Obama: It's time for Americans to stand for change (NH Union Leader Op-Ed)

Colobo

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Wed Jan-02-08 12:51 AM
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Obama: It's time for Americans to stand for change (NH Union Leader Op-Ed)

THIS IS a defining moment for our generation. Our nation is at war. Our planet is in peril. Our American dream is slipping away. We've never paid more for health care or college. It's harder to save and retire.

At this moment, we cannot wait any longer for universal health care or good jobs or living wages and pensions we can count on. We cannot wait to fix our schools or halt global warming or end this war in Iraq.

I chose to run for President because I believed that the size of these challenges had outgrown the capacity of our broken and divided politics to solve them; that Americans of every political stripe were hungry for a new kind of politics that focused not just on how to win but why we should and represented those values and ideals that we held in common as Americans; a politics that favored common sense over ideology, straight talk over spin.

I chose to run because we can't afford four more years of the same divisive food fight in Washington that's about scoring political points instead of solving problems, tearing your opponents down instead of lifting this country up.

We can't afford the same politics of fear that tells Democrats that the only way to look tough on national security is to talk, act, and vote like George Bush Republicans; that invokes 9/11 as a way to scare up votes instead of a challenge that should unite all Americans to defeat our real enemies.

We can't afford to be so worried about losing the next election that we lose the battles we owe to the next generation.

The real gamble in this election is playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expecting a different result. And that's a risk we can't take. Not this year. Not when the stakes are this high.

In this election, it is time to turn the page. It is time to stand for change.

This has been our message since the beginning of this campaign. It was our message when we were down and our message when we were up. And it must be catching on, because in these last few weeks, everyone is talking about change.

But you can't at once argue that you're the master of a broken system in Washington and offer yourself as the person to change it. You can't fall in line behind the conventional thinking on issues as profound as war and offer yourself as the leader who is best prepared to chart a new and better course for America.

The truth is, you can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people and it will bring real results if we have the courage to change. I believe deeply in those words. But they are not mine. They were Bill Clinton's in 1992, when Washington insiders questioned his readiness to lead.

My experience is rooted in the lives of the men and women I fought for as an organizer when the local steel plant closed. It's rooted in the lives of the people I stood up for as a civil rights lawyer when they were denied opportunity on the job or justice at the voting booth because of what they looked like or where they came from. It's rooted in an understanding of how the world sees America that I gained from living, traveling, and having family beyond our shores -- an understanding that led me to oppose this war in Iraq from the start.

It's experience rooted in the real lives of real people, and it's the kind of experience Washington needs right now. Because if we keep doing things the way we've always done them, we'll keep getting the same results. And that's not good enough -- not this time.

This election -- this moment -- is too important to settle for what we know. It is time to reach for what we know is possible.

And if you will stand with me on Jan. 8 -- if you will stand for change so that our children have the same chance that somebody gave us; if you'll stand to keep the American dream alive for those who still hunger for opportunity and thirst for justice; if you're ready to stop settling for what the cynics tell you that you must accept, and finally reach for what you know is possible, then the real journey -- to heal a nation and repair the world -- will have truly begun.

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Barack+Obama%3A+It's+time+for+Americans+to+stand+for+change&articleId=e3fcbe99-543e-4406-944b-fed7252bf6da