2008 Presidential Campaign Blog

Al Gore 2000 Announcement

Remarks by Al Gore at his Announcement of Candidacy in Carthage, Tennessee on Wednesday, June 16, 1999.

"I love this country with all my heart. I love free speech. I believe in its future. And I know that with our history as our rudder and our ideals as our compass, we can reach our new horizon.

And so today, I ask you to join with me, to keep our economy growing and to bring a new wave of fundamental change to this nation - starting with revolutionary improvements in our public schools.

I ask you to join with me, to build safe and livable communities, where we protect our environment, and restore the quality of life we deserve.

I ask for your help to strengthen family life in America. And I make you this pledge: if you entrust me with the Presidency, I will marshal its authority, its resources, and its moral leadership to fight for America's families.

With your help, I will take my own values of faith and family to the Presidency - to build an America that is not only better off, but better. And that is why today, I announce that I am a candidate for President of the United States.

I need you for this journey. So together let us vow, in these first long days of summer, that we will work through the night, so that our children may make a clean start from the right place -- a higher place -- in a fresh century.

Thank you and may God bless you.

And God Bless America."

Full Speech Text

George W. Bush 2000 Announcement

George W. Bush For President Announcement in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Saturday, June 12, 1999.
 
"I have come here today to tell you this: I am running for President of the United States. There’s no turning back, and I intend to be the next President of the United States.

I’m running because our country must be prosperous. But prosperity must have a purpose. The purpose of prosperity is to make sure the American dream touches every willing heart. The purpose of prosperity is to leave no one out… to leave no one behind. I’m running because my party must match a conservative mind with a compassionate heart. And I’m running to win.

I want you to imagine a campaign that carries this message. We will defend the American dream with sound economic policies and tax cuts. But we will also tell every American, "The dream is for you." Tell forgotten children in failed schools, "The dream is for you." Tell families, from the barrios of LA to the Rio Grande Valley: "El sueno americano es para ti." Tell men and women in our decaying cities, "The dream is for you." Tell confused young people, starved of ideals, "The dream is for you." This is the kind of campaign we must run.

For my part, I’m running, and I’m running hard. I know that this race will be competitive. I know the other candidates are good and talented people. And I know I’m late. But now that the Texas legislative session is over, I’m taking my front porch campaign to every front porch in this state. I will tell people exactly what I told you here today. Face to face. Eye to eye. And I cannot wait.

It feels to me like an old era of American politics is ending -- like Americans are waiting for new hopes, new energy, new idealism. We will prove that someone who is conservative and compassionate can win without sacrificing principle. We will show that politics, after a time of tarnished ideals, can be higher and better. We will give our country a fresh start after a season of cynicism.

We have a long way to go, but we start today. And I hope you’ll join me.

Thank you"

Full Speech Text

Joe Biden 1988 Announcement

Biden Announcement for Presidency on June 9, 1987 in Wilmington, Delaware.

“I run for President because I believe the 1988 election, at its heart, can be reduced to a fundamental choice between two paths to our future; the easy path, in which we consolidate our current comfort and a quick and false prosperity by consuming our children's future; and another, more difficult path, that builds a more genuine prosperity for ourselves, while guaranteeing to our children their birthright. If we choose the easy path, raiding our nation's stores, and devouring the seed corn of our children, we will deliver to them a lesser America, the fading shadow of a dimming promise. And beyond a doubt, history will judge us to have failed to discharge our moral responsibility for the continuance of our heritage…lf we choose the second, more difficult path, rising to meet our destiny, we will be able to stand before our children, as our mothers and fathers stood before us, and say: “We have kept the faith.”

“And finally, we must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society -- for nothing suffocates the promise of America more than unbounded cynicism and indifference. We must reclaim the tradition of community in our society. We must reassert the oneness of America. America has been and must once again be a seamless web of caring and community...I am absolutely convinced that this generation is poised to respond to this challenge. And for my part, this is the issue upon which I will stake my candidacy.”

Full Speech Text

Terry Sanford 1976 Announcement

Terry Sanford's declaration of candidacy for the Presidency of the United States on May 19, 1975 in Washington, D.C.

"If you believe as I do, that the people are the ones who must govern, then you are running with the people and not with the ambition.  That is an important distinction, especially today, for it is not the imperial president we need, but many people united to choose a spokesman who can provide the focus for bold, determined, and honest self government. 

That is why I made the preparation and today announced that through the Democratic Party I seek the Presidency of the United States. 

I promise a bold campaign and a bold administration, determined to put into practice again the radical promise of the American Revolution, but determined to talk sense and issues, openly and candidly, pledged to make the government join the people, to put people first in all our affairs and aspirations. 

To these challenges I bring experience not born in Washington, and not tainted by Washington.  We need freshness.  We need change. 

I am different in many ways from the other candidates who have announced.  Those differences can be seen as the campaign progresses.  It is not for me to assert finally that my concept of America is better.  But it is different.  It demands boldness, faith in ourselves, creative change, and a focus on opportunity for all people. 

I expect to be running for the Presidency, with a positive program, but I have a duty of also to show the Nation that the South stands for more than the politics of fear.  I want the people of this country to be given a clear choice between what I see as the politics of fear and the politics of hope. 

I’m going to campaign in all the caucus states, and will enter 17 to 20 primary campaigns, not expecting to win them all, but expecting to lay out in all of them the creative tasks that lie before us."

Full Speech Text

Bob Dole 1980 Announcement

Bob Dole Presidential Announcement Speech held in Russell, Kansas on May 14, 1979.

"I am announcing today that I shall seek my Party's nomination to the office of President of the United States.

I have no illusions about the magnitude of the undertaking; neither have I any undue concern for the magnitude of the problems associated with it. Financing, logistics, simple human effort or the lack of these may conspire in time to defeat a candidacy, but they cannot deter it at the outset. The magnitude of the endeavor rests not in the institutional necessities which must carry it forward, but rather in the expectations which any candidate must engender and then satisfy in the minds and the hearts of the American people. This is the great task.

I came home simply because the strength I need for the undertaking before me is here. I know that as I travel the country in the weeks and months ahead, I will be heard and helped by others who agree with me, who will consider my views and examine my record and judge my capacities and they will determine, as they should, whether I succeed or fail.

But there ought to be at least one place for every person where he or she is accepted with unjudging love and strengthened and reassured by it, and for me that place is here. I was born here, I left for awhile, I was hurt and I came back. I was helped and healed in this place by my townsmen and I began my public career here. And whenever I have set out on a new path, I have come back here to begin. No failure has ever been so hurtful that this place could not ease the pain. And no success has ever been so great that its satisfaction exceeded the satisfaction of being a part of the people of Russell, a citizen of Kansas."

Thank you.

Full Speech Text

Bob Graham 2004 Announcement

Bob Graham's Declaration of Candidacy for President of the United States on May 6, 2003.

"We are gathered here today because this is where the future is built. In communities across America. And especially in places like Florida.

This land at the southern tip of the United States has lured people for centuries with the promise of a better future.

But we Floridians know well that a dynamic future rests on a fragile foundation: an environment we must protect; diversity we must nurture; values we must safeguard; families and communities in which we must invest.

We know we will be judged by whether we leave our children and grandchildren an America that is better than the one we inherited.

I am an optimist. America's best days are still ahead of us. Yet, realizing that future starts with an honest assessment of where we are today.

We must become one America again -- an America energized with optimism -- an America that continues its never-ending experiment of democracy -- an America that looks to the dawn and the spring -- an America whose sights are higher, never lower, whose aspirations are greater,
never lesser.

That is why...I am today...Declaring that I am a candidate for President of the United States of America."

Full Speech Text

George Bush 1980 Announcement

Presidential Announcement Statement of Ambassador George Bush on May 1, 1979.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I am a candidate for President of the United States.

With the help of friends and supporters throughout the country, I intend to seek and win our party's nomination and the general election in 1980.

I seek this nomination as a lifelong Republican who has worked throughout his career, in business and in public office, on behalf of the principles of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower.

At the outset of this campaign, let me say that I am not running for President as a regional or factional candidate, but as a national candidate. I ask all Republicans to join me in a common effort to bring America the principled, stable leadership we must have in the decade of the eighties.

As a national- candidate, I will welcome the support of all Americans -- Republicans Democrats and Independents -- in my campaign, to give America the new leadership needed to keep our country free prosperous and second-to-none in the years ahead.

In this spirit, too, I from this day will go forward to seek the Presidential nomination of my Party and the support of Americans everywhere who believe that in the decade of the eighties, America must have a new leadership -- a leadership confident of our strength, compassionate of heart, and clear in mind, as we turn to the great tasks before us."

Full Speech Text

Paul Tsongas 1992 Announcement

Paul E. Tsongas Announcement Speech in Lowell, Massachusetts on April 30, 1991

Two hundred years ago, our Founding Fathers gave us a democracy. It was based upon the simple, yet noble, idea that government derives its validity from the consent of the governed. That consent must be constantly renewed. And it can only be renewed by a full and vigorous debate on the issues that confront our nation.

Today that search for renewal begins. Today that search for consent proceeds as the Constitution has provided. Today the national debate will commence.

You are Americans. You love this country. Together we are entrusted with the principles that represent mankind's greatest political and social achievement.

America is hope. It is compassion. It is excellence. It is valor.

We must return to the glory of our forebearers by unleashing the greatness of our people. We need leadership that calls upon the best of what we are. We need leadership that embraces a higher vision.

Today that leadership is not in Washington. That leadership is here and across America. It is in the hearts and minds and souls of the American people. I want to deploy the leadership to meet the challenges that face us and to restore America's greatness.

That is why I declare today my candidacy for the President of the United States."

Full Speech Text

Hubert H. Humphrey 1968 Announcement

Hubert H. Humphrey Declaration of Candidacy for the Presidential Nomination given in Washington, D.C. on April 27, 1968.

"My fellow Americans, we're here today on important business, freedom's business, American's business, the Democratic Party's business, and in that order. These priorities of freedom, country, and party have guided me as I have sought to reach an important personal decision. Any man who has had the privilege of spending almost twenty years near the President and the Presidency as I have, must weigh very carefully the implications of seeking an office that demands perhaps more judgment, wisdom, and maturity than any single man possesses. Yet any man who has spent a lifetime, at least who has spent his adult life in public service, also knows within himself that he must be willing to give of himself, when and where he feels he can best serve what he believes in. And so my friends and fellow Americans, facing and knowing the hard realities of the office, yet also knowing the potential for good which lies within it, I shall seek the nomination of the Democratic Party.

(We want Humphrey...) Like it or not, you have him. Yes, as I said, I shall seek the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Presidency of the United States. My credentials, well, they may be stated rather simply: of a loving family; teacher; mayor of my city; senator from my state; vice-president of my country; grateful husband; proud father; believer in the American Dream-the concept of human brotherhood."

And I shall make everything that I do on one conviction: that this country, we the people of these United States, working in a spirit of unity,  can overcome any obstacle, finally realizing the fullness of freedom, the prize of peace, in the happiness of human opportunity, both here and in the world.  My fellow Americans, we are the people of today; we are the people of tomorrow, it is to the future that we look and we aspire. And I found some words are told me exactly what I want to tell you; you’ll find them inscribed in the great literature. The future has several names: for the weak it is impossible, for the faint-hearted it is the unknown, for the thoughtful and the valiant it is ideals. The challenge is urgent, the test is large, the time is now -- on to victory!

Full Speech Text

John Glenn 1984 Announcement

Remarks of Senator John Glenn at his Declaration of Candidacy for the Office of President of the United States on Thursday, April 21, 1983 in New Concord, Ohio.

"Today, as I stand at the threshold of an even greater journey, my feelings are the same. I seek your support and God's guidance as once more I ask to serve my country.

With confidence that my life has prepared me for this challenge,

With dedication to the promise of opportunity and the pursuit of peace,

And with a firm belief that guided by the light of old values we can again reach new horizons,

I declare my candidacy for President of the United States."

Full Speech Text