In his victory speech after winning the North Carolina Democratic primary last night, Barack Obama was laying out his broad themes for the general election.
Iraq/Afghanistan
- end the war in Iraq
- stop the endless tours of duty for the troops
- meet government commitments to troops for accessible health care, disability payments
The mother in Wisconsin who gave me a bracelet inscribed with the name of the son she lost in Iraq, the families who pray for their loved ones to come home, the heroes on a third and fourth and fifth tour of duty, they can’t afford four more years of a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged.
They can’t afford four more years of our veterans returning to broken-down barracks and substandard care.
And they don’t want to see homeless veterans on the streets. They don’t want to see veterans waiting years to get disability payments or having to travel for hours and miles just to get treatment.
They need us to end the war that isn’t making us safer. They need us to treat them with the care and respect they deserve. That’s why I’m running for president.
Energy/Climate Change
- provide a long-sighted energy policy to deal with climate change and reduce the dependence on foreign oil that’s warping US foreign policy
The man I met in Pennsylvania who lost his job but can’t even afford the gas to drive around and look for a new one, he can’t afford four more years of an energy policy written by the oil companies and for the oil companies, a policy that’s not only keeping gas at record prices, but funding both sides of the war on terror and destroying our planet.
He doesn’t need four more years of Washington policies that sound good, but don’t solve the problem. He needs us to take a permanent holiday from our addiction from oil by making the automakers raise their fuel standards, corporations pay for their pollution, and oil companies invest their record profits in a clean energy future.
That’s the change we need. That’s why I’m running for president of the United States of America.
Restoring the Middle Class American Dream
- provide universal access to affordable health care
- stop subsidizing outsourcing of jobs
- reverse Bush tax cuts and give middle-class tax relief
- ensure a social safety net that protects the prosperity of the middle class: pensions, affordable college tuition, consumer protection
The woman I met in Indiana who had just lost her job, lost her pension, lost her health insurance, when the plant where she’d worked her entire life closed down, she can’t afford four more years of tax breaks for corporations like the one that shipped her job overseas. She needs us to give tax breaks to companies that create good jobs right here in the United States of America.
She can’t afford four more years of tax breaks for CEOs like the one who walked away from her company with a multimillion-dollar bonus. She needs middle-class tax relief of the sort I’ve proposed, relief that will help her pay the skyrocketing price of groceries, and gas, and college tuition.
And that’s why I’m running for president of the United States of America.
…The college student I met in Iowa who works the night shift after a full day of classes, still can’t pay the medical bills for a sister who’s ill, she can’t afford four more years of a health care plan that only takes care of the healthy and the wealthy, that allows insurance companies to discriminate and deny coverage to those Americans who need it most.
She needs us to stand up to those insurance companies and pass a plan that lowers every family’s premiums and gives every uninsured American the same kind of coverage that members of Congress gives themselves. That’s why I’m running for president of the United States of America.
…The people that I’ve met in small towns and big cities across this country understand that government can’t solve all our problems, and we don’t expect it to. We believe in hard work; we believe in personal responsibility and self-reliance.
But we also believe that we have a larger responsibility to one another as Americans, that America is a place, that America is the place where you can make it if you try, that no matter how much money you start with or where you come from or who your parents are, opportunity is yours if you’re willing to reach for it and work for it.
It’s the idea that, while there are few guarantees in life, you should be able to count on a job that pays the bills, health care for when you need it, a pension when you retire, an education for your children that will allow them to fulfill their God-given potential, that’s the America we believe in. That’s the America that we know.
…Somewhere along the line, between all the bickering and the influence-peddling and the game-playing of the last few decades, Washington and Wall Street have lost touch with these core values, these American values.
And while I honor John McCain’s service to his country, his ideas for America are out of touch with these core values. His plans for the future, of continuing a war that has not made us safer, of continuing George Bush’s economic policies that he claims have made great progress, these are nothing more than the failed policies of the past.
…I trust the American people to realize that, while we don’t need big government, we do need a government that stands up for families who are being tricked out of their homes by Wall Street predators, a government who stands up for the middle class by giving them a tax break, a government that ensures that no American will ever lose their life savings just because their child gets sick.
Security and opportunity, compassion and prosperity aren’t liberal values. They are not conservative values. They are American values, and that is what we are fighting for in this election.
The full transcript can be found here.
