I'm voting for this guy. Now, where the hell is he or she?

On the stump, somewhere in America, October 20, 2004:

Do you share in the pride we all feel to belong to this thing called the USA? Wonderful: You're in, welcome to the club. But first, as citizens, let's do a little inventory: We may look and speak and live differently, but we remain Americans. We're great buiders and great thinkers. We're great sharers. We're great doers. It is who we are. Yet somewhere along the way, someone has sold us a bill of goods. Somehow the idea was introduced that better profits trump the betterment of you and me. Either-or, not both-and. That somehow, national security comes not from cooperation and coordination, but by some imagined lonesome cowboy ethic that never really was. Imagine a movie that expects you to believe this plot--that a sheriff succesfully protects his town by alienating and insulting the ever-friendly marshalls in the surrounding counties. This is the premise and the plan, tragic and costly, we're expected believe today. You're either with us, or you're against us. Our way is the only way.

This is wrong. This is not us. We have more confidence and ability than strained belligerent bluster like that betrays. The only franchise on infallibility comes from God, everyone's God. Our Declaration of Independence is quite clear on this. America is not about being perfect. It is about pusuit of the ideal of perfection. Why? Because the minute we say "perfect," we're done. Our national reason for being is gone. Besides being impossible, "Perfect" is a destination. Terminal. Where to from there? If the world keeps turning, nowhere but irrelevance. But seeking perfection, not accepting good enough, now there's a journey. And a plan. And journeys need supplies, new help, new ideas and new things to discover. And the right journeys are glasses half-full. They are self-sustaining and self-starting. They are energy itself.

Franklin Roosevelt told us fear is no way to face the future. We know he was right. It's not who we are, and it will never be allowed to define us. America's real security, not imagined, must be tended to and our power to protect, ourselves and others, must be unquestioned. And so it shall be, unquestionably. That is what this election is about. And, with your trust and faith, it is why I stand before you today.

But it seems I stand before you for another reason also. Like Dr. King, I have a dream. A dream you share. A dream that the prosperity and security of America for the next century is assured. That dream becomes reality only when we tend to the unfinished business of this great and maturing nation. And that business is the uplift of those who are struggling with task of joining prosperous nations like ours. That is our Mission to the Moon, but on this here Earth. This is altruism, yes, but it is enlightened self-interest also. We are builders. We are inventors. We are managers. We are creators. These endeavours require opportunities for release and action. They require customers. And they mean jobs.

My friends, do you remember the words of Lady Liberty--bring me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses? Well, they don't have to come to us. We, will go to them. And with discipline, fairness, ideas and opportunity, America will not only do well in the 21st century, we will have done Good.

[update] What is the above gibberish? The result of an interesting lunch where the conversation revolved around politics and the false, inert and simplistic choices voters will end up with this fall. We all agreed, no matter what our party preference that tired, unimaginative rhetoric makes us want to puke. We even agreed that if John Kerry's gonna keep using the lame "bring it on", he needs to let his audiences finish the the actual line because it sounds so hollow and shallow coming from him. That led many of us to ask, what would an ideal candidate say--how would he or she bridge the predicament we are in globally and domestically with a message of action and hope? Does the above fit the bill? Who knows, but I had to get it out of my system.