You Think Obama Just Won The Presidency?

Earlier I mentioned how s pack of bloodthirsty Cossacks chased my grandfather out of his small village when he was eleven years old. He hid in a forest and then he left Russia and came to America. Watching Barack Obama take the stage tonight brought tears to my eyes and all I could think of was "can this man save us from a national nightmare that has brought our country closer to authoritarianism and absolutism that my grandfather fled from when he arrived in NYC penniless and alone at the age of twelve.

I want so much for him to rise to the challenge of the catastrophic mess we're being left. I want him so much to be Franklin Roosevelt. And what I heard tonight allows me to believe that that's more than just a hopeless dream.

I'll append the YouTube to this as soon as it's ready. Meanwhile, here are some of the lines that made everyone I talked to so far-- and apparently the MSNBC anchors-- that Obama just added 10 points to his bounce. It won't surprise me if the GOP decides to put its convention off so they can run a week of negative campaign ads smearing Obama before they dare face the American people.

1- This country is more generous than one where a man in Indiana has to pack up the equipment he's worked on for twenty years and watch it shipped off to China, and then chokes up as he explains how he felt like a failure when he went home to tell his family the news. 

We are more compassionate than a government that lets veterans sleep on our streets and families slide into poverty; that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes. 
 
Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land-- enough!  This moment-- this election – is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On November 4th, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough." 

2- ...the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time.  Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time?  I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change. 

3-The truth is, on issue after issue that would make a difference in your lives-- on health care and education and the economy-- Senator McCain has been anything but independent. He said that our economy has made "great progress" under this President. He said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. And when one of his chief advisors-- the man who wrote his economic plan-- was talking about the anxiety Americans are feeling, he said that we were just suffering from a "mental recession," and that we've become, and I quote, "a nation of whiners."
 
A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Tell that to the military families who shoulder their burdens silently as they watch their loved ones leave for their third or fourth or fifth tour of duty. These are not whiners. They work hard and give back and keep going without complaint. These are the Americans that I know.

4- Now, I don't believe that Senator McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn't know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people's benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement? 

It's not because John McCain doesn't care. It's because John McCain doesn't get it.

5- For over two decades, he's subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy-- give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is– you're on your own. Out of work?  Tough luck. No health care? The market will fix it. Born into poverty? Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps-- even if you don't have boots. You're on your own. 
 
Well it's time for them to own their failure. It's time for us to change America.

6- Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

7- America, now is not the time for small plans.
 
Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. Michelle and I are only here tonight because we were given a chance at an education. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance. I'll invest in early childhood education. I'll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. And in exchange, I'll ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American-- if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.
 
Now is the time to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don't, you'll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And as someone who watched my mother argue with insurance companies while she lay in bed dying of cancer, I will make certain those companies stop discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.

8- And just as we keep our keep our promise to the next generation here at home, so must we keep America's promise abroad. If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next Commander-in-Chief, that's a debate I'm ready to have.

9- We are the party of Roosevelt. We are the party of Kennedy. So don't tell me that Democrats won't defend this country. Don't tell me that Democrats won't keep us safe. The Bush-McCain foreign policy has squandered the legacy that generations of Americans-- Democrats and Republicans-- have built, and we are here to restore that legacy.

Meanwhile, Associated Press has decided to create its own "news" in the service of electing John McCain. They should be ashamed.

If you missed it, here's 45 minutes of history: