The most presidential lorem ipsum in history.
John Kerry knows this. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription drugs, and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent. As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Change comes to Washington.
John Kerry believes in America. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation.
That's not what I'm talking about. And when the Civil War was fought and our country dedicated itself to a new birth of freedom, they took on the problems of an industrializing nation - fighting the crimes against society and the sins against God that they felt were being committed in our factories and in our slums. I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95% of all working families. Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build.
When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world. We need to heed the biblical call to care for "the least of these" and lift the poor out of despair. For we have a choice in this country.
He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. 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. And in the weeks ahead, I look forward to debating them with John McCain.
Thank you.