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"It is that fundamental belief: 'I am my brother's keeper. I am my sister's keeper' that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. 'E Pluribus Unum' - 'Out of many, one.' Now, even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us. Spinmasters, negative-ad peddlers who have raised the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, There is not a liberal America and a conservative America, there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America, a Latino America, an Asian America, there is the United States of America."
"In the end that's what this election is about. Do we participate in the politics of cynicism or do we participate in the politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here, the almost willfull ignorance to think unemployment will go away if you just don't think about or the health care crisis will fix itself if we just ignore it, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about something more substantial. The hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out from distant shores. The hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope of a millworker's son who dared to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believed that America had a place for him too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope. In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation: A belief in things not seen. A belief in better things ahead."
I believe too.
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