Below: Endorsement Remarks from Sen. Edward Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy
Also, travel to The Black House at 1600 Cyberspace Ave., with host Dr. James Overton
Road Sign to Travelers: Watch for the upcoming African American Political Blog on the Black Information Highway and The Mid-South Tribune ONLINE...
SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY, REP. PATRICK KENNEDY, CAROLINE
KENNEDY ENDORSE BARACK OBAMA AT "STAND FOR CHANGE" RALLY IN WASHINGTON , DC
Chicago, IL – During a rally at American University in Washington , DC, Senator
Edward M. Kennedy, Representative Patrick Kennedy, and Caroline Kennedy today
endorsed Barack Obama for President.
As Prepared for Delivery:
Remarks of Caroline Kennedy
Introducing Senator Edward Kennedy
January 28, 2008
As Prepared for Delivery
Good Afternoon Everyone, and thank you, Patrick, for that introduction and for
continuing our family’s proud tradition of public service.
It’s a special privilege to come to American University where President Kennedy
made his immortal call for a peaceful world - a world made safe for diversity—a
world that cherishes our children’s future.
Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wish
they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my
father was president. This longing is even more profound today. Fortunately,
there is one candidate who offers that same sense of hope and inspiration and I
am proud to endorse Senator Barack Obama for President.
I am happy that two of my own children are here with me, because they were the
first people who made me realize that Barack Obama is the President we need. He
is already inspiring all Americans, young and old, to believe in ourselves,
tying that belief to our highest ideals - ideals of hope, justice, opportunity
and peace – and urging us to imagine that together we can do great things.
My Uncle Teddy feels the same way, and I am proud to stand with him today. For
more than four decades in the Senate, Teddy has led the fight on the most
important issues of our time: civil rights, social justice, and economic
opportunity. Workers, families, the elderly, the disabled, immigrants, and men
and women in uniform – all have no stronger champion. He has stood with
teachers, students and parents to improve our public schools and help with the
high price of a college education. When it comes to fighting for quality,
affordable health care, Teddy is in a league of his own.
I know his brothers would be so proud of him. He is an inspiration to all the
members of our family – always looking to the future, never the past, always
hopeful, always believing that we are capable of our very best. You know him
well but I’m honored to introduce him now – Senator Edward Kennedy.
Remarks of Senator Edward M. Kennedy
On Endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for President
January 28, 2008
As Prepared for Delivery
Thank you, Caroline. Thank you for that wonderful introduction and for your
courage and bold vision, for your insight and understanding, and for the power
and reach of your words. Like you, we too “want a president who appeals to the
hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the
world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and
make us believe again.” Thank you, Caroline. Your mother and father would be so
proud today.
Thank you, Patrick, for your leadership in Congress and for being here to
celebrate and support a leader who truly has the power to inspire and make
America good again, “from sea to shining sea.”
Thank you, American University .
I feel change in the air.
Every time I’ve been asked over the past year who I would support in the
Democratic Primary, my answer has always been the same: I’ll support the
candidate who inspires me, who inspires all of us, who can lift our vision and
summon our hopes and renew our belief that our country’s best days are still to
come.
I’ve found that candidate. And it looks to me like you have too.
But first, let me say how much I respect the strength, the work and dedication
of two other Democrats still in the race, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. They
are my friends; they have been my colleagues in the Senate. John Edwards has
been a powerful advocate for economic and social justice. And Hillary Clinton
has been in the forefront on issues ranging from health care to the rights of
women around the world. Whoever is our nominee will have my enthusiastic
support.
Let there be no doubt: We are all committed to seeing a Democratic President in
2008.
But I believe there is one candidate who has extraordinary gifts of leadership
and character, matched to the extraordinary demands of this moment in history.
He understands what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the “fierce urgency of
now.”
He will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past. He
is a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical. He is a fighter
who cares passionately about the causes he believes in, without demonizing those
who hold a different view.
He is tough-minded, but he also has an uncommon capacity to appeal to “the
better angels of our nature.”
I am proud to stand here today and offer my help, my voice, my energy and my
commitment to make Barack Obama the next President of the United States .
Like most of the nation, I was moved four years ago as he told us a profound
truth—that we are not, we must not be, just red states and blue states, but one
United States . And since that time I have marveled at his grit and his grace as
he traveled this country and inspired record turnouts of people of all ages, of
all races, of all genders, of all parties and faiths to get “fired up” and
“ready to go.”
I’ve seen him connect with people from every walk of life and with Senators on
both sides of the aisle. With every person he meets, every crowd he inspires,
and everyone he touches, he generates new hope that our greatest days as a
nation are still ahead, and this generation of Americans, like others before us,
can unite to meet our own rendezvous with destiny.
We know the true record of Barack Obama. There is the courage he showed when so
many others were silent or simply went along. From the beginning, he opposed the
war in Iraq .
And let no one deny that truth.
There is the great intelligence of someone who could have had a glittering
career in corporate law, but chose instead to serve his community and then enter
public life.
There is the tireless skill of a Senator who was there in the early mornings to
help us hammer out a needed compromise on immigration reform— who always saw a
way to protect both national security and the dignity of people who do not have
a vote. For them, he was a voice for justice.
And there is the clear effectiveness of Barack Obama in fashioning legislation
to put high quality teachers in our classrooms—and in pushing and prodding the
Senate to pass the most far-reaching ethics reform in its history.
Now, with Barack Obama, there is a new national leader who has given America a
different kind of campaign—a campaign not just about himself, but about all of
us. A campaign about the country we will become, if we can rise above the old
politics that parses us into separate groups and puts us at odds with one
another.
I remember another such time, in the 1960s, when I came to the Senate at the age
of 30. We had a new president who inspired the nation, especially the young, to
seek a new frontier. Those inspired young people marched, sat in at lunch
counters, protested the war in Vietnam and served honorably in that war even
when they opposed it.
They realized that when they asked what they could do for their country, they
could change the world.
It was the young who led the first Earth Day and issued a clarion call to
protect the environment; the young who enlisted in the cause of civil rights and
equality for women; the young who joined the Peace Corps and showed the world
the hopeful face of America .
At the fifth anniversary celebration of the Peace Corps, I asked one of those
young Americans why they had volunteered.
And I will never forget the answer: “It was the first time someone asked me to
do something for my country.”
This is another such time.
I sense the same kind of yearning today, the same kind of hunger to move on and
move America forward. I see it not just in young people, but in all our people.
And in Barack Obama, I see not just the audacity, but the possibility of hope
for the America that is yet to be.
What counts in our leadership is not the length of years in Washington , but the
reach of our vision, the strength of our beliefs, and that rare quality of mind
and spirit that can call forth the best in our country and our people.
With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of
misrepresentation and distortion.
With Barack Obama, we will close the book on the old politics of race against
race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight
against gay.
With Barack Obama, we will close the door on the old economics that has written
off the poor and left the middle class poorer and less secure.
He offers a strategy for prosperity—so that America will once again lead the
world in better standards of life.
With Barack Obama, we will break the old gridlock and finally make health care
what it should be in America—a fundamental right for all, not just an expensive
privilege for the few.
We will make the United States the great leader and not the great roadblock in
the fateful fight against global warming.
And with Barack Obama, we will end a war in Iraq that he has always stood
against, that has cost us the lives of thousands of our sons and daughters, and
that America never should have fought.
I have seen him in the Senate. He will keep us strong and defend the nation
against real threats of terrorism and proliferation.
So let us reject the counsels of doubt and calculation.
Let us remember that when Franklin Roosevelt envisioned Social Security, he
didn’t decide—no, it was too ambitious, too big a dream, too hard.
When John Kennedy thought of going to the moon, he didn’t say no, it was too
far, maybe we couldn’t get there and shouldn’t even try.
I am convinced we can reach our goals only if we are “not petty when our cause
is so great”-- only if we find a way past the stale ideas and stalemate of our
times – only if we replace the politics of fear with the politics of hope – and
only if we have the courage to choose change.
Barack Obama is the one person running for President who can bring us that
change.
Barack Obama is the one person running for President who can be that change.
I love this country. I believe in the bright light of hope and possibility. I
always have, even in the darkest hours. I know what America can achieve. I’ve
seen it. I’ve lived it—and with Barack Obama, we can do it again.
I know that he’s ready to be President on day one. And when he raises his hand
on Inauguration Day, at that very moment, we will lift the spirits of our nation
and begin to restore America ’s standing in the world.
There was another time, when another young candidate was running for President
and challenging America to cross a New Frontier. He faced public criticism from
the preceding Democratic President, who was widely respected in the party. Harry
Truman said we needed “someone with greater experience”—and added: “May I urge
you to be patient.” And John Kennedy replied: “The world is changing. The old
ways will not do…It is time for a new generation of leadership.”
So it is with Barack Obama. He has lit a spark of hope amid the fierce urgency
of now.
I believe that a wave of change is moving across America . If we do not turn
aside, if we dare to set our course for the shores of hope, we together will go
beyond the divisions of the past and find our place to build the America of the
future.
My friends, I ask you to join in this historic journey -- to have the courage to
choose change.
It is time again for a new generation of leadership.
It is time now for Barack Obama.
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