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This is why I stuck by this guy. This is speaking truth to power. This is the power of a REAL Democrat.
Remarks by Senator John Kerry
December 27, 2003
Manchester, NH -
As Prepared For Delivery
One month from today, the people of New Hampshire will speak – and your voice and votes will have a shaping influence on the future of our party, our country and the world. In perhaps the most important election year in a generation, you will give your answer to the most important question of this primary season:
Will we have the strength and the credibility to not just produce a nominee, but to actually win the Presidency – so we can change the radical course George Bush has set for America?
Will we offer the nation the proven capacity and commitment to take on powerful special interests – and the experience and judgment to advance our national security in a time of unprecedented danger and – although it is sometimes difficult to see – unparalleled opportunity?
The day after the primary, the town meetings will be over and the yard signs will be down. The airwaves will be promoting long distance plans instead of 10-point plans. And, believe it or not, most of the political reporters will disappear – at least for a little while.
But the decision you make on that day will be yours and yours alone. In the Granite State, “Live Free or Die” has real meaning – it speaks to your independence. And on January 27th, you get to pick your choice – not just to run against George Bush, but to beat him; not just to denounce him, but to defeat him; not just to offer a new vision, but to enact a new reality for America – where we are a leader in the world, not an arrogant unilateral force; where the economy once again works for all Americans – and especially for working families; where we teach and inspire our children; and where health care is a fundamental right and not a privilege.
A lot rides on the decision you make on that day. For 225 years, hardworking, everyday Americans have opened a path to greater progress and prosperity, toward the fullness of equality and justice, of rising hope and true community. We may have sometimes fallen short – or even taken two steps forward and one step back; but when we moved together, we have moved closer to the America we can become – for our own people, for the country, and for all the world.
That sense of vision, of the best America, has been lost under George W. Bush. At home, he has taken us down the road of more inequality and unfairness, where the powerful buy favors and families find it harder and harder to earn a better future. Abroad, he has taken us down the road of unilateralism and pre-emption, where we stand almost alone, isolated from our allies – where swagger replaces true strength, and America is less secure.
I want to remind America that our national greatness – that the might of our national soul – the can-do spirit of optimism that defines America – comes from the talents, energy, and caring of millions who aren’t rich or famous, but who do their part and do what’s right. They’re not captains of industry or corporate leaders on the cover of Fortune, but they get up each morning, go to work, raise their kids, worry about their parents, help their neighbors and love their country. They don’t want special favors or special recognition. They simply want economic justice – an economy where they can succeed, a country that rewards what’s right, a government that’s on their side.
The extremes of this Administration have brought back the days of deficits, debt, and special deals. They have put the interests of the President’s big shot campaign contributors ahead of the people he passes by in his motorcade. They have looked the other way while corporate crooks in corner office suites have defrauded everyday investors and destroyed the retirement savings of workers.
The President may have gotten to the White House by accident, but his Administration has turned being wealthy into an entitlement supported by the wages of average Americans. I know these words are hard to believe sometimes. The world of politics has stripped them of their meaning. But facts do speak a truth and the facts are stunning.
George Bush’s tax cut will give more to millionaires than to all other Americans combined. It’s wrong that the sixteen biggest corporations in America will get $100 billion in tax cuts while this President cuts health care for veterans, benefits for the unemployed, and textbooks for our schools. It’s wrong when he lets corporate execs make a bundle, while leaving workers holding the bag. Back in 1980, CEOs made 45 times the pay of average workers. Last year, they made nearly 250 times as much.
If you can afford an army of lawyers and lobbyists you get special treatment – and everyone in New Hampshire now knows what that means. Tyco used to be based in Exeter. Almost overnight, it was suddenly based in Bermuda. No one had to move, but in a flash 400 million dollars a year in tax dollars disappeared into the Bermuda triangle. And 11, 000 jobs vanished at the same time. And it’s wrong that the Bush Administration then rewarded this corporate Benedict Arnold with $331 million in federal contracts.
George Bush’s economy lavishes more on those who already have the most, rewards companies for moving jobs overseas, sells off our environment to polluters, and again and again elevates a creed of greed. George Bush is celebrating a recovery – and it is a recovery – for some. Corporate profits are up 46 percent – a modern record. But we’re also setting records in terms of jobs and wages – in the wrong direction. We’ve lost more jobs than any President since Herbert Hoover and wage growth in the so-called “recovery” over the past six months has totaled three cents – the slowest wage growth in 40 years. I’m not satisfied with a job-loss, wage-loss recovery – and to put America back to work, we need to put George Bush and Dick Cheney out of work.
So what’s at stake in this election is a fundamental issue: We need a strong growing economy that creates good jobs for Americans and not just big profits on Wall Street.
We have to connect our farms and small towns and inner cities to real opportunity – and connect America to the opportunities of a global economy. We have to connect our workers to the high-paying jobs of the future so that Americans can do more than just make ends meet – but can actually get ahead and give their kids a real shot at a better life. We have to bring the promise of innovation and new discoveries to the Merrimack Valley and not just Silicon Valley. And we can no longer let crooked CEO’s or foreign countries get away with breaking the rules.
Above all else, we have to make sure families can pay their bills and save for the future and send their kids to college. And yet fairness is about even more than that. It’s about all the things you won’t find in an economic report. It’s about a country that values neighborhoods and not just the NASDAQ. It’s about a country where parents can make a living and still spend time with their children. It’s about a country where we don’t poison the air our children breathe in the quest for a fast buck.
It’s also time for a President who really knows how to make our country more secure. We all have a simple message for the young Americans who have carried the burden of war and tracked down Saddam Hussein: Job well done. Let there be no doubt about it: There are still great dangers to be faced and overcome, but the capture of Saddam has made America safer.
Yet we will not defeat the continuing dangers by continuing down the unilateralist road. Let me put it plainly: George Bush has run the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history. He’s pushed the fight against al Quaeda to the sidelines. And he’s pushed our allies away when we need their help more than ever. We are bearing the burdens almost alone – and the Administration is paying the bill by cutting air marshals and leaving the police and firefighters who are the first line of our homefront defense without the tools and resources they need. We simply shouldn’t be opening firehouses in Baghdad, and closing them down in the United States of America.
At stake in 2004 is nothing less than our claim to leadership in this world. And we as Democrats not only have an opportunity to win this election; we have a responsibility to win it – to remove George Bush from power and restore America to its true strength and ideals.
One month from today, all of you here in New Hampshire will have your chance to put our country on the right course. Before America chooses which path to take, you will have a choice to make about what kind of leadership – and what kind of leader – the Democratic Party should offer to America.
Two roads are diverging in the New Hampshire woods and the nation looks to you to determine the character and direction of our party.
I believe any Democrat we could nominate for President would do a better job than George Bush. We shouldn’t pretend that any of them are George Bush or Newt Gingrich or anyone else. But we also shouldn’t pretend that there aren’t real differences, that we don’t come from different experiences and that we don’t have different visions of America’s possibilities and place in the world.
We all agree that the stakes in this election are high, that this administration has taken us in a radically wrong direction. Clearly, the question facing Democrats is not should we replace George Bush? Rather, the questions are how can we make sure we replace George Bush? And after we take back the White House, what will we do when we get there?
New Hampshire's decision comes down to this: A choice between a candidate who, for all his anger, is on the wrong track economically and has no experience on the major security issues of the day. Or a steady and consistent hand with experience in growing our economy, balancing our national budget, and making America more secure. It’s a choice between anger and answers.
Yes, there's a lot to be angry about. But – more importantly – there’s a lot to fix. And we know how to do it.
We all agree that George Bush’s unilateral foreign policy is wrong – and it will not work. But the answer is not to take a wrong road of our own – a road of confusion and contradiction – where American voters can’t trust what we say or trust us to lead.
We live in a dangerous world – where leadership demands more than simple answers and the latest slip of the tongue. Our world is complicated and the challenges we face demand a President who knows what he’s saying and knows where America needs to go.
When a candidate, in the span of a couple days, goes from saying the capture of Saddam Hussein marks “a great day for the Iraqi people, the U.S., and the international community” to saying that “the capture of Saddam has not made America safer,” it raises serious doubts about both his realism and resolve.
When he asserts Saddam Hussein’s capture “could have taken place six months ago” without ever suggesting how and when he spreads unfounded rumors about the Administration having prior warning of September 11th and passes it off because someone had posted it on the Internet, it leaves Americans questioning his judgment and sense of responsibility.
And when he adds that as President he would have acted in Iraq “had the United Nations given us permission,” he cedes to other nations an unprecedented veto power over America’s security.
Then, just yesterday, he had to issue another press statement clearing up the confusion he caused about whether or not he thought that Osama bin Laden is guilty of September 11th. After bin Laden himself proudly proclaimed it and threatened to do it again. After we went to war to avenge the attack. What kind of muddled thinking is it if you can’t instantly say that in your heart you know bin Laden is guilty? People are left wondering: What will he say next? You don’t have to listen too carefully to hear the sound of champagne corks popping in Karl Rove’s office.
Someone who talks like this is going to have a hard time convincing the American people he can keep them safe. After every episode, comes a statement trying to explain it away. Will Americans really vote for a foreign policy by clarifying press release?
This election is too vital for us to lose it because voters refuse to take a gamble on national security and the steadiness of our leadership. We need a nominee who has the ability to stand up to George Bush, prove we can keep America safe and be trusted to win the war on terror.
George Bush and Karl Rove say they want to run on the issue of security. They certainly can’t run on health care or education or their record on jobs. But if they turn this contest to security, we have to be able to meet them there. And when I hear that’s where they want to go, for my part, I have three simple words for them that I know they understand: Bring. It. On.
This is a perilous moment in history. We cannot master this moment with a stubborn unilateralism – or with confusion and retreat. We need to do what the Democratic Party has always done. Offer America the road of both strength and principle. Only then can we win, and only then will we deserve to win.
And in this primary, we face an equally important decision on the economy and on decisions here at home. Here, too, we know what is wrong with George Bush. He holds the national Presidential record for job destruction – three million lost jobs in less than three years. We have the weakest economic growth in more than 50 years. And we have seen the federal budget plunge from a surplus of nearly $300 billion into a deficit of over $500 billion.
We as Democrats must take the road of fiscal responsibility. I’ve fought for that all my public life. During the Reagan years, I stood up to my own party’s leadership and said we had to do the right thing and balance the budget. As President, I would do what Bill Clinton did – cut the budget deficit in half in my first term. I have a plan to do it – and I’ve told everyone what that is.
So, New Hampshire has a choice ahead. There’s a candidate who will stand up for the middle class people who built America and who have suffered enough under George Bush. And then there’s a candidate who thinks the way to balance our budget is at the expense of the families who are struggling to balance theirs. Getting rid of the 10% tax bracket and the expansion of the child tax credit and bringing back the marriage penalty would cost an average New Hampshire middle-class family making $40,000 and trying to raise two kids $2000 more in taxes. If we truly want to stand up for middle-class families and ease their burden, I know that we can do better than that.
And the most important choice of all – the road we must take – one that is well understood here in New Hampshire – is the road of straight talk.
It is not enough as a candidate to rail against “Ken Lay and the boys,” if as Governor you gave Enron and other big corporations tax shelters that were designed to turn Vermont into a snowy Bermuda.
It is not enough as a candidate to say you will protect our safety net and the poorest and most vulnerable Americans if, to keep your promises, you will have to end up cutting Medicare for seniors, Medicaid for the disabled, health care for veterans, school lunches for our kids. If we’re willing to cut away at the safety net for those who need it, or give up on the middle class families who are in trouble today, then our problem is more than a budget that’s out of balance. It’s a Democratic Party whose values are out of
whack.
And it’s wrong to twist the truth into an attack. Howard Dean says he’s the only Democrat who’s balanced a budget, but courageous Democrats, including some of those running for President, worked with Bill Clinton to balance the budget in the 1990s. Howard Dean says he’s the only candidate who’s provided health care to poor children, but some of the other candidates in this race worked hard to provide a major expansion for health for children all over this country. Howard Dean says he’s the only candidate who talks about race in front of white audiences, but many of the candidates in this field have dedicated themselves to this cause – the legacy of our Democratic Party. These candidates are good people. And they deserve better than to have their hard work and their records dismissed and distorted for political advantage.
Either this candidate means something when he says these things – or else the candidate is not talking to straight to the American people.
I believe the American people will rally to the cause of a candidate who offers a clear alternative to George Bush and offers a clear positive vision of where they want to take America in the years ahead. In my first hundred days in the White House, I will roll back George Bush’s tax cut for the wealthiest so that we can invest in education and health care. I will restore the protections for clean air and clean water that George Bush has allowed lobbyists to strip away. I will introduce as my first piece of major legislation a realistic plan to stop spiraling health care costs and make health care a right, and not a privilege. And I will end George Bush’s wrong-headed go-it-alone policies and lead America to rejoin the community of nations in a new alliance to combat our common foes.
No, we can’t beat George Bush by being Bush-lite. But we also won’t beat George Bush by being light on national security, light on fairness for middle-class Americans, or light on the values that make us Democrats.
In one month, all across New Hampshire, you will have a large part in determining which road we travel, and whether we will lead our party back to victory – and our country in a new direction. This is your state, your primary – and now it’s your turn to decide that outcome. And people here who know this is not just about playing politics; its about choosing a President.
In every generation, there’s a moment when we’re tested as a nation. And the amazing thing about America is that every time we’ve ended up passing the test and coming out stronger. It happened with the Great Depression and World War II. Thirty years later it was the movement for civil rights and the struggle to end the Vietnam War. Today, with America and freedom itself under attack, with so many jobs gone, with our civil liberties at risk and too many people in pain, it’s happening again. This is our time. This is our test. This is where our generation shows we can think big and dream bigger and match the courage that came before us.
So vote like our future depends on it. Vote like health care for all depends on it. Vote like the poor and the disabled and the voiceless people in our country are depending on it. Vote like peace and security depend on it. Vote like tomorrow’s Americans are depending on it – because they are.
Two roads have diverged in the New Hampshire woods. One of them takes us toward retreat and confusion about our responsibility in the world, our responsibilities to working families, our responsibility to talk straight to the American people – and our obligation to win their confidence and their votes next November. The other road takes us toward a more secure nation at peace where we protect our people and defend our values at the same time. It takes us toward opportunity for all, and not just the few. It is the road of answers and not just anger. And for Democrats, it is the road to the White House.
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