Barack Obama makes the case that Hillary Clinton equals continuing progress in a powerful new video featuring some of the most memorable images of the Obama presidency, set to his speech at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner last month.
By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was eight years ago.…
We know the progress we’ve made, despite the forces of opposition, despite the forces of discrimination, despite the politics of backlash….
That doesn’t stop with my presidency. We're just getting started….
That’s why I am still fired up. That’s why I’m still ready to go….
So if I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn’t matter who we elect—read up on your history. It matters. We’ve got to get people to vote.
In fact, if you want to give Michelle and me a good sendoff … get people registered to vote. If you care about our legacy, realize everything we stand for is at stake. All the progress we've made is at stake in this election. My name may not be on the ballot, but our progress is on the ballot. Tolerance is on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot. Justice is on the ballot. Good schools are on the ballot. Ending mass incarceration—that's on the ballot right now!
And there is one candidate who will advance those things. And there’s another candidate whose defining principle, the central theme of his candidacy is opposition to all that we've done.
There’s no such thing as a vote that doesn’t matter. It all matters. And after we have achieved historic turnout in 2008 and 2012, especially in the African-American community, I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy, if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote.
This is the Barack Obama so much of the country fell in love with in 2004 and 2008, the Obama whose words roused us and who offered such a powerful vision of hope, the Obama who has—along with his family—presented such a beautiful and iconic image as president and first family. It’s also an Obama who has lived through years of attacks and is perhaps readier to fight, to get angry, than the Obama of 2008. And it’s Obama here, now, for Hillary Clinton for the next four or eight years.
So watch the video below, and let’s give him a good sendoff.
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