Ladies and Gentlemen: Obama / Biden '08

Barack Obama introduces his VP choice, Joe Biden:

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Excerpts from Joe Biden's speech:

And ladies and gentlemen, these are no ordinary times, and this is no ordinary election. Because the truth of the matter is, and you know it, that American dream under eight years of Bush and McCain, that American dream is slipping away. I don't have to tell you that. You feel it in your lives. You see it in your shrinking wages, and the cost of everything from groceries to health care to college to filling up your car at the gas station. It keeps going up and up and up, and the future keeps receding further and further and further away as you reach for your dreams.

You know, ladies and gentlemen, it is not a mere political saying. I say with every fiber of my being I believe we cannot as a nation stand for four more years of this. We cannot afford to keep giving tax cuts after tax cuts to big corporations and the wealthiest Americans while the middle-class America, middle-class families are falling behind and their wages are actually shrinking. We can't afford four more years of a government that does nothing while they watch the housing market collapse. As you know, it's not just the millions of people facing foreclosure. It's the tens of millions of your neighbors who are seeing the values of their homes drop off a cliff along with their dreams.

Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine. You sit there at night before you put the kids, after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you're worried about being able to pay the bills. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It's a pretty hard experience. He'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at.

Folks, again, it's not political sloganeering when I say we literally can't afford four more years of this non-energy policy written by and for the oil companies, making us more and more dependent from hostile nations on our ability to run this country and literally, not figuratively, literally putting America's security at risk; we can't afford four more years of a foreign policy that has shredded our alliances and sacrificed our moral standing around the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's the bad news. But there is good news, America. We don't have to have four more years of George W. Bush and John McCain. The next president of the United States is going to be delivered to the most significant moment in American history since Franklin Roosevelt. He will have such an incredible opportunity, incredible opportunity, not only to change the direction of America but literally, literally to change the direction of the world. Barack Obama and I believe, we believe with every fiber in our being that our families, our communities as Americans, there's not a single solitary challenge we cannot face if we level with the American people. And I don't say that to say it; history, history has shown it. When have Americans ever, ever, ever, ever, ever let their country down when they've had a leader to lead them?

Ladies and gentlemen, we believe that our tomorrows will be better than our yesterdays, and we believe we'll pass on to our children an even better life than the one we lived. That literally has been the American way, and it can be that way again. But there's a big, missing piece. The missing piece is leadership.

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I'll say straight up to you — John McCain, and the press knows this, is genuinely a friend of mine. I've known John for 35 years. He served our country with extraordinary courage and I know he wants to do right by America. But the harsh truth is, ladies and gentlemen, you can't change America when you boast - and these are John's words - quote, "The most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush."

Ladies and gentlemen, that's what he said. You can't change America when you supported George Bush's policies 95 percent of the time. You can't change America when you believe - and these are his own words - "...that in the Bush administration we've made great progress economically." You can't change America and make things better for our senior citizens when you signed on to Bush's scheme of privatizing Social Security. You can't change America and give our workers a fighting chance when after 3 million manufacturing jobs disappeared, you continue to support tax breaks for companies who ship our jobs overseas. You can't change America and end this war in Iraq when you declare - and, again, these are John's words - "...no one has supported President Bush in Iraq more than I have," end of quote. Ladies and gentlemen, you can't change America, you can't change America when you know your first four years as president will look exactly like the last eight years of George Bush's presidency.

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And during those 18 months, I must tell you, frankly, I've been disappointed in my friend, John McCain, who gave in to the right wing of his party and yielded to the very swift-boat politics that he so — once so deplored. And folks, campaigns for presidents are a test of character and leadership. And in this campaign, one candidate, one candidate has passed that test.

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Ladies and gentlemen, this is no ordinary time. This is no ordinary election. And this may be our last chance to reclaim the America we love, to restore America's soul.

Transcript at NPR.org