Governor Martin O’Malley Delivers Remarks at the Polk County Democrats Annual Awards Dinner

Governor Martin O’Malley Delivers Remarks at the Polk County Democrats Annual Awards Dinner
 
Des Moines, IA —This evening, Governor Martin O’Malley is delivering remarks at the Polk County Democrats Annual Awards Dinner. His remarks as prepared for delivery are below:
 
I. INTRODUCTION
 
Thank you so much.  
 
Thanks everyone for being here tonight – it’s great to be back.
 
Senator Webb – thank you for your long and dedicated service to our nation.
 
Thank you Tom Henderson, a good friend of mine. We had a good time on the campaign trail this fall and I think I speak for everyone when I say that we’re lucky to have you here at the helm in Polk County.
 
And thank you to Tamyra Harrison for putting this whole thing together.
 
I’d like to also acknowledge all the great Democrats serving Polk County.
 
And, of course, my well wishes to Congressman Smith and his family. I wish he could be here with us tonight but do wish him a speedy recovery.
 
Tonight, I want to talk with you about the story of us, about the story of Baltimore and Iowa, the story of Maryland and America.
 
II. WAR OF 1812
 
Two hundred years ago in the War of 1812, the British had just taken Washington and burned our buildings to the ground -- the Capitol, the White House. The people of Baltimore could see the glow from the flames in the skies to our south.
 
And now, we knew -- they were coming for us.
 
Amidst the ashes of Washington, the commanding British General declared “I am going to march on Baltimore and dine there” – because even then we had great restaurants – “and then I’m going to burn Baltimore to the ground.”
 
Our nation, not yet 40 years old, and the American dream facing extinction.
 
Imagine what we felt.
 
Anger.
 
Fear.
 
Disbelief.
 
Confidence shattered.
 
Trust gone.
 
There are moments in the life of our country – defining moments – when it seems the American dream is hanging by a thread.
 
And yet, for America, there is always a yet.
 
The final thread that holds us, could just be the strongest.
 
Fifty percent of us in the City then were immigrants. One out of five were African-American citizens of a still as yet very imperfect country.  Only a third of those black Defenders were themselves free.
 
Somehow, together, we transformed our loss; transformed our despair. Instead of digging graves we dug trenches, built ramparts by the sea.
 
Against the overwhelming “shock and awe” force of its day, the people of Baltimore stood firm.
 
All of us now sing of the Star Spangled Banner -- that giant flag that was hoisted in defiance over Ft. McHenry when the British guns finally gave up.
 
As we sing, let us remember that the colors of the Star Spangled Banner were stitched together by black and white hands, men’s hands, women’s hands, hands of freedom, hands of bondage, the hands of a nation that is always growing and evolving.
 
And the thread that held those stars and stripes together then is the same thread that holds us together today -- it is the thread of human dignity.
 
The dignity of every person.
 
The dignity of home,... the dignity of work,... the dignity of neighbor helping neighbor -- so all of us can succeed.
 
With our country's future hanging in the balance, we stood as one -- and the American dream lived on.
 
III. BALTIMORE
 
In 1999, there was a different battle for Baltimore unfolding, but this time we were losing.
 
When I decided to run for mayor that year, my city had become the most violent, most addicted, most abandoned city in America.
 
And our biggest enemy wasn’t drug dealers or crack cocaine. It was a lack of belief,... a culture of failure,.... countless excuses about how nothing would work,....why none of us should even bother to try.
 
So we set out to make our city work again, to make the dream real again.
 
In our fight for survival, I brought forward a new way of governing and a new way of getting things done.
 
I started setting goals with deadlines. Instead of simply counting inputs, my team started measuring outputs and managing for results.
 
We saw trash in our streets and alleys, so we picked it up every day.
 
We saw open air drug markets, and we began to relentlessly close them down.
 
And when the people of Baltimore saw their government working again, the people rallied too.
 
Together, we put into action the powerful belief that unites us – the belief that we are all in this together; that in our community, there is no such thing as a spare American.
 
Over the next 10 years, Baltimore went on to achieve the biggest reduction in crime of any major city in America.
 
In this battle between our violent past and our better, safer future, the future won. The dream lives on.
 
IV. MARYLAND: STRONGER MIDDLE CLASS
 
Just seven years ago, the meltdown on Wall Street left our nation's entire economy hanging by a thread -- millions of people losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their faith in the future.
 
But we refused to give up.  We elected a new president to make the tough decisions to move our country forward, and that is exactly what Barack Obama has done.
 
Unlike some other States that tried to cut their way to prosperity, in Maryland, we did more, not less, to make our children winners in this challenging economy.
 
We tossed aside the failed policies of the past -- the trickle down economics that got us into the mess.
 
We embraced, instead, the economics of real progress.
 
We returned to the truth our parents and grandparents understood so well -- the more a person learns, the more a person earns.
 
That a stronger middle class is not the consequence of economic growth -- a stronger middle class is the cause of economic growth.
 
We returned to the middle class economics that made America great;  the common sense economics that understands the more workers earn, the better customers businesses have, and the more our whole economy grows.
 
We passed a living wage, and raised the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
 
We made college more affordable for more people, and we made our public schools the best in America for five years in a row.
 
We made it easier for all people to vote, not harder.
 
We believed that renewable energy creates good jobs and strong communities, and made sure we seized the economic opportunities it presents.
 
And we made it a top priority to bring the Cheseapeake Bay back from the dead, helping to re-energize the communities that depend on it.
 
Together, we made Maryland one of the top states for upward economic mobility for families.
 
Together—according to a report released this week—we made Maryland the top state for women-owned businesses.
 
Together, we maintained the highest median income in the nation.
 
And since the depths of the recession, Maryland has created jobs at one of the fastest rates in our region.
 
This isn't about left or right or center.
 
It's better choices, for better results, for the future of the dream we share.
 
When a family can send their children to good schools – the dream is alive.
 
When a family can work hard to claim a seat at the table of American prosperity – the dream is alive.
 
None of these things happened by accident or by chance.
 
They happened by choice.
 
The choice to believe in one another,... the choice to believe in the power of the American Dream,... and the choice to believe in our ability, together, to make it come true.

V. REPUBLICANS VS. DEMOCRATS/FUTURE VS PAST
 
As a nation we have now achieved 60 months in a row of positive job growth.

We are recovering faster than most other nations from the recession.

That's the good news.

The bad news is this:

The vast majority of us are working harder only to watch our families fall further behind.

Most of us are more worried than ever that somehow our children will not enjoy the same quality of life that we have enjoyed.

For too many of us, the dream of things that could be, and once were, seems to be slipping from our grasp.

You’ve seen the look in your neighbors’ eyes, and so have I.

Americans are worried.

And for good reason -- over the last 12 years, wages have been going down, not up.

Until we solve this problem, we cannot rest.

Fifty years ago the nation’s largest employer was GM. An average GM employee could pay for a year’s tuition at a state university with two weeks’ wages.

Not long ago, The Washington Times ran a story with the headline the “American Dream is Dead.”

Let me say, to the pundits writing these premature obituaries of the American dream – The American Dream will never die on our watch. Because we choose to fight. And we intend to win.

Are you telling me that we can concentrate wealth in the hands of the very few like we never have before, but we cannot eradicate childhood hunger in America?

We can invent the driverless car but we can’t create a job that feeds a family, or can send our children to college?

I don't accept that and neither should you!

This is not the American dream.

This isn't how our country is supposed to work -- this isn't how our economy is supposed to work.

We still have work to do.

And it is going to be up to the Democratic Party to finish that work -- to make our economy work again for all of us.

It is up to us to restore the American Dream.
 
VI. MAKE THE DREAM TRUE AGAIN
 
Think about your parents and grandparents -- picture their faces -- they understood the essential truth of the American Dream we share. The stronger we make our country -- the more she gives back to us; the more she gives back to our children and our grandchildren.
 
The poet laureate of the American Dream, Bruce Springsteen, asked once:
 
Is a dream a lie, if it don’t come true?…
Or is it something worse?
 
When the American Dream is denied, our lives shrink, our hopes fade, and our days unfold not in the light of possibility but in the darkness of fear.
 
To make the dream true again, we must fight for better wages for all workers, so that Americans can support their families on what they earn.
 
What does this mean? It means raising the minimum wage, it means raising the income threshold for overtime pay, and it means respecting the rights of all workers to organize.
 
To make the dream come true again, we must not allow another Wall Street meltdown to rain down on hard-working families. We have a responsibility to put it outside the realm of the possible – by reinstating Glass-Steagall, breaking up the banks, and holding people accountable when they break the law.
 
To make the dream come true again, we must embrace our clean energy future – and recognize that renewable, inexaustable sources of energy represent the biggest business opportunity in a century. Clean water and clean air is a human right – one that no generation has the right to deny to their kids.
 
To make the dream true again, we must increase Social Security benefits, not cut them. When it comes to social security solvency, you’d think the sky is falling.  But the truth is that the floor is falling out from under our seniors.
 
And to make the dream true again, we must invest in our children – in this country’s future – by creating an education system that empowers each and every child to reach their full potential – starting with pre-k and all the way through college.
 
It’s outrageous that you can buy a home for a lower interest rate than you can go to college.
 
Let’s let our kids refinance their loans, and cap their payments so they have the same options we did – to buy a home, start a family, give back to their community.
 
VII. AMERICAN VALUES/POWER OF MORAL PRINCIPLES
 
But the most fundamental power of our party and our country is the power of our moral principles.
 
Triangulation is not a strategy that will move America forward.
 
History celebrates Profiles in Courage not Profiles in Convenience.
 
This day, each day, we must be unashamed, unabashed defenders of the American dream we share.
 
The dignity of every person tells us that the right to marry is not a state right, it is a human right.
 
And when refugee children arrive on our doorstop fleeing starvation and death gangs, we don't turn them away – we act like the generous, compassionate people we have always been.
 
The enduring symbol of the American Dream -- the enduring symbol of the land of opportunity -- is not the barbed wire fence, it is the Statue of Liberty!
 
This is what we believe. This is who we are.
 
And "In God We Trust!”
 
VIII. CONCLUSION
 
Yes,...you and I are proud to be members of the Democratic Party.
 
Let the Tea Party measure their success by how many times they can shut down our government; we measure success in jobs and opportunity for all.
 
Let them speak for the sad yesterdays that were, we speak for the better tomorrows that can be.
 
The American Dream is what makes America exceptional.
 
Fear and anger never built a great nation.
 
Our country is built by the compassionate choices we make together to live lives guided by our better angels.
 
We love our country.  We love what our country is.  And what's more -- we love what our country can become.
 
So take pride in your work as Democrats.
 
Take pride in what you believe.
 
And the next time someone asks you who you voted for – don’t be shy. Tell them. I mean it.
 
If a child asks who you voted for, I want you to tell that child, “I voted for you.”
 
When you see someone sweating through another long shift, and they ask you who you voted for, I want you to tell them, “I voted for you.”
 
When you see someone with health insurance now, who didn't have it before, and they ask who you voted for, I want you to tell them, “I voted for you.”
 
When you see someone who wants nothing more than for their family to be treated with dignity and respect, I want you to tell them, “I voted for you.”
 
And when you see someone who hungers for opportunity and a good job, I want you to tell them, “I voted for you.”
 
We are Democrats for good reasons.
 
Because ours is the party of opportunity. Ours is the party of the people. Ours is the party of the better future. Ours is the party of the American dream.
 
And together, we will make that Dream true again.
 
Thank you.