Barack Obama's Closing Pitch

Here's the strength of the speech for me:

The real gamble in this election is playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expecting a different result. And that’s a risk we can’t take. Not this year. Not when the stakes are this high.

In this election, it is time to turn the page. In seven days, it is time to stand for change.

This has been our message since the beginning of this campaign. It was our message when we were down, and our message when we were up. And it must be catching on, because in these last few weeks, everyone is talking about change.

But you can’t at once argue that you’re the master of a broken system in Washington and offer yourself as the person to change it. You can’t fall in line behind the conventional thinking on issues as profound as war and offer yourself as the leader who is best prepared to chart a new and better course for America.

The truth is, you can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience. Mine is rooted in the real lives of real people and it will bring real results if we have the courage to change. I believe deeply in those words. But they are not mine. They were Bill Clinton’s in 1992, when Washington insiders questioned his readiness to lead.

My experience is rooted in the lives of the men and women on the South Side of Chicago who I fought for as an organizer when the local steel plant closed. It’s rooted in the lives of the people I stood up for as a civil rights lawyer when they were denied opportunity on the job or justice at the voting booth because of what they looked like or where they came from. It’s rooted in an understanding of how the world sees America that I gained from living, traveling, and having family beyond our shores – an understanding that led me to oppose this war in Iraq from the start. It’s experience rooted in the real lives of real people, and it’s the kind of experience Washington needs right now.

Rest of this fabulous speech is HERE.


I agree with Senator Obama. Every generation there comes a time when you must step up and decide what kind of country you want to be. You can feel that it's time to step into a new direction. You don't know what the consequences of that movement will be; you only know that it's time we take that step. We are definitely at that moment in 2007. We thought it was 2000, but no, it's now. This really is the first election of the Millenium. What will we choose? Will we choose to vote from a position of fear? Of doubt? I will say that it's profoundly UN-American, which is why this country is in the malaise that it is. Whatever has been said about America, one of the most vocal things said about us from outside of this country, is that we are an optimistic people. Not naive; optimistic. It's time that we take back that optimism. It's time that we took back control of our country and get back to what is best for us as a country. It's time for Barack Obama.