Obama: Ours is a 'future filled with hope'

This transcript is automatically generated

I am so thrilled.

And so honored.

And so proud.

To introduce.

The love of my life.

The father of -- two girls.

And the president of the United States of America.

Obama.

Am.

I.

Okay.

A OK.

Okay.

I love you so much.

A few nights ago all everybody was reminded.

Just what a lucky man I -- Malaria and Sasha we are so proud of you.

And yes you do have to go to school -- morning.

And Joseph Biden.

Thank you for being the very best vice president I -- ever -- for.

And -- strongly.

Madam chairwoman.

Delegates and accept your nomination for -- It.

Yeah.

-- The first -- my address.

This convention.

In 2004.

I was a younger men.

The senate candidate from Illinois who spoke about hope.

Not blind optimism.

Not wishful thinking but -- in the face of difficulty.

-- in the face of uncertain.

That dog had faith in the future which has pushed this nation forward.

Even when the odds are great.

-- -- when the road is long.

-- eight years later.

That hope -- been tested.

But -- cost of war.

-- one of the worst economic crises in history.

And by political gridlock that's left us wondering whether it's still even possible to tackle the challenges of our time.

I know campaigns seem small even silly sometimes.

Trivial things become big distractions.

Serious issues become sound bites the truth gets -- under an avalanche.

-- -- And advertising.

If you're sick of hearing me you approve this message believe me Salma.

When -- said and done.

When you pick up that ballot to vote.

You'll face the clearest choice -- any time in a generation.

Over the next few years.

Big decisions will be made in Washington on jobs the economy taxes and deficits.

Energy education.

-- -- Decisions -- we'll have a huge impact on our lives and our children's lives for decades to come.

And on every issue.

The choice you face won't just be between two candidates or two parties it will be a choice between two different pass for America.

A choice between two fundamentally different visions.

For the future.

Hours.

The 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 the drove my grandmother to work on a bomber assembly line while he was wrong.

They knew they were part of something larger.

A nation that triumphed over fascism and depression.

A nation where the most innovative businesses turned -- the world's best products and every once shared in that pride and success from the corner office to the factory floor.

My grandparents.

Were given the chance to go to college by their -- That when their own home and fulfill the basic bargain at the heart of American store.

The promise that hard work will pay off.

The responsibility will be rewarded that.

Everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share and everyone -- by the same rules from main street to Wall Street to Washington DC.

And I ran for president because I saw that basic bargain.

Slipping away.

I began my career.

Helping people in the shadow of a shuttered steel -- At a time when too many good jobs were starting to move overseas.

And by 2008 we have seen nearly a decade in which -- struggled with calls the kept rising.

-- -- -- -- Folks racking up more and more -- just make the mortgage or pay tuition.

Put gas in the car with food on the table.

And when the house of cards collapsed in the Great Recession.

Millions of innocent Americans lost their jobs their homes.

Their life savings.

The tragedy from which we're still fighting to recover.

About our friends.

Down in Tampa -- Republican Convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America.

But didn't have much to say about.

How -- -- -- right.

They want your boat.

But they don't want you to know their plan.

And that's because all they have to offer is the same prescriptions.

That are bad for the last thirty years.

Have a surplus.

Tried to -- -- Deficit to Iran.

Ryan out of.

Feel a cold coming mom.

Take two tax cuts roll back some regulation -- -- -- Okay.

Now.

I've cut taxes for those who -- Middle class families.

Small businesses.

I don't believe that another round of tax breaks for millionaires would bring good jobs to our shores or pay down our deficit.

I don't believe the firing teachers are -- students off financial labeled broad economy -- Help us compete.

Believe that rolling back regulations on Wall Street will help the small business woman expand.

-- the laid off construction worker keep his home.

We have been -- we've tried that and we're not going back we are moving forward America.

Now I won't pretend that the I'm offering is quick.

Worries.

I never have.

You can elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear you elected me to tell you the truth.

Okay.

We'll take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades.

It will acquire common -- Shared responsibility.

And the kind of bold persistent experimentation the Franklin Roosevelt pursued during only crisis worse than this.

And by the way.

Both of us who carry on the his party's legacy should remember that.

Not every problem can be remedied with another government program -- dictate from Washington.

But know this America.

Our problems can result.

-- -- But it leads to a better place and I'm asking you to choose the future.

I'm asking -- The -- -- for your country.

Goldman manufacturing.

Energy education national security and the deficit real achievable.

Plans that will lead to new jobs.

More opportunity.

And rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation that what we can do in the next four years.

And that is why I'm running for a second term as front.

A.

Okay.

A.

-- we export more products and and outsourced fewer jobs.

After a decade that was defined by what -- bottom borrowed -- getting back to basics.

And doing what America's always done best we are making things again.

Workers in Detroit and Toledo -- -- American car.

Hey they can't build them fast enough because we reinvented a dying auto industry that's back on the top of the world.

And -- back to America.

Not because our workers make -- pay but because we make better products.

Because we work harder and -- -- signed trade agreements that are helping our companies sell more goods to millions of new customers.

Goods that -- -- with three proud words made in America.

Okay.

I.

Okay.

This country created over half a million manufacturing jobs in the last two and a half years.

And now you have a -- We can give more tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas.

Or we can start rewarding companies that nobody -- plants and train new workers and create new jobs here in the United States of America.

-- And a small businesses double their export.

And if we choose this path we can create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years you can make better.

You can -- that future.

You can choose the path where we control more -- energy.

After thirty years have been action we raised fuel standards -- that by the middle of the next decade cars and trucks.

We'll go twice as -- delegates.

-- Or use -- -- 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 -- more than any administration in recent history of cancer.

-- just -- of America is less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in the last two decades.

Okay okay.

-- strategy that reversing this progress.

Or one that builds on.

We've opened millions of new -- for oil and gas exploration last three years and will open more.

But I like my opponent I want not -- oil companies write this country's energy plan or endanger our coastlines.

Or collect another.

-- -- -- -- -- A future where we keep investing in wind and solar.

And clean coal.

-- farmers and scientists hardest new biofuels to power cars and trucks -- construction workers build homes and factories that weighs less energy where.

Where we developed a hundred year supply of natural gas that's right beneath our feet.

If you choose this event.

We can cut our oil imports in half -- -- -- morning and support more than 600000.

New jobs in natural gas alone.

-- 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.

You can -- the future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete.

No matter how old they are or how much money they had.

Education was the gateway to opportunity for me.

-- every fairway for Michelle and children get waiver most of you.

And now more than up it is the gateway to a middle class life.

For the first time in a generation nearly every state has answered our call to raise their standards for teaching and -- Some of the worst schools in the conflict have made real gains in math and reading.

Millions of stones are paying less for college today because we finally took on a system that wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on banks.

And lenders.

And no.

You have a -- We -- got.

Education or we can decide that in the United States of America no child should have her dreams deferred because of a crowded classroom -- crumbling school.

No family should have -- the set aside a college acceptance letter because they don't have the money.

No company should have to look for workers overseas because they couldn't find anyone -- -- still very home.

Yeah.

A blue moon.

The government has no role in this.

But teachers must inspire.

Principles must lead.

Parents must instill a thirst for learning and students.

You got a New York.

Adds another.

I promise you we -- out educate and out compete any nation on our.

So help me.

Help -- recruit a 100000 math and science teachers within ten years and improve early childhood education.

-- Okay okay.

Well there.

World of new threats.

And new challenges.

You can choose leadership that has been tested and proven.

Four years ago I promised and the war in Iraq.

We did.

Yeah.

-- Promised to refocus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11.

And we had.

-- -- The -- -- momentum in Afghanistan and in 2014.

Our longest war will be over.

Above the New York's.

Al-Qaeda is on the path to the feet and Osama bin Laden is dead.

Okay.

We pay tribute.

To the Americans who still serve in harm's way.

We are forever in debt to a generation's sacrifice.

Has made this country safer and more respect to.

We will never forget you.

And so long as I'm commander in chief we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known.

I.

When you take off -- uniform we will serve you as well as you serve does because no one of those countries about the -- for a job.

We've strengthened old alliances.

And forge new coalitions to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

We've reasserted our power across the Pacific and stood up to China on behalf bar workers.

From Burma to Libya to south Sudan that we have advance the rights and dignity of all human beings.

Men and women Christians and Muslims and Jews.

But for all the progress that we've made challenges remain.

Terrorist plots must be disrupted.

Europe's crisis must be contained.

Our commitment to Israel's security must not -- and neither -- -- personal -- Rwandan government wants the world to -- united against its nuclear ambitions.

Historic change sweeping across the Arab world must be defined not by the iron fist of -- dictator the hate of extremists but.

-- the hopes and aspirations of ordinary people who are reaching for the same rights that we celebrate here today.

So.

Now we have a choice.

My opponent and his running -- are.

-- to foreign policy.

From all those are you saying -- certain.

They -- take us back to an Arab blustering and blundering the cost America so -- After -- you don't call Russia our number one enemy.

Not all kind of Russian.

Unless you're still stuck in a Cold War mind -- Okay.

You ready for diplomacy -- Beijing if you can't middle of the Olympics.

Without insulting our closest ally.

Okay.

-- end the war in Iraq.

He won't tell us how -- end the war in Afghanistan.

-- and I will.

Okay.

Would stand -- more money on military hardware.

That our joint -- don't even want.

I -- use the money were no longer spending on war to pay down our debt.

And put more people.

People back to work.

Okay.

You -- -- a future where we reduce our deficit.

Without sticking it to the middle class.

Independent experts say that my plan would cut our deficit by four trillion dollars.

And last summer I worked for the Republicans in congress to cut.

A billion dollars in spending because those of us who believe government can be a force for good should work harder than anyone to reform.

So -- leaner and more efficient and more responsive to the American people.

Want to reform the tax code so that simple prayer.

And ask the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over 250000.

Dollars.

The same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president the same -- and when our economy created nearly 43 million new jobs.

The biggest surplus in history and a whole lot of millionaires to -- Now.

I'm still eager to reach an agreement based on the principles of my bipartisan debt commission.

No party has a monopoly on wisdom.

No democracy works without compromise.

I want to get this done and we can get it done.

When the governor Romney and his friends in congress tell us we somehow -- deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the well think.

Well.

What Bill Clinton call it you do the arithmetic.

M.

I refuse to go -- long -- that.

And as long as I'm president I never will.

Middle class families.

To give up their deductions for owning a home raising their kids just the paper another millionaire's tax cut.

-- -- -- -- Also those.

Okay.

I will never turn Medicare into a bunch -- A -- Should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies.

Should retire with the chair and the dignity that they have -- Yes we will reform and strengthen Medicare for the long haul but we'll do it by reducing the cost of health care.

I'm asking seniors to pay thousands of dollars more.

And we will keep the promise of social security and by taking the responsible steps.

To strengthen it not by turning it over -- Wall Street.

This has the choice.

We now face.

This is what.

The election comes down to.

Over -- we've been told by our opponents the bigger tax cuts and fewer regulations are the only white.

-- -- government can't do everything.

It should do almost nothing.

If you can't afford health insurance.

Hope that you don't get sick.

If a company releases toxic pollution into the air your children breathe well.

That's the price of progress.

If you can afford.

To start a business or go to college.

Take my opponents -- -- and borrow money from your parents.

You know what.

That's not who we are.

That's not what this country's about.

And Americans we believe we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights rights that no -- or government can take away.

We insist on personal responsibility and we celebrate individual initiative.

We're not entitled to success we have to earn it.

We honor describes.

The framers the rest sacred beyond open -- -- have always been the driving force behind are free enterprise system.

The greatest engine of growth and prosperity but the world's ever known.

We also believe in something called citizenship.

Yeah.

But word -- very -- the -- grounded.

A word at the very.

-- since all of our democracy.

The idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another.

And -- future generations.

We believe that women -- -- -- auto workers enough to buy the cars that they build.

The -- what company does better.

We believe that when -- family could no longer be tricked into signing a mortgage they can afford that families protected but so is the value of other people's homes.

And so the entire economy.

We believe the little girl was offered an escape from poverty by great teacher or -- for college.

Could become the next Steve Jobs.

Or the -- -- and cures cancer.

-- the president of the United States.

-- didn't religions.

We -- the churches and charities can often make more of a difference than a poverty program along.

We don't want handouts for people who refuse to help themselves and we certainly don't want bailouts.

For banks the break the rules.

We don't think the government can solve all of our problems.

But we don't think at the government is the source of all of our problems.

Any more than -- welfare recipients or corporations or unions for immigrants or gays or any other broker told.

Because America.

We understand.

That this democracy.

Is columns.

We the people.

Recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights.

But our destinies are bound together the freedom which -- only what -- it for me.

A freedom without a commitment to others -- freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism.

Is unworthy of our founding ideals and those who died in their defense.

And citizens.

We understand that America is not about what can be done for us.

It's about what can be done by us together.

-- the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self government.

That's what we believe.

-- -- -- The election four years ago.

Wasn't about me.

It was about you.

My fellow citizens.

You -- the change.

Your the reason they're the lone girl with a -- -- Phoenix.

Won't get the surgery she needs because an insurance company can't limit our coverage you did that.

Okay.

You are the reason our young men in Colorado.

Who never thought he'd be able to afford his dream of earning a medical degree is about to get their chance you made that possible.

I a.

-- the Marines and -- young immigrant who grew up here and went to school here and pledged allegiance to our flag.

Will no longer be deported from the only country she's ever called -- It.

Myself and the soldiers won't be kicked out of the military because of the.

And been able to send love ones concerned -- so -- welcoming.

Welcome.

If you turn away now.

If you turn -- now if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for is impossible.

Well.

Change will not happen.

If you give up on the idea that your boys can make a difference.

Then other -- will fill the board the lobbyists and special interest.

The people -- the ten million dollar checks were trying to -- this election and those who were trying to make it harder for you to vote.

Washington politicians who -- decide who you can marry or control health care choices that women should be making for themselves.

Only.

Have the power to move us forward.

You know.

I recognize.

The times have changed since I first spoke to this convention.

Times have changed so -- I'm no longer just a candidate.

I'm the president.

Yeah.

Okay.

And that means I know what it means to send young Americans and a battle.

-- held in my arms.

Mothers and fathers of those who didn't return.

I shared the pain of families who lost their homes.

And the frustration of workers who've lost their jobs.

If the critics -- that I've made all my decisions based on polls that I must not be very good reading.

And while I'm very 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've been driven to my -- many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had.

No place else to go.

But I -- stand here tonight.

I have never been -- more hopeful about America.

Not because I think I have all the answers.

Not because I'm naive about the magnitude of our challenges.

I'm hopeful because of you.

The young woman -- -- at a science fair who won national recognition for her biology research.

While living -- family at a homeless shelter.

She -- me hope.

A little.

-- worker who won the lottery after his -- almost close but kept coming to work every day.

And bought flags for his whole town.

And one the car that he built to surprise his wife.

He gives me hope.

The family members and one road to Minnesota -- didn't lay off his single.

One of their 4000 employees.

When the recession hit.

Even when they're competitors shut down does.

The plants.

Even when it meant the owner gave up some perks and some -- Because they understood that their biggest asset was the community and the workers -- helped build that business hey give me hope.

I think about.

The young sailor met.

At Walter Reed hospital still recovering from a grenade attack.

Who calls him to have his leg amputated above in the six months ago we would watch him walk into a White House dinner honoring those who served in Iraq.

Tall.

And forty pounds heavier.

Dashing in his uniform.

With a big grin on his face sturdy on his new -- And I remember how few months after that I would watch him on a bicycle.

Racing -- this fellow wounded warriors on a sparkling spring day.

Inspiring other heroes were just begun the hard path he had traveled.

He gives me hope.

Gives me -- I don't know what party.

These men and women belong to.

I don't know -- the vote for me.

-- I know that -- spirit defines us.

They remind me in the word description of the cars of the future filled with hope.

And -- -- share of bad faith would mean.

If you share that hope would mean I ask you tonight for your -- Okay.

Yeah yeah.

I.

That -- 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 got their fair share and everyone -- by the same -- You -- vote there's no.

Between the.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- no longer but we travel it together.

We don't turn the we leave no one behind.

-- -- Okay.

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Obama: Ours is a 'future filled with hope'

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