BARACK OBAMA ACCEPTANCE SPEECH IN DENVER

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
“The American Promise”
Democratic Convention
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
Denver, Colorado

To Chairman Dean and my great friend Dick Durbin; and to all my fellow citizens of this
great nation;

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency
of the United States.
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Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this
journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest – a champion for working
Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours --Hillary Rodham Clinton.
To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it; to
Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service; and to the next Vice President of the
United States, Joe Biden, I thank you. I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the
finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the
conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.

To the love of my life, our next First Lady, Michelle Obama, and to Sasha and Malia – I
love you so much, and I’m so proud of all of you.

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story – of the brief union between a
young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren’t well-off or well-
known, but shared a belief that in America, their son could achieve whatever he put his
mind to.

It is that promise that has always set this country apart – that through hard work and
sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one
American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.

That’s why I stand here tonight. Because for two hundred and thirty two years, at each
moment when that promise was in jeopardy, ordinary men and women – students and
soldiers, farmers and teachers, nurses and janitors --found the courage to keep it alive.

We meet at one of those defining moments – a moment when our nation is at war, our
economy is in turmoil, and the American promise has been threatened once more.

Tonight, more Americans are out of work and more are working harder for less. More of
you have lost your homes and even more are watching your home values plummet. More
of you have cars you can’t afford to drive, credit card bills you can’t afford to pay, and
tuition that’s beyond your reach.

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These challenges are not all of government’s making. But the failure to respond is a
direct result of a broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W.
Bush.

America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.

This country is more decent than one where a woman in Ohio, on the brink of retirement,
finds herself one illness away from disaster after a lifetime of hard work.

This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the
equipment he’s worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then
chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family
the news.

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and
families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns
before our eyes.

Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents
across this great land – enough! This moment – this election – is our chance to keep, in
the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same
party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country
for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four
years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: “Eight is
enough.”

Now let there be no doubt. The Republican nominee, John McCain, has worn the
uniform of our country with bravery and distinction, and for that we owe him our
gratitude and respect. And next week, we’ll also hear about those occasions when he’s
broken with his party as evidence that he can deliver the change that we need.

But the record’s clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the
time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about
your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of
the time? I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to take a ten percent chance on
change.

The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives – on health
care and education and the economy – Senator McCain has been anything but
independent. He said that our economy has made “great progress” under this President.
He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief
advisors – the man who wrote his economic plan – was talking about the anxiety
Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a “mental recession,” and
that we’ve become, and I quote, “a nation of whiners.”

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A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after
they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever,
because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell
that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved
ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They
work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans
that I know.

Now, I don’t believe that Senator McCain doesn’t care what’s going on in the lives of
Americans. I just think he doesn’t know. Why else would he define middle-class as
someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds
of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax
relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health
care plan that would actually tax people’s benefits, or an education plan that would do
nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security
and gamble your retirement?

It’s not because John McCain doesn’t care. It’s because John McCain doesn’t get it.

For over two decades, he’s subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy –
give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to
everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really
means is – you’re on your own. Out of work? Tough luck. No health care? The market
will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps – even if you
don’t have boots. You’re on your own.

Well it’s time for them to own their failure. It’s time for us to change America.

You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this
country.

We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage;
whether you can put a little extra money away at the end of each month so you can
someday watch your child receive her college diploma. We measure progress in the 23
million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was President – when the average
American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under
George Bush.

We measure the strength of our economy not by the number of billionaires we have or the
profits of the Fortune 500, but by whether someone with a good idea can take a risk and
start a new business, or whether the waitress who lives on tips can take a day off to look
after a sick kid without losing her job – an economy that honors the dignity of work.

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The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to
that fundamental promise that has made this country great – a promise that is the only
reason I am standing here tonight.

Because in the faces of those young veterans who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan,
I see my grandfather, who signed up after Pearl Harbor, marched in Patton’s Army, and
was rewarded by a grateful nation with the chance to go to college on the GI Bill.

In the face of that young student who sleeps just three hours before working the night
shift, I think about my mom, who raised my sister and me on her own while she worked
and earned her degree; who once turned to food stamps but was still able to send us to the
best schools in the country with the help of student loans and scholarships.

When I listen to another worker tell me that his factory has shut down, I remember all
those men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I stood by and fought for two
decades ago after the local steel plant closed.

And when I hear a woman talk about the difficulties of starting her own business, I think
about my grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle-
management, despite years of being passed over for promotions because she was a
woman. She’s the one who taught me about hard work. She’s the one who put off
buying a new car or a new dress for herself so that I could have a better life. She poured
everything she had into me. And although she can no longer travel, I know that she’s
watching tonight, and that tonight is her night as well.

I don’t know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has
been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on
their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as President of
the United States.

What is that promise?

It’s a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we
will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It’s a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate
growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American
jobs, look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should
do is that which we cannot do for ourselves – protect us from harm and provide every
child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools
and new roads and new science and technology.

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Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It
should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for
every American who’s willing to work.

That’s the promise of America – the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that
we also rise or fall as one nation; the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I
am my sister’s keeper.

That’s the promise we need to keep. That’s the change we need right now. So let me
spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am President.

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Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the
American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas,
and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will
create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.

I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95% of all working families. Because in an economy
like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a
clear goal as President: in ten years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the
Middle East.

Washington’s been talking about our oil addiction for the last thirty years, and John
McCain has been there for twenty-six of them. In that time, he’s said no to higher fuel-
efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable
fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took
office.

Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap
measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find
ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the
fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the
American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest 150 billion dollars over the
next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy – wind power and solar power
and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and
five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.

America, now is not the time for small plans.

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Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class
education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle
and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will
not settle for an America where some kids don’t have that chance. I’ll invest in early
childhood education. I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries
and give them more support. And in exchange, I’ll ask for higher standards and more
accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American – if you commit
to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college
education.

Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every
single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you
don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give
themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies
while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop
discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because
nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a
sick child or ailing parent.

Now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead
of CEO bonuses; and the time to protect Social Security for future generations.

And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day’s work, because I
want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.

Now, many of these plans will cost money, which is why I’ve laid out how I’ll pay for
every dime – by closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don’t help America
grow. But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs
that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less – because
we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy.

And Democrats, we must also admit that fulfilling America’s promise will require more
than just money. It will require a renewed sense of responsibility from each of us to
recover what John F. Kennedy called our “intellectual and moral strength.” Yes,
government must lead on energy independence, but each of us must do our part to make
our homes and businesses more efficient. Yes, we must provide more ladders to success
for young men who fall into lives of crime and despair. But we must also admit that
programs alone can’t replace parents; that government can’t turn off the television and
make a child do her homework; that fathers must take more responsibility for providing
the love and guidance their children need.

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility – that’s the essence of America’s
promise.

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And just as we keep our keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must
we keep America’s promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who
has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that’s a
debate I’m ready to have.

For while Senator McCain was turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, I stood up
and opposed this war, knowing that it would distract us from the real threats we face.
When John McCain said we could just “muddle through” in Afghanistan, I argued for
more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually
attacked us on 9/11, and made clear that we must take out Osama bin Laden and his
lieutenants if we have them in our sights. John McCain likes to say that he’ll follow bin
Laden to the Gates of Hell – but he won’t even go to the cave where he lives.

And today, as my call for a time frame to remove our troops from Iraq has been echoed
by the Iraqi government and even the Bush Administration, even after we learned that
Iraq has a $79 billion surplus while we’re wallowing in deficits, John McCain stands
alone in his stubborn refusal to end a misguided war.

That’s not the judgment we need. That won’t keep America safe. We need a President
who can face the threats of the future, not keep grasping at the ideas of the past.

You don’t defeat a terrorist network that operates in eighty countries by occupying Iraq.
You don’t protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington. You can’t
truly stand up for Georgia when you’ve strained our oldest alliances. If John McCain
wants to follow George Bush with more tough talk and bad strategy, that is his choice –
but it is not the change we need.

We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don’t tell me that
Democrats won’t defend this country. Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t keep us safe.
The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of
Americans --Democrats and Republicans – have built, and we are here to restore that
legacy.

As Commander-in-Chief, I will never hesitate to defend this nation, but I will only send
our troops into harm’s way with a clear mission and a sacred commitment to give them
the equipment they need in battle and the care and benefits they deserve when they come
home.

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the
Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will
also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear
weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats
of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate
change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again
that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of
peace, and who yearn for a better future.

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These are the policies I will pursue. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating
them with John McCain.

But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political
purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that
people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism.

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let
us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John
McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and
Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some
died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue
America – they have served the United States of America.

So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.

America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and
Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of
the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can’t just be measured by
lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common
purpose – our sense of higher purpose. And that’s what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of
unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for
hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell
me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of
criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree
that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the
hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t
know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an
employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of
America’s promise – the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and
grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our
insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is
just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And
that’s to be expected. Because if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics
to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as
someone people should run from.

You make a big election about small things.

And you know what – it’s worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have
about government. When Washington doesn’t work, all its promises seem empty. If

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your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it’s best to stop hoping, and settle for
what you already know.

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical
pedigree, and I haven’t spent my career in the halls of Washington.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the
nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about
you.

For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics
of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the
same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have
shown what history teaches us – that at defining moments like this one, the change we
need doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens
because the American people demand it – because they rise up and insist on new ideas
and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

I believe that as hard as it will be, the change we need is coming. Because I’ve seen it.
Because I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it in Illinois, when we provided health care to more
children and moved more families from welfare to work. I’ve seen it in Washington,
when we worked across party lines to open up government and hold lobbyists more
accountable, to give better care for our veterans and keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist
hands.

And I’ve seen it in this campaign. In the young people who voted for the first time, and
in those who got involved again after a very long time. In the Republicans who never
thought they’d pick up a Democratic ballot, but did. I’ve seen it in the workers who
would rather cut their hours back a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the
soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a stranger in
when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise.

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that’s not what makes us rich.
We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that’s not what makes us strong. Our
universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that’s not what keeps the world
coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit – that American promise – that pushes us forward even
when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes
us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It’s a promise I make to my daughters when I
tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours – a promise that has led

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immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to
picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every
corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial,
and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could’ve heard many things. They could’ve
heard words of anger and discord. They could’ve been told to succumb to the fear and
frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead – people of every creed and color, from every walk of
life – is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can
be one.

“We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge
that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many
children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and
cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many
lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment,
in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that
promise – that American promise – and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without
wavering, to the hope that we confess.

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