The most presidential lorem ipsum in history.
But I've got news for them, too. 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. The people of the world can live together in peace.
John Edwards calls on us to hope. It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. 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. 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. 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 immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.
I thought of the families I've met who were struggling to get by without a loved one's full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but who still lacked long-term health benefits because they were Reservists. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. Clearly, the past 50 years have not weakened your resolve as faithful witnesses of the gospel. It's not consistent with our traditions of justice and fairness. Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires.
Yet what we also understand is that our values should express themselves not just through our churches or synagogues, temples or mosques; they should express themselves through our government. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part of promoting peace.
Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn't have the money to go to college. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins. That's the promise we need to keep. The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few.
Thank you, and God bless America.