Address by Jimmy Carter Announcing his Candidacy for the 1976 Democratic Presidential Nomination to the National Press Club on December 12, 1974.
"We Americans are a great and diverse people. We take full advantage of our right to develop wide-ranging interests and responsibilities. For instance, I am a farmer, an engineer, a businessman, a planner, a scientist, a governor and a Christian. Each of you is an individual and different from all the others.
Yet we Americans have shared one thing in common: a belief in the greatness of our Country.
Now it is time for this chasm between people and government to be bridged, and for American citizens to join in shaping our Nation's future.
It is now time to stop and to ask ourselves the question which my last commanding officer, Admiral Hyman Rickover, asked me and every other young naval officer who serves or has served in an atomic submarine.
For our Nation - for all of us - that question is: "Why not the best?
