Rep. Steny Hoyer
My fellow delegates, tonight, we turn the page on eight years of debt, division and an economy in decline. We turn the page on a Republican administration that has failed to bring Americans together to meet the challenges of an uncertain century. A Republican administration that saw the deadliest attack ever sustained on American soil and called Americans not to serve, but to shop. A Republican administration that inherited a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion, economic policies that created 22 million jobs, a foreign policy that deserved and earned respect around the world, and squandered all of it in an historic failure of leadership.
Eight years later, what do they have to show for it? The surpluses squandered, our national reputation tattered, jobs lost. We all know this. Even John McCain concedes that “we are worse off than we were four years ago.”
But you can’t expect change from a Senator who voted in lockstep with President Bush 95 percent of the last year. No, we can’t afford more of the same. We need new leadership. We need change. It’s time to elect Barack Obama President of the United States!
Americans have been asking for change since November 2006. And we Democrats are heeding the call. We Democrats have been fighting every day for working people and their families. We’ve raised the minimum wage and put the focus back on hard-working Americans, the backbone of our economy.
We’ve passed an energy bill to make our cars more efficient and our conservation more effective. We’re supporting alternative fuels to free us from the tyranny of dependence on foreign oil. We passed a new GI Bill to honor the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. And every day, we strive to honor a principle familiar to every American family: We won’t spend more money than we have.
I am proud of all of those accomplishments. But the truth is that the Republicans in the White House and in the Senate have stopped real change. Americans want a single-minded focus on terrorists’ defeat and al-Qaida’s total destruction, not decades of American troops in Baghdad.
Americans are tired of country club economics. We want an economy that works for all of us, for people who are struggling to own just one home, much less seven. Americans want clean energy and lower gas prices, not subsidies for oil companies making record profits. And Americans want affordable health care for their children and their families.
But we won’t get the change we need with John McCain in the White House. We can, we must do better. With your hard work, on January 20th, Barack Obama will stand on the steps of the Capitol and take the oath of office. We’ll have a President of the United States who will call Americans to service, to excellence, to renewal of the Declaration’s principles that have been a light of inspiration to millions at home and around the world.
Senator Obama has reminded us: “These are the soul-trying times our forebearers spoke of, when the ease of complacency and self-interest must give way. This was true for those who went to Lexington and Concord. It was true for those who lie buried at Gettysburg. It was true for those who built democracy’s arsenal to vanquish fascism.” It must be true of us.
We Democrats pledge ourselves to that cause, to turn the page on the past and give the American story new meaning in this soul-trying new century. When dawn breaks on January 21st, we will begin the long, tough, essential job before us: bringing America the change we need. No matter how challenging, no matter how painstaking it may be, I promise you this: We Democrats will stand shoulder to shoulder with the American people to bring true change, long hoped for and long delayed.
And here in Denver, we ask a man of character, intellect, compassion, vision and achievement to lead that change. Because that is what this moment demands. That is what we must do to renew the promise of our great nation. For the change we need, we must elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden the next president and vice president of the United States of America.
