseas …and fewer jobs created
here.
More skyrocketing debt ...home foreclosures …and mounting bills
that are crushing our middle class families.
More war . . . less diplomacy.
More of a government where the privileged come first …and
everyone else comes last.
John McCain says the economy is fundamentally sound. John
McCain doesn’t think that 47 million people without health
insurance is a crisis. John McCain wants to privatize Social
Security. And in 2008, he still thinks it’s okay when women
don’t earn equal pay for equal work.
With an agenda like that, it makes sense that George Bush and
John McCain will be together next week in the Twin Cities.
Because these days they’re awfully hard to tell apart.
America is still around after 232 years because we have risen
to the challenge of every new time, changing to be faithful to
our values of equal opportunity for all and the common good.
And I know what that can mean for every man, woman, and child
in America. I’m a United States Senator because in 1848 a group
of courageous women and a few brave men gathered in Seneca
Falls, New York, many traveling for days and nights, to
participate in the first convention on women’s rights in our
history.
And so dawned a struggle for the right to vote that would last
72 years, handed down by mother to daughter to granddaughter –
and a few sons and grandsons along the way.
These women and men looked into their daughters’ eyes, imagined
a fairer and freer world, and found the strength to fight. To
rally and picket. To endure ridicule and harassment. To brave
violence and jail.
And after so many decades – 88 years ago on this very day – the
19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote would be
forever enshrined in our Constitution.
My mother was born before women could vote. But in this
election my daughter got to vote for her mother for President.
This is the story of America. Of women and men who defy the
odds and never give up.
How do we give this country back to them?
By following the example of a brave New Yorker , a woman who
risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground
Railroad.
And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of
advice.
If you hear the dogs, keep going.
If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.
If they're shouting after you, keep going.
Don't ever stop. Keep going.
If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.
Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found
the faith to keep going.
I’ve seen it in you. I’ve seen it in our teachers and
firefighters, nurses and police officers, small business owners
and union workers, the men and women of our military – you
always keep going.
We are Americans. We're not big on quitting.
But remember, before we can keep going, we have to get going by
electing Barack Obama president.
We don't have a moment to lose or a vote to spare.
Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our
children hang in the balance.
I want you to think about your children and grandchildren come
election day. And think about the choices your parents and
grandparents made that had such a big impact on your life and
on the life of our nation.
We've got to ensure that the choice we make in this election
honors the sacrifices of all who came before us, and will fill
the lives of our children with possibility and hope.
That is our duty, to build that bright future, and to teach our
children that in America there is no chasm too deep, no barrier
too great – and no ceiling too high – for all who work hard,
never back down, always keep going, have faith in God, in our
country, and in each other.
Thank you so much. God bless America and Godspeed to you all.
.
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2008 DNC: Joe Biden Speech in which he accepts the Vice Presidential nomination. At the end of Joe Biden's speech, Barack Obama appears on stage to greet him.
2008 DNC: Bill Clinton Speech in which he asks Hillary's supporters to vote for Barack Obama and asserts that Barack Obama is ready to be President of the United States.
2008 DNC: Hillary Clinton Speech in which she asks her supporters to vote for Barack Obama
© 2008 Barack-Obama-Timeline.com
