Obama’s Leadership Will Heal America (Rep. Danny Davis)
June 9th, 2008
The election of Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States sets the stage for the writing of a new chapter in the history of America. This election shattered the ceilings that have traditionally delimited the political boundaries for women and persons of African descent.
Throughout the primary election cycle Senator Obama demonstrated remarkable courage, determination and political astuteness. He displayed the communication skills and energy necessary to be a great President, the leader and the healer that this country and the world need.
Barack Obama ran as a candidate with new and fresh ideas: a candidate who believes that we can find peaceful solutions to world problems, who like John F. Kennedy, believes that we should “never negotiate out of fear; but will never fear to negotiate.” Barack Obama’s election as the Democratic Party nominee means that we have a candidate who will put forth every effort to end the wars in Iraq and other places throughout the world.
Barack Obama ran as a candidate determined to renew our economy with fair and equitable tax policies, creating jobs by moving to a sustainable economy, freeing us from our dependence on imported oil and acting decisively to protect our planet from global climate change. From the first days of his campaign Senator Obama made education for our children, securing our borders, protecting the rights of immigrants, changing the way our campaigns operate and raise money and always, always, offering hope to the helpless and redemption for those who need to be redeemed.
He pledged to lead a government committed to a woman’s right to choose, to equal pay for equal work, to the rule of law, to the protection of our constitutional rights, to providing equal treatment and equal protection under the law for all citizens. He will help shape a justice system that is fair, one which contains the elements of redemption and rehabilitation and which provides a SECOND CHANCE for those who have stumbled along the way.
Barack Obama ran as a candidate dedicated to providing healthcare for all of our people. He laid out his plans to realign our priorities so that we can really educate our children. His campaign motivated and stimulated our young people to become actively engaged in the processes which solve problems and make public decisions.
The election of Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for President has created and generated a level of political excitement unheralded and unprecedented in modern political history. It helped to unleash energies which have been lying dormant, hopes that have been dashed and dreams that for much too long have been deferred.
In times of great need, great opportunities appear. Today, Barack Obama is that opportunity. He has never suggested that he is a perfect man nor that his campaign would be a perfect campaign. What he has done is open the doors of his campaign to the people to make their own campaign for their country. His campaign has actively sought to bring in the American people, with all their energy, all of their experience, all of their hope and all of their dreams.
He has, if I may borrow and adapt the words of Langston Hughes who declared:
O let America be America again
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
O, let America be America again-
The land that never has been yet-
And yet must be-the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine - the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME-
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Will reinvigorate our mighty dream again.
I have always believed that America is always becoming . . . always perfecting our dream. In order to understand how far we have come as a nation we also have to understand how much farther we have to go. With the nomination of Barack Obama we have written another wonderful chapter in our collective history and we have set our sights clearly and firmly on the road beyond. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait for tomorrow.
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