DNC Day 3: “Not Your Typical Election”
Last night, I had the privilege to be in the room for one of Barack Obama’s greatest speeches.
Earlier in the evening, Senator Tim Kaine remarked, “If you’re looking for the Party of Lincoln, we have got a home for you in the Democratic Party.” And then our nation’s first black President went on to explain just how true that observation is.
The man who had been an Illinois state senator when he proclaimed that there was no such thing as a “Red America” or a “Blue America,” that there was only the “United States of America” returned to the stage of the oldest political party in the world to testify to the uniqueness of the American experiment.
“This is not your typical election,” he said. Not only did President Obama clearly explain the importance of electing Hillary Clinton president, he defended the essence of the American project.
President Obama spoke in stirring language about the founding of our country, the ceaseless work of perfecting our Union, and the daunting reality that this work cannot be accomplished in a single campaign or a single term or even a single lifetime. He reminded us of how far we’ve come in the last eight years, and he acknowledged how far we still have to go.
And then — in an overture to the Party of Lincoln — he quoted the famous section of President Theodore Roosevelt’s “Citizenship In A Republic” speech about the man “in the arena,” whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. The President called on all Americans committed to the work of improving our country to join him and Secretary Clinton in the arena and to fight for the ideas and principles on which this nation was founded.
I want to quote one section of his speech at length:
America has changed over the years. But these values my grandparents taught me — they haven’t gone anywhere. They’re as strong as ever; still cherished by people of every party, every race, every faith. They live on in each of us. What makes us American, what makes us patriots, is what’s in here. That’s what matters. And that’s why we can take the food and music and holidays and styles of other countries, and blend it into something uniquely our own. That’s why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories and create new industries here. That’s why our military can look the way it does — every shade of humanity, forged into common service. That’s why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end.
There’s a lot more, and the speech is worth watching in its entirety. I’m deeply grateful to the people who made my presence in the arena last night possible.
Last night, we heard about the stakes.
Tonight, we witness history.
