Hello folks, how are you? Let me tell you what I know about South Carolina. I learned long time ago, when I got to the senate because of a guy named Fritz Hollings. I know a couple of things, a lot of the folks tend to make a mistake about South Carolina and the whole South, like my state, the historic black colleges of my state were proud as all the other colleges. The kids in those schools have the same exact aspirations of the kids at the Harvards and Yales of the world. I learned in my state, which has 20 percent of its population African American, but I don't know a white mother, I don't know a black mother, I don't know a Hispanic mother, I don't know an Asian mother who don't have the same exact dream for their kids as everyone else has. And ladies and gentleman I also know that Rachael had to teach the Governor something, he said what he learned after he left the office. I understand from Rachael that when the Governor came out after leaving office he used to go, walk out to the driveway and get in the back seat of the car and wonder why it didn't moved. It takes a while for Governors to learn that, you know it's good to be in Clyburn country I want to tell you. Jim Jim with your influence you did more for your alma mater and this state than $25 million advertising by the Chamber of Commerce could have done nation wide. I am telling the truth, I have got calls from all over the country, people who know me, watch the debates, supporters that I have in New Hampshire, other places saying I never knew that. Not about me, about South Carolina, you all comported yourself well, you make us all the good and I want to thank you for doing it for all of us. Let me get right to it folks, to state the obvious this administration has dug America into a very deep hole. America is more isolated and Americans are more uncertain about their future than any time in the last 50 years and the American people are looking to us, they are looking to us the Democrats to produce someone who can guide us through the next difficult decade, who understands the problems and pressures facing average Americans, they look at for someone literally, not figuratively, to help America restore its place in the world, restore America's greatness. Ladies and gentlemen they want someone who understands that in order to regain the flexibility deal with our problems at home and the credibility to once again the lead the world, we have to deal successfully the great big boulder sitting in our path and that's Iraq. People say to me why do I talk so much about Iraq, am I a one issue candidate? No, but I am one candidate who understands unless we successfully deal with Iraq, our hands are tied in so many ways and ladies and gentlemen the debate if you listen to Washington, the debate in Washington presents two false choices, either to continue the same and escalate and hand the problem out to the next President or by some, even some in our party you are told, leave and hope for the best. Neither is a rational choice. We have an obligation we have an obligation not only to see to it that my son who is the Attorney General of Delaware and a captain in an Army National Guard, try to prevent his unit from going. We also have to make sure that when we leave we don't leave behind a circumstance that my grandson and my grand daughter have to go. There's much at stake, and so the challenge for each of us to be responsible in my view as your next President, is to be able answer a critical two word question when you ask us what is our position on Iraq? And it's a simple question. Then what? Escalate troops, then what? Cut troops, then what? Cap the funding, then what? Ladies and gentlemen, this President took us to war unnecessarily. Ladies and gentlemen, he took us to war without letting the weapons inspectors do their job, without enough troops, without the right equipment for the troops he sent and with out the right care for the troops we brought home. But ladies and gentleman, most of all, this President sent us to war without a plan without any plan. And the price of his failure can be measured in the blooded treasure we've squandered as a nation. 3,300 brave Americans dead, 24,000 wounded. More amputees than any war since the civil war on a per capita basis, more head trauma injuries that required care for the rest of their lives, leaving a debt that we are not paying, we are handing out to our children of over one trillion four hundred billion dollars. Ladies and gentlemen, this war must end this war must end. My fellow Americans, history teaches us and often times we don't read history. But history teaches us that never in the past when there has been a self-sustaining cycle of sectarian violence, never in the past has it ended well other than with one solution. You must separate the combatants, you must give them a political way forward and I laid out long time ago specific plan to do that. And I am pleased that so many of my colleagues are now agreeing and so many people in both parties from, Secretary Kissinger to Secretary Albright have now agreed and the plan is quite frankly simple and complete. It says, give the factions that are killing one another breathing room, breathing room in their own regions with control over the fabric of their daily lives, control over their own local police, control over their own education system, control over their own religious sect, control over those things they are killing each other over. Secondly, have a Central Government that is limited, responsible for border security, coinage and distribution of oil. Guarantee the Sunnis the they get their fair share of oil. Begin to draw down, not escalate our troops in Iraq forcing the Iraqis to begin to focus on the need for a political settlement and may be most importantly folks, as I called for almost two years ago, began to make Iraq the worlds problem. Make it the worlds problem by convening the Security Council of the United Nations, bringing in the largest Arab and Muslim countries in the world and say to the parties in the region a political federated system is one that we almost abide by because ladies and gentlemen, I promise you not in your life time, including the young people on this conference center, not in your life time will there ever be a strong central democratic government in Baghdad, it will not happen. So lets get about the business of accomplishing the mission and let me make one other the thing clear, the President is here, I say to you Mr. President, you have said to those of us assembled here and to me and others that we are emboldening the enemy. Mr. President the only thing that's emboldening the enemy has been your failed policy. That emboldens the enemy. Mr. President that is the only mission you have accomplished. Ladies and gentlemen, at this moment in our history I think Americans need a leader with the breadth and depth of experience in world affairs for a simple reason and all of you know this in your heart no matter who among us you vote for. You can say without a fear of contradiction that when the constitution passes power from this President to the next President, the next President would be left with virtually no margin for error, none. The next President in the United States is going to have to immediately extricate us from this war without mortgaging our future in that region and immediately turn to other hot spots in the world before they explode into new wars. Ladies and gentlemen I make no comment about any other candidate but I will tell you one thing, if you take that office not being sure, you know more than your advisors know, we are in trouble. And here at home it's not going to be enough for the next President to have the right plans as to how to deal with education, energy, health care. Think about this folks, we been losing the middle class vote. We Democrats have been losing the middle class vote, you been loosing at here in South Carolina. I would respectfully suggest that what average Americans are looking for is they want a President who they believe, understands what they are dealing with in their daily lives. My dad who died several years ago was the, was an elegant wonderful high school educated man. My dad never expected the government to solve his problem, but my dad expected his leaders to understand his problems, expected his leaders in his country to have a sense of what his and tens and millions of other middle class Americans were struggling with. Ladies and gentlemen, the American people want to know that we understand how tough it has been for them the last the last six years dealing with their daily lives. They know, they know we need an energy policy to free us from the access of oil, they know we have to begin the end of global warming. But what they doubt Washington, what they doubt even our governors across the nation is they doubt whether we understand just how hard it is to heat and air condition their home. Just how much difficult it is when gas goes to 2.80-2.90-3.10, to fill up their gas tanks, to get to work. They want to know, that we understand, ladies and gentlemen, Americans know we need national health insurance but they want to know do we have any idea those who aspired to be their leaders, what a slight for 47 million people in America who go to bed at night staring at the ceiling, 37 million of whom work 40 hours a week or more and stare at the ceiling, who look over at their pregnant wife and think my god, if I have a premature child will I lose my house? If I have breast cancer will it cost me so much, I will not be able to stay in my neighborhood. If I have a serious catastrophic accident what will happen to me? Ladies and gentlemen they want to know whether or not we understand how they feel. Ladies and gentlemen, every single American as I referenced earlier in my state and in your state, knows that the ticket to the middle class in the 21st century is a college education, you know it I know it. But guess what folks, they wonder whether the Democratic Party and the leaders of the Democratic Party remember what its like for the hundreds of thousands of American parents who literally, this month in April when all those college acceptance are coming out, they wonder whether we remember what it feels like for a father or a mother to look into the eyes of their talented child knowing there is not a single thing that parent can do to help that child get to college. I remember, I remember going down after baseball practice my senior year to visit my dad who ran an automobile dealership, he was the manager and I went down quite frankly to borrow an automobile of the used-car lot for the senior prom. And I remember walking into the showroom, its god truth, walking into the showroom and asking where dad was. They said he was over in the used-car lots, so I walked across the street to Porter Chevrolet and my dad looks like something bad had happened. You know you can tell whether something going on with your mom and your dad. And I remember as vividly as it were today. And I said dad, what's the matter? And he said, champ I am sorry, I am so sorry. And I thought he meant I couldn't borrow the car. It was a red Chrysler 300, 1961. When I looked at him, and he was a proud man, and he said, champ I am so sorry, I went to the Farmers Bank at Delaware to try to borrow money for you to get to college and they wouldn't lend it to me. I don't know what I am going to do champ; I don't know what I am going to do. It wasn't about whether I got to go to college, it was about his heart. Ladies and gentlemen, 400,000 kids got into college last year that couldn't go. Not just how do they feel, how do their parents feel? Folks they want to know we remember they want to know we know. Well, I understand like many in this room do, the struggles and aspirations of average Americans, because quite frankly there are struggles. They represent our values, they represent America's values. And just imagine what I will be able to do as President of the United States, with a $100 million dollars we are now spending on Iraq to be able to spend on these social programs. Just imagine what we can do when we change the tax structure in this country, just changing the tax structure, just eliminating the tax for those who make over over an average of $1.4 million a year, will save $185 billion a year. Imagine what I can do with $185 billion a year in America. I can insure every child in America for $26 billion. I can make sure that no child educated and able to go to college is denied the loan or the grant. I can make sure that with $1 billion my Violence Against Women Act can fund every single solitary thing to free women from the cages they find themselves in of abuse. Ladies and gentlemen the American people are ready and so am I and for once in our history we should remember who we are as a party, not one single time in American history had the American people ever let their country down. But it's always been the historic role of our party, the Democratic Party, from Jefferson to Jackson, from Roosevelt to Kennedy, to remind America of that legacy to summon us to the moment, to make America once again the shining light of the world. Ladies and gentlemen I pledge to you with every fiber of my being, as your president that's what I will do. God bless America and god protects our troops. Thank you very much.
member. 
