Former Vice President Al Gore
complete speech transcript
"I also ask tonight for the help of those who supported a third party candidate in 2000. I urge you to ask yourselves this question: do you still believe that there was no difference between the candidates? Are you troubled by the erosion of some of America's most basic civil liberties? Are you worried that our environmental laws are being weakened and dismantled to allow vast increases in pollution that are contributing to a global climate crisis? No matter how you voted in the last election, these are profound problems that all voters must take into account this November 2nd."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich
complete speech transcript
"This administration rushed us into a war based on distortions and misrepresentations. We must hold them accountable. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or with al Qaeda's role in 9/11. We have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I was mayor of Cleveland, and I tell you I have seen weapons of mass destruction - in our cities. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction, homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction, racism is a weapon of mass destruction, fear is a weapon of mass destruction. We must disarm these weapons - and re-arm ourselves with quality public schools and dedicated teachers, good housing and quality health care, decent jobs and stronger neighborhoods."
State Senator Barack Obama
complete speech transcript
"John Kerry believes in America. And he knows it's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga. A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper - that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. 'E pluribus unum.' Out of many, one."
President Bill Clinton
complete speech transcript
"After 9/11, we all wanted to be one nation, strong in the fight against terror. The president had a great opportunity to bring us together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism and to unite the world in common cause against terror.
"Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different choice: to use the moment of unity to push America too far to the right and to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking Iraq before the weapons inspectors finished their jobs, but in withdrawing American support for the Climate Change Treaty, the International Court for war criminals, the ABM treaty, and even the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
"Now they are working to develop two new nuclear weapons which they say we might use first. At home, the President and the Republican Congress have made equally fateful choices indeed. For the first time ever when America was on a war footing, there were two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top one percent. I'm in that group now for the first time in my life.
"They protected my tax cuts while:
· Withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act, leaving over 2 million children behind
· Cutting 140,000 unemployed workers out of job training
· 100,000 working families out of child care assistance
· 300,000 poor children out of after school programs
· Raising out of pocket healthcare costs to veterans
· Weakening or reversing important environmental advances for clean air and the preservation of our forests.
"In this year's budget, the White House wants to cut off federal funding for 88,000 uniformed police, including more than 700 on the New York City police force who put their lives on the line on 9/11. As gang violence is rising and we look for terrorists in our midst, Congress and the President are also about to allow the ten-year-old ban on assault weapons to expire. Our crime policy was to put more police on the streets and take assault weapons off the streets. It brought eight years of declining crime and violence. Their policy is the reverse, they're taking police off the streets and putting assault weapons back on the streets.
"These policies have turned the projected 5.8 trillion dollar surplus we left - enough to pay for the baby boomers retirement - into a projected debt of nearly 5 trillion dollars, with a 400 plus billion dollar deficit this year and for years to come. How do they pay for it? First by taking the monthly surplus in Social Security payments and endorsing the checks of working people over to me to cover my tax cut. But it's not enough. They are borrowing the rest from foreign governments, mostly Japan and China. Sure, they're competing with us for good jobs but how can we enforce our trade laws against our bankers?"
Teresa Heinz Kerry
complete speech transcript
"With John Kerry as president, we can, and we will, protect our nation's security without sacrificing our civil liberties. In short, John believes we can, and we must, lead in the world - as America, unique among nations, always should - by showing the face, not of our fears, but of our hopes.
"John is a fighter. He earned his medals the old-fashioned way, by putting his life on the line for his country. No one will defend this nation more vigorously than he will - and he will always be first in the line of fire.
"But he also knows the importance of getting it right. For him, the names of too many friends inscribed in the cold stone of the Vietnam Memorial testify to the awful toll exacted by leaders who mistake stubbornness for strength. That is why, as president, my husband will not fear disagreement or dissent. He believes that our voices - yours and mine - must be the voices of freedom. And if we do not speak, neither does she.
"In America, the true patriots are those who dare speak truth to power. The truth we must speak now is that America has responsibilities that it is time for us to accept again."
Steve Brozak, Ret. Lt. Col., USMC
complete speech transcript
"Good evening. My name is Steve Brozak. I am a United States Marine. I rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel - and after the attacks of September 11th, I volunteered to go back on active duty.
"And today I am running to represent my home state of New Jersey in the United States Congress. If you told me 18 months ago that I would end up addressing the Democratic Convention, I would have said that you were crazy. You see, up until then, I was a Republican. But not anymore.
"When I was deployed to the Middle East, I saw what our troops are facing there. How our military is so overextended that tours of duty last far longer than soldiers had originally signed up for. How hard it is for our soldiers to complete their mission without the proper equipment to keep them safe. I saw how hard it is for them to shoulder this burden alone without our allies. And I saw how hard it is for our soldiers to know that while they wear their uniforms with pride, the world looks at America with suspicion.
"So a year and a half ago while back home, I went to my local town hall and I switched parties. I became a Democrat.
"You see, I didn't change. My belief in what makes a patriot never changed. My belief in a national security policy that makes us truly safer didn't change. And my belief that you only send Americans into a war with honest purpose and plans for peace didn't change. What changed was the direction of the Republican Party - so I did the honorable thing. I changed parties and I became a Democrat."
Campaign 2004