Wow, and amazing speech. Chris Matthew's says his favorite line was "I am the President," and followed up by suggesting Romney is not, and doesn't know what he is doing... is new to foreign policy."
The funniest line was "You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally."
Also strong was "I ask you for your vote" was powerful... as was "I need you to vote this November."
Ed Schultz says, this speech made him feel good.
Al Sharpton says, to the best of my transcription abilities, "The President defied expectations... he made an epic speech, he was substantive, and brought a bigger vision... he elevated ... our hope, laid out policies, and reduced his opponents to people chattering in never, never land, I think he won the election tonight."
Ed Schultz says "Made in America" has become the most tweeted line from the speech.
Andrea Mitchell also notes the many uses of the word choice, or choose which I note Rachel counted below as 24 mentions. Rachel thinks the Romney camp blundered when releasing a pre-written press release saying this election was a choice. Ha!
Below are a few of my favorite sections edited from the transcription editors, in parentheses when the President added to the transcript.
The whole speech could be highlighted, but here are a few paragraphs that gain extra applause, or stood out for me.
But when all is said and done – when you pick up that ballot to vote – you will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation. Over the next few years, big decisions will be made in Washington, on jobs and the economy; taxes and deficits; energy and education; war and peace – decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and our children’s lives for decades to come.
On every issue, the choice you face won’t be just between two candidates or two parties.
It will be a choice between two different paths for America.
A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.
Ours is a fight to restore the values that built the largest middle class and the strongest economy the world has ever known; the values my grandfather defended as a soldier in Patton’s Army; the values that drove my grandmother to work on a bomber assembly line while he was gone.
Rachel Maddow says the word choose of choice occurred over two dozen times making it the key word of the speech, but the response Romney's people put out agreeing that this election is a choice was probably not their best move. Ho, ho, ho!
Now, our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right. They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan. And that’s because all they have to offer is the same prescription they’ve had for the last thirty years:
“Have a surplus? Try a tax cut.”
“Deficit too high? Try another.”
“Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations, and call us in the morning!”
Now, I’ve cut taxes for those who need it – middle-class families and small businesses. But I don’t believe that another round of tax breaks for millionaires will bring good jobs to our shores, or pay down our deficit. I don’t believe that firing teachers or kicking students off financial aid will grow the economy, or help us compete with the scientists and engineers coming out of China. After all that we’ve been through, I don’t believe that rolling back regulations on Wall Street will help the small businesswoman expand, or the laid-off construction worker keep his home. We’ve been there, we’ve tried that, and we’re not going back. We’re moving forward.
I don't believe in firing teachers, or kicking students off of financial aid to give tax breaks to millionaires.
You can choose the path where we control more of our own energy. After thirty years of inaction, we raised fuel standards so that by the middle of the next decade, cars and trucks will go twice as far on a gallon of gas. We’ve doubled our use of renewable energy, and thousands of Americans have jobs today building wind turbines and long-lasting batteries. In the last year alone, we cut oil imports by one million barrels a day – more than any administration in recent history. And today, the United States of America is less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in nearly two decades. ...
We’re offering a better path – a future where we keep investing in wind and solar and clean coal; where farmers and scientists harness new biofuels to power our cars and trucks; where construction workers build homes and factories that waste less energy; where we develop a hundred year supply of natural gas that’s right beneath our feet. If you choose this path, we can cut our oil imports in half by 2020 and support more than 600,000 new jobs in natural gas alone.
And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax. More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And in this election, you can do something about it.
Romney is a total zero when it comes to global warming and renewable energy.
In a world of new threats and new challenges, you can choose leadership that has been tested and proven. Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. We did. I promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11. We have. We’ve blunted the Taliban’s momentum in Afghanistan, and in 2014, our longest war will be over. A new tower rises above the New York skyline, al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and Osama bin Laden is dead.
Even MSNBC new Republican talking head agreed that Romney's omission of a mention to Afghanistan was a blunder.
And so long as I’m Commander-in-Chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known. When you take off the uniform, we will serve you as well as you’ve served us – because no one who fights for this country should have to fight for a job, or a roof over their head, or the care that they need when they come home.
Here the President added to the transcript noting that the new guys were new to foreign policy so haven't got certain things down yet. Whammo!
So now we face a choice. My opponent and his running mate are new to foreign policy, but from all that we’ve seen and heard, they want to take us back to an era of blustering and blundering that cost America so dearly.
After all, you don’t call Russia our number one enemy – and not al Qaeda – unless you’re still stuck in a Cold War time warp. You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can’t visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally. My opponent said it was “tragic” to end the war in Iraq, and he won’t tell us how he’ll end the war in Afghanistan. I have, and I will. And while my opponent would spend more money on military hardware that our Joint Chiefs don’t even want, I’ll use the money we’re no longer spending on war to pay down our debt and put more people back to work – rebuilding roads and bridges; schools and runways. After two wars that have cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, it’s time to do some nation-building right here at home.
Whammo! The President notices Romney is a not-ready-for-prime time player! Bwa, ha, ha!
I want to reform the tax code so that it’s simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000 – the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president; the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history, and a lot of millionaires to boot.
I refuse to ask middle class families to give up their deductions for owning a home or raising their kids just to pay for another millionaire’s tax cut. I refuse to ask students to pay more for college; or kick children out of Head Start programs, or eliminate health insurance for millions of Americans who are poor, elderly, or disabled – all so those with the most can pay less.
I'm not going along with that.
And I will never turn Medicare into a voucher. No American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies.
We know that churches and charities can often make more of a difference than a poverty program alone. We don’t want handouts for people who refuse to help themselves, and we don’t want bailouts for banks that break the rules. We don’t think government can solve all our problems. But we don’t think that government is the source of all our problems – any more than are welfare recipients, or corporations, or unions, or immigrants, or gays, or any other group we’re told to blame for our troubles.
And, saying we are the hope, the President says if we do not make our voices heard the lobbyists will step in and buy this election.
If you turn away now – if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn’t possible…well, change will not happen. If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void: lobbyists and special interests; the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are making it harder for you to vote; Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control health care choices that women should make for themselves.
Only you can make sure that doesn’t happen. Only you have the power to move us forward.
Pausing for dramatic effect, the President lowered his voice and said the words I put in the title.
I recognize that times have changed since I first spoke to this convention. The times have changed – and so have I.
I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs. If the critics are right that I’ve made all my decisions based on polls, then I must not be very good at reading them. And while I’m proud of what we’ve achieved together, I’m far more mindful of my own failings, knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said, “I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.”
A camera sweep of the audience showed an elderly woman of color shaking her head in approval that my 79 year mother loved, because of the reference to praying to God.
And if you share that faith with me – if you share that hope with me – I ask you tonight for your vote.
If you reject the notion that this nation’s promise is reserved for the few, your voice must be heard in this election.
If you reject the notion that our government is forever beholden to the highest bidder, you need to stand up in this election. ...
If you believe that new plants and factories can dot our landscape; that new energy can power our future; that new schools can provide ladders of opportunity to this nation of dreamers; if you believe in a country where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules, then I need you to vote this November.
America, I never said this journey would be easy, and I won’t promise that now. Yes, our path is harder – but it leads to a better place. Yes our road is longer – but we travel it together. We don’t turn back. We leave no one behind. We pull each other up. We draw strength from our victories, and we learn from our mistakes, but we keep our eyes fixed on that distant horizon, knowing that Providence is with us, and that we are surely blessed to be citizens of the greatest nation on Earth.
Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless these United States.
Wow, I'm speechless.
This is an amazing speech. Our President has risen to the occasion.
Can any one even imagine voting for that other guy, who is so new to foreign policy he forget to mention Afghanistan in his speech, and can't even go to London for a feel good trip to London without cheesing off one of our closest allies?
Thu Sep 06, 2012 at 9:22 PM PT: I agree with Jacoby Jonze who points out that when the President said "I am the President" he was not going for the applause line that people gave him but setting up the reflective moment that he had to send people into war, and it was sobering, a comment so important I include here in its entirety. You can see this is interpretation is correct as I included that whole section in the section below the squiggle. When I was searching for a title Chris Matthews called out that sentence was his favorite line and then connected it to the following later that Romney was new to foreign policy, so I thought it made that point as well. Thank Jacoby,
I think people are misreading "I am the President" (1+ / 0-)
It wasn't supposed to be an applause line. He was making the point that he had the weight of the world on him the last four years and he's had to face the real effects of his decisions. It was supposed to be a introspective moment/assessment not a "four more years" applause line.
We have a greed with which we have agreed. -Eddie Vedder "Society"
by Jacoby Jonze on Thu Sep 06, 2012 at 09:05:13 PM PDT
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Yes, you are right about that. I guess I (0+ / 0-)
accidentally taken out of context, because he was clearly introducing the sad deaths of those sent to war. I will highlight your important clarification in an update, Jacoby Jonze, because you are correct. It wasn't my intent to change the meaning, I just was bowled over by the recognition, like Chris Matthews that our President is on a different level than Romney.
The means is the ends in the process of becoming
Hounddog