Sen. John Kerry's announcement of presidential candidacy

September 2, 2003

Mount Pleasant, S.C.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Max Cleland, for your friendship, your inspiration. You are a remarkable, extraordinary American, and everyone here joins me in thanking you for a lifetime of patriotism. We are so honored to be here with you today.

Now, we're going to do a little variation on the program here because we missed something that I wanted to share with you. And so I'm going to bring him up here and ask him to do this before I speak; if I may?

This young man who was my gunner, right above my head, two twin 50-caliber machine guns, he happens to hail from right here in South Carolina, and he is today a minister. I did not know then that I had a man of God above my head protecting me. I knew I had God there, but I didn't know I had a special messenger. And indeed, today, I want him to share with us a prayer as we open this moment. And I ask David Alston, my gunner from South Carolina, to come up here and share that with us.

David?

Here, here, David.

Thank you, David Alston.

I am as proud to have you on my crew today as I was 35 years ago, and I thank each and every one of my crew members who have been able to come here today, and I ask you to join me on behalf of America in saying thank you to them for what they've contributed and what they have done. Thank you.

I thank you, General Cheney, for your leadership and for all you've given to our country and for getting so many of our young Marines through Parris Island to serve their country with such grace and capacity. We appreciate that.

And I am so grateful to be here with Judge Sanders, Alex Sanders. I thought he would have made and we thought and he thought he'd make a great United States senator. But I will tell you, this is a man who serves not just his state and his family, but he serves his country with great grace and great distinction and with passion, and we're grateful for all of those qualities. Judge Sanders, thank you very, very much.

This is a first for me, not just because of the occasion that it represents, but I have never in my life had the chance to talk to an audience of fluttering fans.

And I kind of felt like I might just turn this into a good old Baptist revival, folks.

This is a first for me, not just because of the occasion that it represents, but I have never in my life had the chance to talk to an audience of fluttering fans.

And I kind of felt like I might just turn this into a good old Baptist revival, folks.

This is no ordinary campaign because this is no ordinary time. We have lived through the most deadly attack on our people in American history, the greatest job loss since the Great Depression and the greatest loss of wealth and of savings ever recorded. But every time that our country has faced great challenges, we have come through and we have come out stronger because courageous Americans have done what is right for America. This is the time for the same kind of courage.

I learned something about service from two people that I wish could be here today: my father, who as a member of the greatest generation enlisted in the Army Air Corps even before Pearl Harbor and served in the State Department at the height of the Cold War; and my mother, 50 years a Girl Scout leader, a community activist with a passion for the environment, who took me into the woods as a young man and said simply, listen.

My wife, Teresa, reminds me of the ideals of America. She is a naturalized citizen who came here from a dictatorship and she loves the freedom and optimism of America and all that it has to offer. She is a caring, strong leader on many causes and she speaks the truth, and I love her for that, too.

Vanessa, Alex and Christopher, I thank you _ all of you _ for taking the time out of your own lives to come here and be with me and share this moment. And for Teresa and me, we would say that all of our children, and now our first grandchild, give us joy and pride every single day. And as I look around here and I'm surrounded by the love and affection and respect of my crew mates and veterans who are here today, I am reminded that the best lessons that I learned about being an American came in a place far away from America on that gunboat that Max referred to in the Mekong Delta with a small crew of volunteers.

Some of us had been to college, others were just out of high school, but we grew up together on that tiny boat. It was our sanctuary and a place for bridging distances between California and South Carolina, Iowa and Massachusetts. We were no longer the kid from Arkansas or the kid from Illinois. We were just Americans together under the same flag, giving ourselves to something bigger than each of us as individuals.

We arrived as strangers and we left as brothers. We didn't think we were special. We just tried to do what was right. And when we came home, we had a simple saying--"Every day is extra." I used my extra days to join other veterans to end a war that I believed was wrong. I saw courage, both in the Vietnam War and in the struggles to stop it.

I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service. But you don't have to go halfway around the world or march on Washington to learn about bravery or love of country. Again and again, in the causes that define our nation and in everyday life in America, we have seen the uncommon courage that is common to the American people.

Today, with confidence in the courage of our people to change what is wrong and do what is right, I come here to say why I am a candidate for president of the United States of America.

I am running so that we can keep America's promise to reward the hard work of middle-class Americans and pull down the barriers that stand in the way of those who are struggling to join them, to restore our true strength in the world which comes from ideals, not arrogance, to renew the commitment of our generation to pass this planet on to our children better than it was given to us.

I reject George Bush's radical new vision of a government that comforts the comfortable at the expense of ordinary Americans...

... that let's corporations do as they please, that turns its back on the very alliances that we helped to create and the very principles that have made our nation a model to the world for over two centuries.

An economic policy of lost opportunity and lost hopes is wrong for America. An international policy where we stand almost alone is wrong for America.

George Bush's vision does not live up to the America I enlisted in the Navy to defend, the America I have fought for in the Senate and the America that I hope to lead as president. And everyday of this campaign, I will challenge George Bush for fundamentally taking our country in the wrong direction.

I will tell you what I believe, tell you what we must do for our country, and I will show you how together we will defeat George Bush next November.

First, we must restore a foreign policy that is true to our ideals. We will defend our national security and maintain a military that is the strongest armed force on earth. But if I am president, I will never forget that even a nation as powerful as the United States of America needs to make some friends in this world, and I will do that.

Overseas, George Bush has led and misled us on a course at odds with 200 years of our history. He has squandered the goodwill of the world after September 11th, and he has lost the respect and the influence that we need to make our country safe. We are seeing the peril in Iraq everyday.

I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations. I believe that was right, but it was wrong to rush to war without building a true international coalition and with no plan to win the peace.

So long as Iraq remains an American intervention and not an international undertaking, we will face increasing danger and mounting casualties. Being flown to an aircraft carrier and saying, "Mission accomplished" doesn't end a war.

And the swagger of a president saying, "Bring 'em on" will never bring peace or safety to our troops.

Pride is no substitute for protecting our young men and women in uniform. Half the names on the Vietnam Memorial are there because of pride, because of a president who refused to admit we were on the wrong road, that we might be wrong. Pride is no excuse for making enemies overseas. It is time to return to the United Nations, not with the arrogance of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, but with genuine respect.

For the Bush administration to reject the participation of allies in the U.N. is a miscalculation of colossal proportions. We need to end the sense of American occupation as fast as possible and take the targets off of American soldiers.

In Iraq and across the world, we must share the burdens with our international allies and the international community. Then and only then can we assemble a worldwide coalition truly sufficient to be able to defeat the terrorists, to keep the most dangerous weapons out of their hands and out of the reach of unstable regimes.

Here again, George Bush is taking us and the world in the wrong direction. He is poised to set off a new nuclear arms race by building bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons, smaller, more usable nuclear weapons. I don't want a world with more usable nuclear weapons.

I don't want America to turn its back on half a century of effort by every president to reduce the nuclear threat. I'm running to put America where we rightfully belong, leading the way to a new international accord on nuclear proliferation and make the world itself safer for human survival.

At times, in the term of the next president, we may well have to use force to fight terrorism. Yet again, I will not hesitate to do so.

But if I am president of the United States, our beloved country will never go to war because we want to, we will go to war because we have to.

That's the standard of the United States of America.

And in the war against terrorism, let me state clearly what we all know to be true in our hearts. Two years after the tragic events of 9/11, we have not made our nation safe enough. Overseas, our commander-in-chief turned to Afghan warlords for the assault on Tora Bora, Osama bin Laden got away and today the Taliban and Al Qaida are regrouping. And here on the home front, every investigation, every commission, every piece of evidence tells us that this president has failed to make us as safe as we should be.

We are not making progress when we are laying off police and the jobs of sky marshals are in jeopardy. And if we can open firehouses in Baghdad, then we can keep them open in New York City and elsewhere in America.

But the threats today don't just come from gun barrels, they come also from oil barrels. The dollars we spend at the pump can too easily fund the terrorists who seek to destroy us. America will only be stronger if we never have to send our sons and daughters into battle for oil half a world away. We have to disarm that danger by making America independent of Mideast oil within the next 10 years. I know that the auto industry has political muscle, but we're in a time of war and everyone should contribute to the cause.

In World War II, Detroit was the arsenal of democracy. Today, they need to raise their gas mileage and build the vehicles of the future that use clean, renewable energy like ethanol; they need to help move America to energy independence.

I know that there are some in our party who resist this because they fear it will cost jobs, but it's right for America. And energy independence will create 500,000 new high-paying jobs right here in this country.

On energy and the environment, George Bush seeks to undo the progress of 30 years under presidents of both parties. His clean skies--his Clear Skies Initiative actually means dirtier air. His healthy forest proposal actually means cutting down trees. He proposed to let the oil industry--friends of his--drill in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge.

I led the fight to stop him, and we won that fight.

In a Kerry administration, we will recommit America to one of the greatest unfinished challenges of our time, and of all time, to save our environment, to protect our oceans and to reverse the tide of global warming. We will not let polluters rewrite our laws in return for campaign contributions.

We will make them, and not the taxpayers, pay the bill to clean up toxic waste that they make. And we will disprove the lie that protecting the environment can only come at the expense of jobs.

The truth is that prosperity doesn't come from pollution. The most powerful economic engine in this nation has always been opportunity; the ability for anyone from any start in life to get a good education, to go to work, to start a business, to take an idea and to change the world. But George Bush's only economic plan is lavish tax breaks for those at the top.

He has taken us down the road of diminished opportunity, not greater opportunity. Under the Bush administration, in less than three years, 3 million jobs have been lost. This is an astonishing failure and it is an outrage.

As a senator, I was proud to work with President Bill Clinton to turnaround the last Bush downturn.

And I know that the people of this country have the courage to do what's right for our economy. If I am president, I will roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy so we can invest in education, health care and the skills of our workers.

Some in my own party want to get rid of all the tax cuts, including those for working families.

That would mean that a family of four with two parents, working hard on a job and at home would have to pay $2,000 more a year in taxes. That's wrong. The last time I looked, the problem in America was not that the middle class has too much money.

We need to be on the side of America's middle class. And I've proposed a tax cut for them because it is the right way to strengthen our economy. Let me put it plainly, if Americans aren't working, America's not working.

So my economic plan sets this goal: To get back George Bush's 3 million jobs in my first 500 days as president and we can do it.

And I will cut the budget deficit in half in the first four years of our administration.

But what we face today and what we must change is not just the failure of policy. Today at the center of power, we have a radical ethic that ratifies and glorifies a creed of greed.

Once a great Republican president named Theodore Roosevelt took on those who abused their wealth and power. Today's Republican president invites them in for secret meetings, sells out our environment, tolerates their abuses and lets them evade their taxes by moving their headquarters to an offshore shelter that is nothing more than a post office box or a mail drop. That must stop.

Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton, it has 58 offshore tax havens.

And the Bush administration's response is to hand Halliburton a $7 billion no-bid contract. My response as president will be no more lavish government-funded life support for favored corporations.

No more tax allowances for bonuses of over a million dollars for CEOs who've done nothing to earn them. No more tax breaks that help companies to move the jobs overseas.

And my fellow Americans, a tax code that once ran 14 pages now takes up 17,000 pages, filled with twists and turns and customized loopholes.

Everyone in America knows it's not fair, and if I am president, we're going to scour that tax code and we're going to make it simple and fair once and for all.

And instead of tax breaks for the wealthiest and subsidies for special interests, and instead of photo opportunities with children as backdrops, let's give real meaning to the words "leave no child behind."

It is time to give our schools the resources and our teachers the respect that they deserve, and give every child in America the best possible start in life.

And let's recognize that for all of our wealth, we will be a lesser nation if we continue to be advanced or the only advanced society that does not secure access to health care for all of our people.

This is not an abstract issue to me. Earlier this year, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I was cured because as a United States senator, I was lucky to have some of the best medical care in the world. Millions of our fellow citizens are not so lucky, and I am determined to change that. I propose to give every American access to the same health coverage that the senators and Congress give themselves.

And I say to you today as clearly as I can: Your family's health is just as important as any politician's in Washington, and we must make it so as the policy of this country.

The courage to do what's right means standing up for civil rights, for equal rights and ending discrimination for all Americans, ending discrimination against African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian-Americans, and gays and lesbians. All Americans deserve to be free from this discrimination and to enjoy the full measure of America's rights.

And it means understanding that our civil liberties are not an obstacle to defending this nation--they are one of the things that we seek to defend.

George Bush has sought to undo guarantees enshrined in the Constitution, not by amending it, but by subverting it with his judicial nominees. As president, I will only appoint Supreme Court justices who will uphold a woman's right to choose and the right to privacy in America.

A just America demands a Supreme Court that honors our Constitution, and it demands an attorney general whose name is not John Ashcroft.

And some may not like to hear it, but courage means standing up for gun safety, not retreating from the issue out of political fear or trying to have it both ways. I am a hunter and I believe in the Second Amendment, but I have never gone hunting with an AK-47.

Our party will never be the choice of the NRA, and I'm not looking to be the candidate of the NRA.

Today, I ask all of you to enlist in a mission that is bigger than any of us. For each of us has extra days, not just for ourselves, but to share. And I hope to be the president who asks all of us to serve, because in the end the ideals of this nation will not be realized by presidential decree, but by national service that can only be measured in the countless individual acts and of a commitment to do what's right for America every day in every community in many different ways--from helping a child to learn to read, to giving senior citizens the chance to give more of their talents and strength.

And the force of all of those extra days joined together can open a new era of concern for others and not just for ourselves, of community and not division, of opportunity for the many and not just a few.

I believe that the courage of Americans can change this country. I believe that the idealism of Americans can match our power to our principles so that this nation will advance the best hopes of the world.

I believe that the genius of Americans can make us energy independent. I believe that the resolve of Americans can break the grip of special interests and bring back jobs and economic justice. I believe the vision of Americans can save our environment, raise up our schools and finally open up health care to all.

The conscience of Americans can guard our fundamental liberties and preserve them for generations to come. Your courage, your courage can make sure that we do what's right for our country. Your courage can give America back its future, its strength and its soul.

I am honored to join you in this endeavor as a candidate for president of the United States. Thank you and God bless you all.

Thank you.