Sometimes I think about how I got involved in politics.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think of myself as a potential politician when I get out of college.\u00a0 I went to work in neighborhoods, working with Catholic churches in poor neighborhoods in Chicago, trying to figure out how people could get a little bit of help.\u00a0 And I was skeptical about politics and politicians, just like a lot of Americans are skeptical about politics and politicians are right now.\u00a0 Because my working assumption was when push comes to shove, all too often folks in elected office, they\u2019re looking for themselves and not looking out for the folks who put them there; that there are too many compromises; that the special interests have too much power; they just got too much clout; there\u2019s too much big money washing around.<\/p>\n
And I decided finally to get involved because I realized if I wasn\u2019t willing to step up and be true to the things I believe in, then the system wouldn\u2019t change.\u00a0 Every single one of you had that same kind of moment at the beginning of your careers.\u00a0 Maybe it was just listening to stories in your neighborhood about what was happening to people who\u2019d been laid off of work.\u00a0 Maybe it was your own family experience, somebody got sick and didn\u2019t have health care and you said something should change.<\/p>\n
Something inspired you to get involved, and something inspired you to be a Democrat instead of running as a Republican.\u00a0 Because somewhere deep in your heart you said to yourself, I believe in an America in which we don\u2019t just look out for ourselves, that we don\u2019t just tell people you\u2019re on your own, that we are proud of our individualism, we are proud of our liberty, but we also have a sense of neighborliness and a sense of community — (applause) — and we are willing to look out for one another and help people who are vulnerable and help people who are down on their luck and give them a pathway to success and give them a ladder into the middle class.\u00a0 That\u2019s why you decided to run.\u00a0 (Applause.)<\/p>\n
And now a lot of us have been here a while and everybody here has taken their lumps and their bruises.\u00a0 And it turns out people have had to make compromises, and you\u2019ve been away from families for a long time and you\u2019ve missed special events for your kids sometimes.\u00a0 And maybe there have been times where you asked yourself, why did I ever get involved in politics in the first place?\u00a0 And maybe things can\u2019t change after all.\u00a0 And when you do something courageous, it turns out sometimes you may be attacked.\u00a0 And sometimes the very people you thought you were trying to help may be angry at you and shout at you.\u00a0 And you say to yourself, maybe that thing that I started with has been lost.<\/p>\n
But you know what?\u00a0 Every once in a while, every once in a while a moment comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those best hopes that you had about yourself, about this country, where you have a chance to make good on those promises that you made in all those town meetings and all those constituency breakfasts and all that traveling through the district, all those people who you looked in the eye and you said, you know what, you\u2019re right, the system is not working for you and I\u2019m going to make it a little bit better.<\/p>\n
And this is one of those moments.\u00a0 This is one of those times where you can honestly say to yourself, doggone it, this is exactly why I came here.\u00a0 This is why I got into politics.\u00a0 This is why I got into public service.\u00a0 This is why I\u2019ve made those sacrifices.\u00a0 Because I believe so deeply in this country and I believe so deeply in this democracy and I\u2019m willing to stand up even when it\u2019s hard, even when it\u2019s tough.<\/p>\n
Every single one of you have made that promise not just to your constituents but to yourself.\u00a0 And this is the time to make true on that promise.\u00a0 We are not bound to win, but we are bound to be true.\u00a0 We are not bound to succeed, but we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.\u00a0 We have been debating health care for decades.\u00a0 It has now been debated for a year.\u00a0 It is in your hands.\u00a0 It is time to pass health care reform for America, and I am confident that you are going to do it tomorrow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As the House Democrats began chanting to counter the Republican chants of, “No” as the bill neared passage: “Yes We Can.”<\/p>\n
[Image not subject to copyright<\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A transcript of President Obama speaking to the House Democrats over the weekend, which has taken on added meaning now that the bill has passed: Sometimes I think about how I got involved in politics.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think of myself as a potential politician when I get out of college.\u00a0 I went to work in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143,27,1023,4],"tags":[2665,104],"class_list":["post-4940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-domestic-issues","category-health-care-domestic-issues","category-politics","tag-house-democrats","tag-yes-we-can"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qcx-1hG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4947,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4940\/revisions\/4947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4007\/4458527284_21d7409410.jpg?resize=500%2C333\" "\\"President")
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