Senator Barack Obama's Iowa Caucus Victory Speech (1/3/08)

[cenacle]

January 3, 2008

Senator Barack Obama's Iowa Caucus Victory Speech

They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose.

But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do.

You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have done what America can do in this new year, 2008.

In lines that stretched around schools and churches, in small towns and in big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to stand up and say that we are one nation. We are one people. And our time for change has come.

You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that's consumed Washington.

To end the political strategy that's been all about division, and instead make it about addition. To build a coalition for change that stretches through red states and blue states.

Because that's how we'll win in November, and that's how we'll finally meet the challenges that we face as a nation.

We are choosing hope over fear.

We're choosing unity over division, and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.

You said the time has come to tell the lobbyists who think their money and their influence speak louder than our voices that they don't own this government -- we do. And we are here to take it back.

The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and the challenges we face, who will listen to you and learn from you, even when we disagree, who won't just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to know.

And in New Hampshire, if you give me the same chance that Iowa did tonight, I will be that president for America.

I'll be a president who finally makes health care affordable and available to every single American, the same way I expanded health care in Illinois, by...

... by bringing Democrats and Republicans together to get the job done. I'll be a president who ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and put a middle-class tax cut into the pockets of working Americans who deserve it.

I'll be a president who harnesses the ingenuity of farmers and scientists and entrepreneurs to free this nation from the tyranny of oil once and for all.

And I'll be a president who ends this war in Iraq and finally brings our troops home...

... who restores our moral standing, who understands that 9/11 is not a way to scare up votes but a challenge that should unite America and the world against the common threats of the 21st century.

Common threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease.

Tonight, we are one step closer to that vision of America because of what you did here in Iowa.

And so I'd especially like to thank the organizers and the precinct captains, the volunteers and the staff who made this all possible.

And while I'm at it on thank yous, I think it makes sense for me to thank the love of my life, the rock of the Obama family, the closer on the campaign trail.

Give it up for Michelle Obama.

I know you didn't do this for me. You did this -- you did this because you believed so deeply in the most American of ideas -- that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.

I know this. I know this because while I may be standing here tonight, I'll never forget that my journey began on the streets of Chicago doing what so many of you have done for this campaign and all the campaigns here in Iowa, organizing and working and fighting to make people's lives just a little bit better.

I know how hard it is. It comes with little sleep, little pay and a lot of sacrifice. There are days of disappointment. But sometimes, just sometimes, there are nights like this; a night that, years from now, when we've made the changes we believe in, when more families can afford to see a doctor, when our children -- when Malia and Sasha and your children inherit a planet that's a little cleaner and safer, when the world sees America differently, and America sees itself as a nation less divided and more united, you'll be able to look back with pride and say that this was the moment when it all began.

This was the moment when the improbable beat what Washington always said was inevitable.

This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long; when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when we finally gave Americans who have never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so.

This was the moment when we finally beat back the policies of fear and doubts and cynicism, the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up. This was the moment.

Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope. For many months, we've been teased, even derided for talking about hope. But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path.

It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.

Hope is what I saw in the eyes of the young woman in Cedar Rapids who works the night shift after a full day of college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill. A young woman who still believes that this country will give her the chance to live out her dreams.

Hope is what I heard in the voice of the New Hampshire woman who told me that she hasn't been able to breathe since her nephew left for Iraq. Who still goes to bed each night praying for his safe return.

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. What led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. What led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.

Hope -- hope is what led me here today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America.

Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

That is what we started here in Iowa and that is the message we can now carry to New Hampshire and beyond.

The same message we had when we were up and when we were down; the one that can save this country, brick by brick, block by block, (inaudible) that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

Because we are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America. And in this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again.

Thank you, Iowa.

[cenacle]

This was the speech that made me decide to support Obama. This, and Hillary Clinton's cynical triangulation campaign, going for whomever will vote for her, standing for nothing, running on her husband's record rather than her own accomplishments. Obama gives me, and a lot of others, hope, and his background in Chicago politics, a barefisted environment, makes me think he can handle the corporate media, and the Republican hate machine.

[laughingwillow]

Right on, cen.

I don't get the feeling Obama is telling us what he thinks we want to hear. Rather, he's been telling people what we need to hear, imo.

One example of this, early on, was when he went to Detroit to meet with union leaders. He basically told them how he felt, (took them to task, really) listened to what they had to say and hit the pavement knowing full well he would be enjoying little or no union support in his presidential bid.

No pandering, no strings.

Throwing open the door to the middle school sent a blast of hot, sticky air into the cold night. I'd walked to the caucus site as I like to do on election nights. And on the way, I exercised my god-given right to catch a fire and contemplate. It was a longer, colder walk than expected but I managed to stay toasty. The humid air from the middle-school fogged over my glasses as I made my way into the throng of people forming a line which snaked its way up one side of the hallway and down the other.

"Hi, I'm Chris Dodd's sister-in-law. Want a sticker?" the woman asked.

"Uh, sure," I stammered while attempting to wipe down foggy lenses. The sticker was pressed onto the chest of my coat seconds before the coat came off.

"Hey, want an Obama sticker?" asked the girl wearing a pin on her chest that read, "Hot Chicks Dig Obama." I slapped the sticker on my tee-shirt before replacing my glasses.

Then I noticed the line was really two. Back in the corner, eight or nine folks stood outside the door of the school gymnasium waiting the enter the republican caucuses. The other line, maybe 50 or 60 people were waiting to enter the packed auditorium. Once inside, I had to wind my way to the front to change my party affiliation (for the night) from independent to democrat.

Making my way back to the Obama camp in the far corner of the room wasn't easy. I ended up standing behind the hottie campaign aid who had given me the sticker. As the initial counts were being tallied, I began to notice a distinctly familiar odor in the humid air; the dank smell of freedom. And after about an hour of standing in those tight sweaty confines, that smell began to grow and permeate everything in a growing radius of the source.

Folks around me started getting giddy at the realization that Obama was way out front of the other candidates. When a fellow near by made a couple of telephone calls and announced the results appeared to be the same in other precincts, a cheer went up from the Obama crowd.

"The smell of change is in the air!" shouted an exuberant caucus-goer behind me.

Just then Hottie turned around, looked me in the eyes and said, "Is THAT what I smell in the air?"

"Amen, sistah," I said, grabbing my coat and heading toward the door for another taste of sweet freedom.....  - the book of laughingwillow -

lw

[Stonehenge]

I'm with lw on this one. It certainly was not some speech that got me on Obama's bandwagon. If one speech can sell you then another speech can turn you the other way. I said early on he was the best of the demos but it looked like he had no chance.

Cen, instead of having to reluctantly support Hill-billy simply because of the "D" tag, now you can vote for principle. Glad you finally came around. Not that you haven't always had principles, I know you do, but you seem to have been taken in by the old 'lesser of the evils' argument that just leads to more of the same old thing.

I for one would not have voted D if it was the bitch as the nominee. If it was Obama vs Paul, I may still have gone Obama since Paul does have some extreme views on things. He is however the best of the R's.

Just my 2 cents.

[cenacle]

No, it was that speech. I liked it, it impressed me with its breadth and intelligence. It was no bullshit. There was empathy in it, and the presence of a good, interesting mind.

Some of confronting politics is thinking, some is instinct. I know he isn't perfect, and I'm not convinced he will win the nomination. If Hillary beats him out, I will vote for her. I'm not eager about her, but I know she will pull us back from the brink. I think Obama, however, will do better, and so I support him for now.

Politics isn't pretty, that speech of Obama's gave me a moment of relief, and hope. Is it a matter of principle? No. Not really. It's a matter of getting the US out of Iraq, trying to fix the broken US economy, doing some battle with corporate interests, reinvigorating international diplomacy in the face of inevitable crises. That's all. Obama seems ready for this fight, and I think he will wage it from a higher ground than Clinton. But she would wage it too.

Paul is a nut job like the rest of the current crop of Repukes. But if they suddenly got a good man in that crop, I'd give him a shot. My old Senator from Connecticut, Lowell Weicker, was one of the best statesmen I've ever known. He was a Republican, who later became an Independent. I've rarely voted for a man as enthusiastically as I did for him. Were he running for the Presidency, I'd be out campaigning for him. The "D Label," as you call it, has nothing to do with the reality of my thinking.

[Glandmaster]

Any one choosing a candidate on the basis of personality and speech making is playing into the propaganda machine known as political campaigning.

Try these tests to see who fits your views on the actual issues not on personalities:

//http://www.dehp.net/candidate/

//http://www.speakout.com/VoteMatch/senate2006.asp?quiz=2008

Or try this at a glance thingy:

//http://www.2decide.com/table.htm

THERE IS NO WAY OF HOLDING A POLITICAL CANDIDATE TO CAMPAIGN PROMISES! So I suggest you ignore them and do your own thinking. Marilyn Von Savant   (the worlds allegedly smartest person) suggests getting less news is one of the first big steps to increasing your intelligence. In the Murdoch era it may also be the first steps to climbing out of the political hole the US has plunged the world into.

If you must allow someone else to do your thinking for you keep this sites tools handy to cut through the bs.

[cenacle]

Hey, great, I support Kucinich highest on the first, Clinton on the second. Strangely, Gravel ranks highly for me for both of those. Obama ranks 3rd or 4th for me. Dodd and Biden too. Thanks, GM, cool quizzes. Useful tools, though I only buy into them so much.

I am hoping Kucinich gets a Cabinet level post, along with Biden. Neither is going to win the White House in '08, no chance. I don't support Hillary right now, though I would if she were the Dems general election candidate.  I support Obama for intellectual and emotional reasons grown up over months and months of reading about him and the other candidates, and his victory and amazing speech as a capper.

But I did not choose Obama on one speech, alas the literalness of the 'net. I was leaning his way, unconvinced of his electability and how much I really cared for him as a person and as a candidate. His victory and speech after Iowa convinced me he can win and I can support him with enthusiasm.

As for speeches being propaganda, I disagree. Listen to Bush's speeches. Cut through the bullshit rhetoric and you find a man who says he oppposes the UN, and does, intends to keep us in Iraq forever, and will til he leaves office, opposes federal stem cell research funding and has vetoed it time and again, etc etc. Speeches must be lined up with actions, but no, I do not agree that they are not empty in usefulness.

As for candidates, one must look at their speeches and past actions, and also feel out one's intinct. My most key issue currently is Iraq, and Obama has said he will end the war and bring American troops home. The Repuke candiates are not saying that. If Obama is elected, I expect him, with a Democratic majority in Congress, to end the war and bring the troops home. If not, I'll be in the streets with a lot of others, not for having been gullible, but for having been lied to.

It's a roll of the dice no matter who one votes for and supports. Humans are not completely trustworthy, and even good intention can be thwarted or betrayed. We'll see, huh?

[Stonehenge]

Cen, you are a hard line demo regardless of what you tell us.

"It's a matter of getting the US out of Iraq,"

I have news for you, the bitch already said we are staying in Iraq if she wins.

"trying to fix the broken US economy"

She has no clue how to do this. All her proposals involve massive deficit spending.

"doing some battle with corporate interests"

More like putting their contributions in her pocket like Bill did.

"reinvigorating international diplomacy in the face of inevitable crises."

That she could do better than Bush. But so could your dog.

I know you care about none of that but at least you are steered towards the better candidate at the moment. Until Hill-billy makes a good speech, then it could change again. If you are going to vote D no matter if the candidate promises endless war, at least vote for a good D that might actually pull us out.

[cenacle]

None of that denies the fact that come November a new president will be elected, and he or she will be in one of the major parties. No third party has raised the money and visible awareness to make a challenge. The most progressive of the major candidates, John Edwards, is being freezed out of mainstream media coverage. Kucinich is entirely ignored.

The choices already are few. Clinton, Obama, or one of the Republican lunatics. That's what we're facing. I've said I'm not high on Clinton, though I don't see her through the same lens as you do. I'm supporting Obama though I know he too is flawed and somewhat compromised. There's nothing pretty in any of this. It's just politics, not even statescraft. I wish it was a debate among people from the whole spectrum, instead of people who range from slightly left of center to so right they are off the fucking charts. It's not.

I wish it was philosophical debate about what humans owe each other, regardless of citizenship, gender, ethnicity, etc., and what place we have currently and could have in nature. How to live better with each and all. It's not. It's a cartoonish, puerile rush toward electing a person we will hardly know even as he or she takes the oath of office and assumes the "finger on the button" position for annihilating the Earth, or not.

When the big news story of the day is whether Hillary shed "real" tears in a stressful moment, then something is so fucked up and wrong that it's impossible to put into words. But regardless, the election is coming, it's already happening.

We don't disagree much, Stoney. And we are, like everyone else, stuck in the middle of all this. The only thing I can offer up is what hope I have, that I insist on keeping, that life can get better as it can get worse. Whether this is justified, or simply what I need to get up in the morning, I don't know.

[Stonehenge]

I see where you're coming from, cen. And no, we don't disagree that much. We both want change from the status quo. I too agree that Obama is flawed and I'm not totally sold on the fact that he will undo all the bad things going on. In fact I'm sure he won't but if he changes a few of the bad things, that would be monumental. He offers hope which is more than any other candidate offers.

I won't vote for Hillbilly under any circumstances. The lesser of the evils argument is what got us where we are now. Sticking with the major parties is also what got us into this mess. It's like there are only two oil companies or insurance companies or only 2 whatever in the country. They raise prices and offer an inferior product. Give them some real competition, and after they get done crying about it, they lower prices and raise quality to get back the customers. Same thing with politics. We need some real competition.

[winder]

Still lurking from time to time...
but regarding Hillary vs Obama:

Hillary, besides being opportunistic, is sometimes just dumb.
She called for a direct election of the president in 2000 after the Florida debacle.  Stupid.  She would never have been First Lady with a direct election of the president, since Bill Clinton would have lost in a runoff in 1992 with Perot's supporters going back to Bush.

But Obama is very electable, as evidenced by his being a Senator from Illinois no less.  Illinois is the most representative state of the U.S. as a whole.  No other state matches to the U.S. as a whole as well as Illinois.  I will be quite surprised if  Obama does not get the nomination.

[senorsalvia]

Great analysis of Illinois and where it stands Winder...  Accurate I think, as well....  The thing that troubles me, is that I am certainly leery of the Illinois machine in general.  That makes me quite hesitant to support their 'New Offering' for a new time Obama....  Does it not make sense that Obama by virtue of his connections to the Il machine has alot of deep explaining concerning what his visions really are??...  How can we be even partially assured that he is not but mouthing platitudes while attemting to serve up another old guard Dem platter?....