[0:20]Barack Obama in 2004 was totally unknown. People were saying, huh, I don't know who this guy is. I wonder why they picked him. He had the reputation as a bit of an upstart, as sort of a young, rising figure in the party, but no one knew who this guy was. This was his chance to introduce himself to people. Tonight is a particular honor for me, because let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. What makes a great political speech is if you can somehow fold your story into this larger American story. The next thing he says is about his mother's family, his grandfather fought in World War II, he used the GI Bill, he settled in Kansas, so white people could say, uh oh, he's just like us. My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
[1:36]Going into this speech, we've had uh four years of George Bush, and we felt as a country like we've grown further apart. O4 was very much a divisive partisan race. Obama's speech is in in some ways an antidote to that. Alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we're all connected as one people. If there's a child on the South side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription drugs and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poor even if it's not my grandparent. It is that fundamental belief, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper, that makes this country work. E Pluribus Unum, out of many one. He gives a speech that presages his entire political message of 2008, which is this sort of post-partisan argument. Now, even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America.
[3:01]Obama was born with two great gifts, one is his mind, and the other is his ability to speak to large groups of people. There are three things that Obama does that really makes that speech effective. He wants concrete detail. He likes story, and he loves antithesis, the use of repetition in structure to show contrast. There is not a liberal America or a conservative America, there is one America. There is not a black America and a white America, and Latino America, and Asian America, there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states, but I've got news for them too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. We coach little league in the blue states, and yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. The way he uses his hands, he actually points a lot and does a lot of this and a lot of this and a lot of that. In doing so, he gives off this sense of energy. I am new. I'm someone who is dynamic. And he doesn't do that so much anymore. He's a little more solemn and reserved when he gives speeches today, but I think it's more reflective of his office.
[4:34]In the end, in the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope? It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores. The hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope of a mill worker's son who dares to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him too. Hope, hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope. His appearance at that convention, which was the best speech of the convention, better than John Kerry's, was electrifying and without it he wouldn't be president. I think sincerity means a lot. There are people who when they speak, they speak the truth as they see it and they're they're very effective doing that. I believe this country will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political darkness, a brighter day will come. Thank you very much, everybody. God bless you.
