Hope and change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I'd ask a simple question: If you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't you feel that way now that he's President Obama? You know there's something wrong with the kind of job he's done as president when the best feeling you had was the day you voted for him. Looking ahead to the Democratic National Convention next week, Obama and his party will have the task of making the argument that Republicans blocked his vision from becoming a reality, McIlwain said.
Democrats "have to hammer in that the day after the Election Day, even before Election Day, the folks in the Republican Party and Congress were plotting to make failure a probability for the Obama administration," he said. This president can tell us that the next four years he'll get it right. But this president cannot tell us that you are better off today than when he took office.
Jim, a caller from St. Cloud, said he calls himself an average independent voter. So far, he hasn't seen anything from Obama or Romney to sway his vote. To be an American was to assume that all things were possible. When President Kennedy challenged Americans to go to the moon, the challenge was not whether we would get there, it was only when we'd get there. Like all American is, we went to bed at night knowing we lived in the greatest country in the history of the world.
That unique blend of optimism, humility, and the utter confidence that, when the world needs someone to do that, you need an American. And his family had to leave during the Mexican revolution. I grew up with stories of his family being fed by the U. My dad never made it through college, and he apprenticed as a laugh ph and plaster carpenter. He had big dreams. He convinced my mom, a beautiful young actress, to give up Hollywood to marry him.
And moved to Detroit. And growing up in Michigan, that might have seemed unusual or out of place, but I do not remember it that way. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed that what church went to. My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all. The gift of unconditional love.
They cared deeply about who we would be and much less about what we would do. Unconditional love is a gift that Ann and I have tried to to pass on to our sons and now to our children. All the laws and legislation is in the world will never heal the world like the loving hearts and arms of loving mothers and fathers.
And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist. That is how she found that the day my father died. She went looking for him because, that morning, there was no rose.
My mom and dad were two partners. A life lesson that shaped me by everyday example. When my mom ran for the Senate, my dad was there for her every step of the way. Half of my cabinet and senior officials were women. And in business, and mentored and supported great women leaders who went on to run great companies. I grew up in Detroit, in love with cars. And wanted to be a car guy like my dad.
But, by the time I was out of school I realized that I had to go out on my own. That if I stayed around Michigan in the same business I'd never really now if I was getting a break because of my dad. I wanted to go someplace new and prove myself. Those weren't the easiest of days. Many long hours, and weekends working. Five young sons who seemed to have a need to reenact a different world war every night. LAUGHTER But if you ask Ann and I, what we'd give to break up just one more fight between the boys, or wake up in the morning and discover a pile of kids asleep in a room -- well every mom and dad knows the answer to that.
Those days were the She was heroic through it all. Five boys with our families a long way away. I had to travel a lot for my job then, and I'd call and try to offer support. But every mom knows that that does not help did the homework done or get the kids out the door to school. I knew that her job as a mom was harder than mine.
I knew without question that her job as a mom was a lot more important than mine. When we were new to the community, it was welcoming, and as the years went by, it was a joy to help others who had just moved into town or just joined our church. We had remarkably vibrant endeavors congregations from all walks of life, and many who were new to America.
We prayed together, our kids played together, and we always stood ready to help each other out in different ways.
That's how it is in America. We look to our communities, our faiths, our families, for our joy and support, in good times and bad. It's both how we live our lives and why we live our lives. The strength and power and goodness of America has always been based on the strength and power and goodness of our communities, our families, and our faiths. In our best days, we can feel the vibrancy of America's communities, large and small. It's when we see that new business opening up downtown.
It's when we go to work in the morning and see everybody else in the block doing the same thing to read when our son or daughter calls from college to talk about which job offer they should take, and you try not to choke up when you hear that the one they like best is not too far from home. It's that good feeling when you have more time to volunteer to coach for you kids soccer team or help out on school trips.
For too many Americans, those kind of good days are harder to come by. How many days have you woken up feeling that something really special was happening in America?
Many of you thought the way on election day four years ago. Hope and change had a powerful appeal. But tonight I would ask a simple question: if you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama, shouldn't feel that way now, that he is President Obama?
The president has disappointed America because he hasn't lead America in the right direction. He took office without the basic qualification that most Americans have, and one that was essential to the task at hand. He had almost no experience working in a business.
Jobs to him are about government. When I was 37, I helped to start a small company. My partners and I had been working for a company that was in the business of helping other businesses. So some of us have the idea that, if we really believe our advice was helping companies, we should invest in companies. We should bet on ourselves and our advice. So we started a new business called Bain Capital. The only problem was, while we believed in ourselves, not many other people did. The more immediate task involves linking Romney's overall theme of leading an economic turnaround to a sense of empathy for millions of voters, many of them in swing states, who have been hardest-hit by the slow recovery.
Romney also faces a narrower task in appealing to swing voters here in Florida's I-4 corridor, prime battleground territory in the state stretching from Tampa and Orlando that could determine Florida's votes in the Electoral College. Romney would face a difficult path getting to the electoral votes he needs without Florida, requiring him to win every single one of the other states on NBC's battleground map.
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