Our Time for Change Has Come: Barack Obama's Victory Speech After Winning the Iowa Caucus
Friday 04 January 2008
This is a transcript of Barack Obama's victory speech after winning
the Iowa caucus.
You know, they said this day would never come. They said our sights were set
too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever
come together around a common purpose.
But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done
what the cynics said we couldn't do.
You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have
done what America can do in this new year, 2008.
In lines that stretched around schools and churches, in small towns and in
big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to
stand up and say that we are one nation. We are one people. And our time for
change has come.
You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and
anger that's consumed Washington.
To end the political strategy that's been all about division, and instead make
it about addition. To build a coalition for change that stretches through red
states and blue states.
Because that's how we'll win in November, and that's how we'll finally meet
the challenges that we face as a nation.
We are choosing hope over fear. We're choosing unity over division,
You said the time has come to tell the lobbyists who think their money and
their influence speak louder than our voices that they don't own this government
- we do. And we are here to take it back.
The time has come for a president who will be honest about the choices and
the challenges we face, who will listen to you and learn from you, even when
we disagree, who won't just tell you what you want to hear, but what you need
to know.
And in New Hampshire, if you give me the same chance that Iowa did tonight,
I will be that president for America.
I'll be a president who finally makes health care affordable and available
to every single American, the same way I expanded health care in Illinois, by
by bringing Democrats and Republicans together to get the job done. I'll be
a president who ends the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas
and put a middle-class tax cut into the pockets of working Americans who deserve
it.
I'll be a president who harnesses the ingenuity of farmers and scientists and
entrepreneurs to free this nation from the tyranny of oil once and for all.
And I'll be a president who ends this war in Iraq and finally brings our troops
home who restores our moral standing, who understands that 9/11 is not a way
to scare up votes but a challenge that should unite America and the world against
the common threats of the 21st century. Common threats of terrorism and nuclear
weapons, climate change and poverty, genocide and disease.
Tonight, we are one step closer to that vision of America because of what you
did here in Iowa.
And so I'd especially like to thank the organizers and the precinct captains,
the volunteers and the staff who made this all possible.
And while I'm at it on thank yous, I think it makes sense for me to thank the
love of my life, the rock of the Obama family, the closer on the campaign trail.
I know you didn't do this for me. You did this because you believed so deeply
in the most American of ideas - that in the face of impossible odds, people
who love this country can change it.
I know this. I know this because while I may be standing here tonight, I'll
never forget that my journey began on the streets of Chicago doing what so many
of you have done for this campaign and all the campaigns here in Iowa, organizing
and working and fighting to make people's lives just a little bit better.
I know how hard it is. It comes with little sleep, little pay and a lot of
sacrifice. There are days of disappointment. But sometimes, just sometimes,
there are nights like this, a night that, years from now, when we've made the
changes we believe in, when more families can afford to see a doctor, when our
children inherit a planet that's a little cleaner and safer, when the world
sees America differently, and America sees itself as a nation less divided and
more united, you'll be able to look back with pride and say that this was the
moment when it all began.
This was the moment when the improbable beat what Washington always said was
inevitable.
This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too
long; when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when
we finally gave Americans who have never participated in politics a reason to
stand up and to do so.
This was the moment when we finally beat back the policies of fear and doubts
and cynicism, the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting
this country up. This was the moment.
Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this
was the place where America remembered what it means to hope. For many months,
we've been teased, even derided for talking about hope. But we always knew that
hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the tasks ahead
or the roadblocks that stand in our path.
It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing
inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something
better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and
to fight for it.
Hope is what I saw in the eyes of the young woman in Cedar Rapids who works
the night shift after a full day of college and still can't afford health care
for a sister who's ill. A young woman who still believes that this country will
give her the chance to live out her dreams.
Hope is what I heard in the voice of the New Hampshire woman who told me that
she hasn't been able to breathe since her nephew left for Iraq. Who still goes
to bed each night praying for his safe return.
Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. What led
the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. What led
young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and
march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.
Hope, hope is what led me here today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from
Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America.
Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be
written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to
settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it
should be.
That is what we started here in Iowa and that is the message we can now carry
to New Hampshire and beyond.
The same message we had when we were up and when we were down; the one that
can save this country, brick by brick, block by block, that together, ordinary
people can do extraordinary things.
Because we are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United
States of America. And in this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe
again.
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