Obama’s Closing Argument

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The Obama campaign says the Illinois senator will present his closing argument Monday morning in Canton. What voters can expect to hear:

In his speech, Senator Obama will tell voters that after twenty-one months and three debates, Senator McCain still has not been able to tell the American people a single major thing he’d do differently from George Bush when it comes to the economy. Obama will ask Americans to help him change this country, and say that in just one week, they can choose an economy that rewards work and creates new jobs and fuels prosperity from the bottom-up, they can choose to invest in health care for our families and education for our kids and renewable energy for our future, and they can choose hope over fear, unity over division and the promise of change over the power of the status quo.

One word: finally. After 20 months and 16 days for Obama and 18 months to the day for McCain, we are finally reaching the end.

Update:
After the jump are excerpts from Obama’s speech.

Update2:
There’s not much new in Obama’s “closing arguement” that he just finished delivering before 4,900 in Canton. It sounds like his greatest hits — a succession of all him most recent successful lines. A smattering of, what I think are, easily recognizable phrases:

I knew that the size of our challenges had outgrown the smallness of our politics (Indianapolis, May 08).

…I believed in your ability to make change happen. I knew that the American people were a decent, generous people who are willing to work hard and sacrifice for future generations. And I was convinced that when we come together, our voices are more powerful than the most entrenched lobbyists, or the most vicious political attacks, or the full force of a status quo in Washington that wants to keep things just the way they are (Green Bay, September 08)

…It’s time to stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq while the Iraqi government sits on a huge surplus. As President, I will end this war. (Denver, October 08)

… Each of us has a responsibility to work hard and look after ourselves and our families, and each of us has a responsibility to our fellow citizens. That’s what’s been lost these last eight years – our sense of common purpose; of higher purpose. (Convention speech, Aug. 08)

…In this election, we cannot afford the same political games and tactics that are being used to pit us against one another and make us afraid of one another. (San Antonio, February 08)

… The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America – they have served the United States of America. (Fayetteville, NC October 08)

… I ask you to believe – not just in my ability to bring about change, but in yours… And if in this last week, you will knock on some doors for me, and make some calls for me, and talk to your neighbors, and convince your friends; if you will stand with me, and fight with me, and give me your vote, then I promise you this – we will not just win Ohio, we will not just win this election, but together, we will change this country and we will change the world. (Columbus, February 07)

All he was missing was the “fierce urgency of now,” “fired up and ready to go,” and “yes, we can.” But he certainly turned on the full force of his considerable oratory abilities, doing his best to captivate his audience.

Excerpts of Senator Barack Obama’s Remarks—as prepared for delivery
Closing Argument Speech On The Change We Need
Monday, October 27th, 2008
Canton, Ohio

In one week, you can turn the page on policies that have put the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street before the hard work and sacrifice of folks on Main Street.

In one week, you can choose policies that invest in our middle-class, create new jobs, and grow this economy from the bottom-up so that everyone has a chance to succeed; from the CEO to the secretary and the janitor; from the factory owner to the men and women who work on its floor.

In one week, you can put an end to the politics that would divide a nation just to win an election; that tries to pit region against region, city against town, Republican against Democrat; that asks us to fear at a time when we need hope.

In one week, at this defining moment in history, you can give this country the change we need.

….

At a moment like this, the last thing we can afford is four more years of the tired, old theory that says we should give more to billionaires and big corporations and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.  The last thing we can afford is four more years where no one in Washington is watching anyone on Wall Street because politicians and lobbyists killed common-sense regulations.  Those are the theories that got us into this mess.  They haven’t worked, and it’s time for change.  That’s why I’m running for President of the United States.

Now, Senator McCain has served this country honorably. And he can point to a few moments over the past eight years where he has broken from George Bush – on torture, for example.  He deserves credit for that.  But when it comes to the economy – when it comes to the central issue of this election – the plain truth is that John McCain has stood with this President every step of the way.  Voting for the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that he once opposed.  Voting for the Bush budgets that spent us into debt.  Calling for less regulation twenty-one times just this year.  Those are the facts.

And now, after twenty-one months and three debates, Senator McCain still has not been able to tell the American people a single major thing he’d do differently from George Bush when it comes to the economy. Senator McCain says that we can’t spend the next four years waiting for our luck to change, but you understand that the biggest gamble we can take is embracing the same old Bush-McCain policies that have failed us for the last eight years.

It’s not change when John McCain wants to give a $700,000 tax cut to the average Fortune 500 CEO.  It’s not change when he wants to give $200 billion to the biggest corporations or $4 billion to the oil companies or $300 billion to the same Wall Street banks that got us into this mess.  It’s not change when he comes up with a tax plan that doesn’t give a penny of relief to more than 100 million middle-class Americans.  That’s not change.

The question in this election is not “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”  We know the answer to that. The real question is, “Will this country be better off four years from now?”

Understand, if we want get through this crisis, we need to get beyond the old ideological debates and divides between left and right.  We don’t need bigger government or smaller government. We need a better government – a more competent government – a government that upholds the values we hold in common as Americans.

So the choice in this election isn’t between tax cuts and no tax cuts.  It’s about whether you believe we should only reward wealth, or whether we should also reward the work and workers who create it.  I will give a tax break to 95% of Americans who work every day and get taxes taken out of their paychecks every week.  I’ll eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000 and give homeowners and working parents more of a break.  And I’ll help pay for this by asking the folks who are making more than $250,000 a year to go back to the tax rate they were paying in the 1990s.  No matter what Senator McCain may claim, here are the facts – if you make under $250,000, you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime – not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes.  Nothing.  Because the last thing we should do in this economy is raise taxes on the middle-class.

But as I’ve said from the day we began this journey all those months ago, the change we need isn’t just about new programs and policies.  It’s about a new politics – a politics that calls on our better angels instead of encouraging our worst instincts; one that reminds us of the obligations we have to ourselves and one another.

Part of the reason this economic crisis occurred is because we have been living through an era of profound irresponsibility.  On Wall Street, easy money and an ethic of “what’s good for me is good enough” blinded greedy executives to the danger in the decisions they were making.  On Main Street, lenders tricked people into buying homes they couldn’t afford.  Some folks knew they couldn’t afford those houses and bought them anyway.  In Washington, politicians spent money they didn’t have and allowed lobbyists to set the agenda. They scored political points instead of solving our problems, and even after the greatest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, all we were asked to do by our President was to go out and shop.

That is why what we have lost in these last eight years cannot be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits alone.  What has also been lost is the idea that in this American story, each of us has a role to play.  Each of us has a responsibility to work hard and look after ourselves and our families, and each of us has a responsibility to our fellow citizens.  That’s what’s been lost these last eight years – our sense of common purpose; of higher purpose.  And that’s what we need to restore right now.

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