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Text of Gore's Acceptance Speech
The following is the full text of the acceptance speech
given by vice presidential nominee Sen Al Gore Thursday at
the Democratic Natl Convention in New York.
SEN AL GORE: "I've been dreaming of this moment since I
was a kid growing up in Tennessee: that one day, I'd have
the chance to come here to Madison Square Garden and be the
warm-up act for Elvis.
My friends, I thank you for your confidence expressed in
the vote this evening, I pledge to pour my heart and soul
into this crusade on behalf of the American people, and I
accept your nomination.
I did not seek this nomination or expect it. But I am
here to join this team because I love my country. and I
believe in my heart that together, we offer the American
people the best chance we have to move this nation forward
in the right direction again.
I am here because the country I love has a government
that is failing our people: the forgotten majority in your
hometown and mine who work hard and play by the rules, who
scrimp and save to build a better life for their children.
I am here to renew a journey our Founders began more than
200 years ago. In my lifetime, I have seen America's ideals
and dreams change the world, and I believe that now is the
time to bring those ideals and dreams home again to change
America.
Our country is in trouble. And while George Bush and Dan
Quayle have been making excuses for deadlock and decay,
people in other nations--inspired by the eternal promise of
America--have torn down the Berlin Wall, brought communism
to its knees, and forced a racist government in South
Africa to turn away from apartheid. Throughout the world,
obstacles to liberty that many thought might stand forever
turned out to be no match for men and women who decided in
their hearts that their future could be much greater than
their past would let them dream.
Their faith in the power of conscience and the force of
truth required a leap of the human spirit. Can we say
truthfully that their chance for change was better than
ours? Yet we face our own crisis of the spirit here and now
in America. We're told we can no longer change, we've seen
our better days, they even say we're history.
The cynics are having a field day because across this
country, millions of American families have been betrayed by
a government out of touch with our values and beholden only
to the privileged few. Millions of people are losing faith
in the very idea of democracy, and are even in danger of
losing heart, because they fear their lives may no longer
have any deeper meaning or purpose.
But you can't kill hope that easily, not here, not in
America, where a cynic is just a disappointed idealist in
disguise, a dreamer yearning to dream again. In every
American, no matter how badly betrayed or poorly led, there
is always hope. Even now, if you listen, you can hear the
pulse of America's true spirit.
No, the American spirit isn't gone. But we vow here
tonight that in November, George Bush and Dan Quayle will
be.
They've had their chance, and they have failed. They have
taxed the many to enrich the few. It is time for them to go.
They have given us false choices, bad choices, and no
choice. It is time for them to go.
They have ignored the suffering of those who are victims,
of AIDS, of crime, of poverty, of hatred and harassment. It
is time for them to go.
They have nourished and appeased tyrannies, and
endangered America's deepest interests while betraying our
cherished ideals. It is time for them to go.
They have mortgaged our children's future to avoid the
decisions they lack the courage to make. It is time for
them to go.
They have demeaned our democracy with the politics of
distraction, denial, and despair. It is time for them to go.
The American people are disgusted with excuses and tired
of blame. They know that throughout American history, each
generation has passed on leadership to the next. That time
has come again. The time for a new generation of leadership
for the US of America to take over from George Bush and Dan
Quayle. And that means it is time for them to go.
In 1992, our challenge is not to elect the last president
of the 20th century, but to elect the first president of the
21st century, Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton has a plan that offers real answers for the
real problems of real people, a bold new Natl Economic
Strategy to rebuild this country and put our people back to
work.
And if you want to know what Bill Clinton can do, take a
look at what he has already done. For more than a decade,
he's been fighting against incredible odds to bring good
jobs, better skills, and genuine hope to one of the poorest
states in this country.
A decade ago, when his state needed dramatic reform to
shake up one of the worst school systems in America, Bill
Clinton took on the established interests and made Arkansas
the first state to require teacher testing. He has cut
classroom size, raised test scores, and earned the support
of both teachers and parents. They know Bill Clinton will be
the real education president.
For most of the last decade, while the Republicans have
been trying to use welfare to divide us, Bill Clinton has
led the fight to reform the welfare system to move people
off welfare and into the work force.
And Bill Clinton did all this while balancing eleven
budgets in a row, and giving the people of Arkansas one of
the lowest tax burdens in this country. No wonder Arkansas
under Bill Clinton has created manufacturing jobs at ten
times the national rate. And no wonder when all of the
nation's governors, Republicans and Democrats alike, were
asked to vote on who was the most effective governor in
America, they chose Bill Clinton by an overwhelming margin.
What we need in America in 1992 is a president who will
unleash the best in us by putting faith in the decency and
good judgment of our people. A president who will challenge
us to be true to our values and examine the ways in which
our own attitudes are barriers to the progress we seek.
America is ready to be inspired and lifted again, by
leaders committed to seeking out the best in our society,
developing it and strengthening it. I have spent much of my
career working to protect the environment, not only because
it is vital to the future of my state of Tennessee, our
country, and our earth, but because I believe there is a
fundamental link between our current relationship to the
earth and the attitudes that stand in the way of human
progress.
For generations, we have believed we could abuse the
earth because we weren't really connected to it. But now we
must face the truth. The task of saving the earth's
environment must and will become the central organizing
principle of the post-Cold War world.
And just as the false assumption that we are not
connected to the earth has led to the ecological crisis, so
the equally false assumption that we are not connected to
each other has led to our social crisis. Even worse, the
evil and mistaken assumption that we have no connection to
those generations preceding us or those who will follow us
has led to the crisis of values we face today.
Those are the connections that are missing from our
politics today. Those are the bridges we must rebuild if we
are to rebuild our country. And those are the values we must
honor in order to recapture that faith in the future which
has always been the heart of the American Dream.
We have another challenge as well. In the wake of the
Cold War, with the re-emergence of ancient ethnic and racial
hatreds throughout the world, the US must once again prove
that there is a better way. Just as we accepted on behalf of
humankind the historic mission of proving that political
freedom is the best form of government and economic freedom
is the best engine of prosperity, and must now accept the
obligation of proving that freedom from prejudice is the
heart and soul of community, that yes, we can get along,
yes, people of all backgrounds can not only live together
peacefully, but enrich one another, celebrate diversity and
come together as one. Yes, we will be one people, and live
the dream that will make his world free.
In the end, this election isn't about politics. It isn't
even about winning, though that's what we are going to do.
It's about the responsibilities we owe one another and we
owe our children, the calling we hear to serve our country
and to be part of a community larger than ourselves.
You've heard a lot in the past week about how much Bill
Clinton and I have in common. Indeed, we both share the
values we learned in our hometowns: individual
responsibility, faith, family, and the belief that hard work
should be rewarded. We're both fathers with young children,
children who are part of a generation whose very future is
at stake in this election. And we're both proud of our
wives, Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore, 2 women who have
done more for the children of this country in the last 12
years than the last 2 men who have sat in the Oval Office
have done in their lifetimes.
I'm proud my father and mother could be here tonight to
see me join a ticket that will make good on the best advice
they ever gave me: to tell the truth and always love my
country. My sister and I were born to 2 wonderful people who
worked hard to give us a better life. 1992 is the Year of
the Woman. It is also the 46th anniversary of the year my
mother, born in a time when women weren't even allowed to
vote, became one of the first women to graduate from
Vanderbilt Law School.
My father was a teacher in a 1-room school who worked his
way to the US Senate. I was 8 years old when my father's
name was placed in nomination for the vice presidency before
the Democratic convention of 1956. Growing up, I watched him
stand courageously for civil rights and economic opportunity
and a government that worked for ordinary people.
I don't know what it's like to lose a father, but I know
what it's like to lose a sister and almost lose a son. I
wish my late sister Nancy could be here this evening, but I
am grateful beyond words for the blessings my family has
shared. Three years ago, my son Albert was struck by a car
crossing the street after watching a baseball game in
Baltimore.
He was thrown 30 feet in the air on impact and scraped
along another 20 feet on the pavement after he hit the
ground. I ran to his side and held him and called his name,
but he was limp and still, without breath or pulse. His eyes
were open with the empty stare of death, and we prayed, the
2 of us, there in the gutter, with only my voice.
His injuries, inside and out, were massive, and for
terrible days he lingered between life and death. Tipper and
I spent the next 30 days and nights at his bedside. Our
family was lifted and healed, in no small measure by the
love, compassion, and prayers of thousands of people, most
of whom we never even knew.
Albert is plenty brave and strong, and with the support
of 3 wonderful sisters--Karenna, Kristin, and Sarah--and 2
loving parents who helped him with his exercises every
morning and prayed for him every night, he pulled through.
And now, thank God, he has fully recovered, and he runs and
plays and torments his older sisters like any little boy.
But that experience changed me forever. When you've seen
your 6-year-old son fighting for his life, you realize that
some things matter more than winning, and you lose patience
with the lazy assumption of so many in politics that we can
always just muddle through. When you've seen your reflection
in the empty stare of a boy waiting for a 2d breath of life,
you realize that we weren't put here on earth to look out
for our needs alone; we're part of something much larger
than ourselves.
My friends, if you look up for a moment from the rush of
your daily lives, you will hear the quiet voices of your
country crying out for help. You will see your reflection in
the weary eyes of those who are losing hope in America. And
you will see that our democracy is lying there in the
gutter, waiting for us to give it a 2d breath of life.
I don't care what party you're in, whether you are an
independent, whether your have been tempted to give up on
the whole political process or not, or give up on our party
or not, we want you to join this common effort to unite our
country behind a higher calling. If you have been supporting
Ross Perot, I want to make a special plea to you this
evening: don't give up on your fight for change. The time
has come for all Americans to be part of the healing. In the
words of the Bible, "Do not lose heart. This nation will be
renewed."
In order to renew our nation, we must renew ourselves.
Just as America has always transcended the hopes and dreams
of every other nation on earth, so must we transcend
ourselves, and in Gandhi's words, become the change we wish
to see in the world. Let those of us alive today resolve
with one another that we will so conduct ourselves--in this
campaign and in our lives--that 200 years from now,
Americans will say of our labors that this nation and this
earth were healed by people they never even knew.
I'm told that Hope, Ark, is a lot like my hometown of
Carthage, Tenn: It's a place where people know about it when
you're born and care about it when you die. That's the
America Bill Clinton and I grew up in. That's the kind of
nation we want our children to grow up in. Just as Hope is a
community, so is America. When we bring the community of
America together, we will rekindle the American spirit and
renew this nation for generations to come. And the way to
begin is to elect Bill Clinton President of the US of
America.
Thank you."