John McCain

“ Both Senator Obama and I promise we will end Washington's stagnant, unproductive partisanship. But one of us has a record of working to do that and one of us doesn't. Americans have seen me put aside partisan and personal interests to move this country forward. They haven't seen Senator Obama do the same. For all his fine words and all his promise, he has never taken the hard but right course of risking his own interests for yours; of standing against the partisan rancor on his side to stand up for our country. He is an impressive man, who makes a great first impression. ”

“ I seek the office with the humility of a man who cannot forget my country saved me. I'll reach out my hand to anyone, Republican or Democrat, who will help me change what needs to be changed; fix what needs to be fixed; and give this country a government as capable and good as the people it is supposed to serve. There is a time to campaign, and a time to govern. If I'm elected President, the era of the permanent campaign of the last sixteen years will end. The era of reform and problem solving will begin. ”

“ The endless ranks of Americans who have died in service to that ideal, and who fight to defend it today, demand of us, who do not share their sacrifice, that we use our talents and industry to keep that ideal inviolate within the boundaries of the country they have loved so well.
I thank you for keeping faith with their faith, and for lending your hearts and minds to the enduring and noble cause of preserving in our time the greatest experiment in human history: government of the people, by the people and for the people. ”

“ Much rides on that principle: the integrity of the government, our prosperity; and every American's self-respect, which depends, as it always has, on one's own decisions and actions, and cannot be provided as another government benefit.
Stand up for these values. Argue our principles for our country's sake and not just ours. We are the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan. Take on the big problems. Don't hide from hard challenges. Act on principle. Show Americans there are things that matter more to us than our incumbency. Do the right thing, and the politics will take care of itself. ”

“ CLINTON: Well, I think we have to beat John McCain, and I have every reason to believe we're going to have a Democratic president and it's going to be either Barack or me. And we're going to make that happen.
And what is important is that we understand exactly the challenges facing us in order to defeat Senator McCain.
He will be a formidable candidate. There isn't any doubt about that. He has a great American story to tell. He's a man who has served our country with distinction over many years, but he has the wrong ideas about America. ”

“ Both parties play it, as do the special interests that support each side. The American people know it's not on the level. For all the problems we face, what frustrates them most about Washington is they don't think we're capable of serving the public interest before our personal ambitions; that we fight for ourselves and not for them. They are sick of the politics of selfishness, stalemate and delay, and they have every right to be. We have to change not only government policies that have failed them, but the political culture that produced them. ”

“ Does any honest observer believe those challenges will be easier to confront and at lesser cost in American blood and treasure if the United States accepts defeat in Iraq?
We all agree a military solution alone will not solve the problems of Iraq. There must be a political agreement among Iraqis that allows all groups to participate in the building of their nation, to share in its resources and to live in peace with each other. But without greater security imposed by the United States military and the Iraqi Army, there can be no political solution. ”

“ Any benefit that ever accrued to me on occasions in my public life when I perceived my self-interest as unrelated to the nation I served and unresponsive to the demands of my conscience have been as fleeting as pleasure and as meaningless as an empty gesture.
"In America, our rights come before our duties. We are a free people, and among our freedoms is the liberty to not sacrifice for our birthright. Yet those who claim their liberty but not their duty to the civilization that ensures it, live a half-life, having indulged their self-interest at the cost of their self-respect. ”

“ We are an unfinished nation. We must take our place in the enterprise of renewal, giving in our time our counsel, our labor and our passion to the enduring task of making our nation and this world a better place. We must prove again, as those who came before us proved, that a people free to act in their own interests will perceive their interests in an enlightened way, will live as one nation, in a kinship of ideals, and make of our power and wealth a civilization for the ages, a civilization in which all people share in the promise and responsibilities of freedom. ”

“ Obama, I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president.
And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties but to believe always in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here. ”

“ Hypocrisy, my friends, is the most obvious of political sins. And the people will punish it. We were elected to reduce the size of government and enlarge the sphere of free and private initiative. Then we lavished money, in a time of war, on thousands of projects of dubious, if any, public value. We responded to a problem facing some Americans by providing every retired American with a prescription drug benefit, and adding another trillion dollars to a bankrupt entitlement. We increased the size of government in the false hope that we could bribe the public into keeping us in office. ”

“ I think the American people want us to reaffirm who we are. So let's do that today, my friends.
We are a nation that limits the reach of government because government by its nature will, if permitted, limit the reach of the human heart.
We are a nation that limits the reach of government because we understand that no government should have a right to impose itself between human beings and their lawful aspirations to make of their lives what they will. ”

“ America must remain ever vigilant in the preservation of our governing ideals. You must continue your good work in service to that essential work, because you know something that we here in Washington too often forget: that neither the courts, nor Congress nor the President can make us a great country. Only the American people can do that, if we, all three branches of government, safeguard their rights, which we have sworn an oath to do. ”

“ I can only promise you that I take that responsibility seriously, as a matter of honor, and will try to the best of my ability to prove it. I know what we owe you and all Americans, the living and the fallen, who have put our country's interests before their own. I am humbled by it, inspired by it, and obligated by it. You are the examples that encourage us to find our own way to give something back to the country that has given us so much. We are and always will be beholden to you. Let us be, as well, faithful in our obligations to you. ”

“ So, I say to my Party, to my friends on the Right and the Left, let us honor him by holding his faith as our own, and let us, too, tear down walls to freedom. That, my friends, is what Americans do when they believe in themselves. ”

“ Will this nation's elected leaders make the politically hard but strategically vital decision to give General Petraeus our full support and do what is necessary to succeed in Iraq? Or will we decide to take advantage of the public's frustration, accept defeat, and hope that whatever the cost to our security the politics of defeat will work out better for us than our opponents? For my part, I would rather lose a campaign than a war. ”

“ What struck me upon my return from Baghdad is the enormous gulf between the harsh but hopeful realities in Iraq, where politics is for many a matter of life and death, and the fanciful and self-interested debates about Iraq that substitute for statesmanship in Washington. In Iraq, American and Iraqi soldiers risk everything to hold the country together, to prevent it from becoming a terrorist sanctuary and the region from descending into the dangerous chaos of a widening war. ”

“ I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our goodwill and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.
Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. ”

“ Fellow Americans, we can achieve whatever task we set for our country, and whatever task we set for our party, as long as we remember why we came to Washington in the first place. We came to honor Ronald Reagan's and Mike Christian's faith in America, the greatest nation and greatest force for good on earth. ”

“ Some argue the war in Iraq no longer has anything to do with us; that it is a hopelessly complicated mess of tribal warfare and sectarian conflict. The situation is complex, and very difficult. Yet from one perspective it is quite simple. We are engaged in a basic struggle: a struggle between humanity and inhumanity; between builders and destroyers. If fighting these people and preventing the export of their brand of radicalism and terror is not intrinsic to the national security and most cherished values of the United States, I don't know what is. ”

“ It is honorable for Americans to help those struggling for their freedom throughout the world. From the shipyard workers fighting for solidarity at Gdansk to the freedom fighters in Afghanistan to the Cory Achene's of developing nations, we must support those struggling for their freedom because it is our heritage. Just as other nations supported our struggle for freedom over 200 years ago.
Honor. It is dishonorable for this nation to sell Central America down the river to communism. ”

“ This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.
I've always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Sen. Obama believes that, too. But we both recognize that though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation's reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound. ”

“ Any country that wishes to see the Iraqi people live in peace and freedom should join in pressuring Syria to stop Iraqi and foreign terrorists from using its soil.
Win the homefront. While we make improvements in our political-military strategy, the latest polls and protests at home show that we need a renewed effort to win the homefront. If we can’t retain the support of the American people, we will have lost this war as soundly as if our forces were defeated on the battlefield. ”

“ Further, I hope you will grant that I have defended many positions we share just as ardently as I have made my case for positions that have provoked your opposition. If not, thank you for this opportunity to make my case today.
I am proud to be a conservative, and I make that claim because I share with you that most basic of conservative principles: that liberty is a right conferred by our Creator, not by governments, and that the proper object of justice and the rule of law in our country is not to aggregate power to the state but to protect the liberty and property of its citizens. ”

“ It is a sad and hard thing to ask so much more of Americans who have already given more than their fair share to the defense of our country. Few of them and their families will have greeted the news without feeling greatly disappointed, and without offering a few well deserved complaints in the direction of those of us who have imposed on them this additional hardship. Then they will shoulder a rifle and risk everything - everything - to accomplish their mission, to protect another people's freedom and our own country from harm. ”

“ My friends, we're not a country that would rather go back than forward. We're the world's leader, and leaders don't hide from history. They make history. But if we're going to lead, we have to reform a government that has lost its ability to help us do so. The solution to our problems isn't to reach back to the 1960s and 70s for answers. In just a few years in office, Senator Obama has accumulated the most liberal voting record in the Senate. ”

“ As Americans and Iraqis sacrifice to provide that security, Iraq's leaders must do the hard work of political reconciliation. We can help them get there, but we cannot assume their responsibilities. Unless they accept their own obligations to all Iraqis, we will all fail, and America, Iraq and the world will have to live with the terrible consequences. We are giving Iraq's leaders and people the chance to have a better future, but they must seize it. ”