I keep hearing more and more about how Sen. Barack Obama wowed the crowd in Iowa Saturday night.
I’ve heard bits and pieces and finally heard the entire speech this afternoon. The video’s received over 84,000 views on YouTube.
Michelle Obama said her husband was truly in his element Saturday night in an e-mail sent to supporters today.
I’ve known Barack a long time, and it’s clear to me when he’s in his element.
Years ago, after we first met, he took me to an organizing meeting in a small church basement in Chicago. He was so comfortable and genuine speaking to folks in the community about the issues they faced that it moved me.
He moved me again last Saturday in Iowa.
This is exactly what he should be doing — talking to ordinary people about the kind of change America needs, and encouraging everyone to come to the table to make it happen.
From Obama’s speech:
“We were promised compassionate conservativism and all we got was Katrina and wiretaps. We were promised a uniter and we got a president who could not even lead the half of the country that voted for him. We were promised a more ethical and efficient government and instead we have a town called Washington that is more corrupt and more wasteful than it was before. And the only mission that was ever accomplished was to use fear falsehoods to take this country into a war that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged.”
“This party… has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people when we led not by polls but by principal. Not by calculations but by conviction. When we summoned the entire nation to a common purpose, a higher purpose. And I run for the presidency… because that is the party that America needs us to be right now.”
“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbiest that their days in setting the agenda in Washington are over… they have not funded my campaign, they will not work in my white house and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.”
“I am in this race… to protect the American worker. To fight for the American worker.”
“I want to stop talking about the outrage of 47 million American’s without health care and start actually doing something about it… I will make certain that every single American in this country has health care they can count on… and I will do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States of America.”
“You will not be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it is OK for America to torture because it is never OK!”
“I don’t want to pit red America against blue America, I want to be the president of the United States of America.”
“I am running in this race because of what Dr. King called the fierce urgency of now. Because I believe there is such a thing as being too late and that hour is almost upon us. I don’t want to wake up four years from now and find out that millions of Americans still lack health care because we couldn’t take on the insurance industry. I don’t want to see that the oceans have risen a few more inches… because we couldn’t find a way to stop buying oil from dictators. I don’t want to see more American lives put at risk because no one has the judgment or courage to stand up against a mis-guided war before we send our troops in to fight. I don’t want to see homeless veterans on the streets. I don’t want to send another generation of American children to failing schools.”
“The only reason I’m standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky, stood up when it was hard, stood up when it wasn’t popular and because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up and then a few thousands stood up and then a few million stood up. And standing up with courage and clear conscious they some how managed to change the world. That’s why I’m running. To give our children and our grandchildren the same chances that somebody gave me.”
