John Kerry's Vision for America
Vietnam Veteran, Grassroots Activist, United States Senator and Presidential Candidate

One of the bedrock promises of our democracy is the opportunity to prove that our faith and confidence in the future are not misplaced - or that we can turn our frustration and impatience with the present into an energy for change and a movement for reform.

I was inspired to get involved as a college student when leaders dared to challenge us to reach for our nation's highest aspirations - equality, freedom, justice. We were challenged to serve - in the Peace Corps, in our hometowns, in neighborhoods across the country, in the military and even in our nation's capital. We responded - and we made a difference.

But my own politics were forever cemented in tougher times - the years after I came home from Vietnam. Those were years that tested our idealism. There was George Wallace and Richard Nixon - a Southern strategy - a secret plan to end the War and a secret war in Cambodia -- and day by day more and more Americans drafted out of the rural poor and inner cities were coming home in wheelchairs and body bags. It made many of us angry - but it also made us believe that if we knocked on enough doors and raised our voices things could be different. Again a generation responded - and again a generation proved that with conviction and commitment a whole set of choices too long ignored by politicians in Washington could be put before our nation as voting issues. We proved that the politics of our nation could again respond to people's hopes for their country.

Now more than ever it's time we made that promise real for a new generation of Americans. We may be divided in this country in the votes that are cast - and divided even more so by votes never cast because too many citizens believe they can't make a difference - but that is a failure of politicians, not of our political system itself. Americans are not divided in our priorities - they deserve leaders willing to fight for those priorities with clarity and conviction. Together we can build a new politics based on common sense, accountability, and truth.

That is our obligation to our country and to ourselves - not to go along, but to set out on the path of change - for an America equal to our best possibilities and hopes. Our mission is to change politics in this country and the direction of this nation.

We must begin by telling the truth: one of the reasons so many Americans aren't interested in politics is that they think politicians aren't saying anything very interesting. The biggest threat to our Party is not from our opponents, but from the growing ranks of voters who have stopped listening to either side. We must reach out to the politically homeless and give them a home again in their own democracy. People don't want a war of words; they want a contest of ideas - with action and results. Make no mistake: real leaders aren't content to win elections in which most of our fellow citizens don't want to vote.

We must have the courage of our convictions. We must be ready to refuse the course of least resistance, to confront the seemingly popular, and to offer a vision that looks beyond the next poll to the next decade and the next generation. Instead of just quoting the words of Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, we need to match their leadership with our own, with daring and commitment, with new thinking equal to a new and different time. I know the one thing America doesn't need is a second Republican Party - America needs a Democratic Party that knows what's really worth fighting for.

We must begin by demanding a different, better, fairer economic policy that grows jobs and creates wealth for all Americans. We must say it plainly: stop the Bush tax cuts for those at the top and instead relieve the growing burden for those in the middle. Stop turning record surpluses into a new river of deficits. Stop shortchanging education, health care, and even national security to satisfy the demands of special interests at the expense of both prosperity and social progress.

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The truth is, we are Americans - young and old - who learned from our parents and grandparents - and even in our own lives - what our politics should always remember: Americans are united by bonds bigger than partisanship, more important than where we live or whether we speak with an accent. Those lessons were seared into me more than three decades ago among a special band of brothers who taught me everything I could ever want to know about our country - they were brave citizen soldiers who left behind high school and college and girlfriends and young wives to fight for their country. We grew up together on that tiny boat with a quarter inch aluminum hull. It was where we confronted and conquered fear. It was our home -- away from home - our confessional - our place of silent prayer. Our boat was our sanctuary -- and a place for crossing divides between Montana, Michigan, Arkansas, and Massachusetts. We never looked on each other as officer or enlisted, Oakie or Down Easterner. We were just plain brothers in combat, proud Americans who together with our proud vessels answered the call. We were bound together giving ourselves to something bigger than each and every one of us individually. Our identity changed. When people looked at us or defined us -- we were no longer the kid from South Carolina or the kid from South Boston. We were Americans. Together. All of us the same under the same flag. We learned to measure what's important through the promises we made to each other. Those are the lessons worth living by today - and if we Democrats want to lead in America, those are the lessons that must once guide our Party and lift up our country.

And that is the vision I want to lead the Democratic Party and the United States of America I know we can build together.

This is a truly inspirational vision! John Kerry once again astounds me with his pulse on how we can make a better America. Here you have every reason why John Kerry should and will be our next President.

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