Obama Victory Speech in Iowa

Above is the full 13 minutes of Barack's victory speech in Iowa - phew - very inspiring! Watch the video and you will be convinced! He is energetic and passionate. He knows that his candidacy is about the people and giving hope to people from any walk of life a chance at success - they same chance he has been given.

Talking to a friend this morning he said that is has been nearly 10 years since the end of Clinton's presidency and close to 20 since the beginning of his presidency. Bringing in Hillary would bring back the ideas, the schools of thoughts, the people and the policies from 20 years ago. Electing President Obama would harness the energy, ideas and people of the 21st century with an outlook for the future.

New ways of approaching problems, new coalitions, new alliances, all built on a hope for a better future, a more positive world, for America, for all of us.

Clinton the Second would have you believe Barack cannot succeed because he has a lack of experience. Clinton the First didn't have any more foreign policy experience than Barack and he was successful. Clinton the Second's foreign policy experience is through osmosis and more spin then reality. Heck, Lord Cheney and Rumsfeld and their whole crew had 1000's of years of experience between all of them, and look where it has taken America!

I don't personally believe experience is the issue. How many times have you applied for a job knowing you could do it, knowing you could succeed if given the chance - but you didn't have the experience? And then, when someone did give you that chance - why you were a superstar of course!

It is the ability to make decisions, the ability to think critically, to persuade world leaders and to build consensus with lawmakers that makes a successful president. From what I have seen of Barack, he has those abilities in spades and that is why he will get my vote!

Below, from salon.com, is an excerpt from the latter part of the speech - very inspiring!

"This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long; when we rallied people of all parties and ages to a common cause; when we finally gave Americans who have never participated in politics a reason to stand up and to do so," Obama said. "This was the moment when we finally beat back the policies of fear and doubts and cynicism, the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up.

"Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope. For many months, we've been teased, even derided for talking about hope. But we always knew that hope is not blind optimism. It's not ignoring the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path.

"It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight. Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.

"Hope is what I saw in the eyes of the young woman in Cedar Rapids who works the night shift after a full day of college and still can't afford health care for a sister who's ill. A young woman who still believes that this country will give her the chance to live out her dreams.

"Hope is what I heard in the voice of the New Hampshire woman who told me that she hasn't been able to breathe since her nephew left for Iraq. Who still goes to bed each night praying for his safe return.

"Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. What led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation. What led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause.

"Hope -- hope is what led me here today. With a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas and a story that could only happen in the United States of America.

"Hope is the bedrock of this nation. The belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us, by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is, who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

"That is what we started here in Iowa and that is the message we can now carry to New Hampshire and beyond.

"The same message we had when we were up and when we were down; the one that can save this country, brick by brick, block by block, calloused hand by calloused hand -- that together, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

"Because we are not a collection of red states and blue states. We are the United States of America. And in this moment, in this election, we are ready to believe again."