Greetings from Maryland, home of the Number 1 Public School System in America for four years in a row!
Since the first days of the American Revolution Maryland has been called 'The Old Line State'
and that's because of this true story of a group of soldiers called 'The Maryland Line.'
They were immigrants and native born, black and white, volunteers all.
It is August 27th 1776, two months since our Declaration of Independence.
Outnumbered and surrounded, Washington's army is about to be crushed forever at Brooklyn Heights.
The British are closing in. With America's future hanging in the balance word is passed up and down
the Maryland Line. Fixed bayonets were moving forward; and they do, into the breach.
They hold off the British just long enough for Washington's army to escape and fight another day.
Today there is a plaque by the mass graves of those citizens soldiers and it reads: ' in honor of the
Maryland 400 who on this battlefield saved the America army'.
In times of adversity you see for our country, for the country we love, Maryland always choses
to move forward. We understand that progress is a choice. Job creation is a choice.
Whether we move forward or back this too is a choice and that is what this election is all about. (applause)
Democratic governors with the support of our President are leading their states forward,
putting job creation first, balancing budgets, protecting priorities, and making the tough decisions
right now to create jobs and expand opportunity. Together with President Obama we are moving America
forward not back. (applause) With 29 months in a row of private sector job growth President Obama
is moving America forward not back. By making college more affordable for millions of middle class
families President Obama is moving America forward not back. (applause)
By securing the guarantee of Medicare for our seniors President Obama is moving America forward not back.
(Audience joins in "forward not back".)
By putting forward a concrete plan to cut waste, ask those of us at the top to pay a little more and
reduce our deficit President Obama is moving America forward not back. (Audience joins in "forward not back".)
And by adding American manufacturing jobs for the first time since the 1990's President Obama
is moving America forward not back. (Audience joins in "forward not back".)
Facts are facts. No president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression
inherited a worse economy, bigger job losses or deeper problems from his predecessor but President Obama
is moving America forward not back. (Audience joins in "forward not back".)
And yet Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan now say they want to take America back. (Audience boos)
And we have to ask 'back to what?' Back to the failed policies that drove us into this deep recession?
Back to the days of record job losses? Back to the days when insurance companies called being a woman a
pre-existing condition? No, thank you. I don't want to go back. Do you? (Audience: "No!")
Instead of the balanced achievable plan to create jobs and reduce the deficit
Mitt Romney says . . puts forward a plan that would cut taxes for millionaires while raising them on
the middle class. Instead of improving public safety and public education like President Obama
Mitt Romney says we need less firefighters, teachers, and police.
Instead of safeguarding our seniors Romney and Ryan
would end the guarantee of Medicare and replace it with a voucher in order to give bigger tax breaks to
billionaires. (Audience boos). Instead of investing in America they hide their money in Swiss banks accounts
and ship our jobs to China. (Audience boos). Swiss bank accounts never built an American bridge.
Swiss bank accounts never put cops on the street or teachers in our classrooms.
Swiss bank accounts never created American jobs. Governor Romney, just because you bank against
the United States of America doesn't mean the rest of us are willing to sell her out. (applause)
We are Americans. We must act like Americans. we must move forward not back. (Audience cheers)
My parents, Tom and Barbara O'Malley, like . . like . . so many viewers were part of that great generation that won
the Second World World. Dad flew 33 missions over Japan in a B-24 Liberator. He was able to go to college
only because of the GI Bill. Our parents taught us to love God, love our family, and love our country.
Their own grandparents were immigrants. Their first language may not have been English but the hopes
and dreams they had for their children were purely American.
You see, there is a powerful truth that the heart of the American dream, the stronger we make our country,
the more she gives back to us, to our children, and our grandchildren. Our parents and grandparents
understood this truth deeply. They believed as we do that to create jobs a modern economy
requires modern investments, educating, innovating, and rebuilding for our children's future,
building an economy to last from the Middle Class up not from the billionaires down.
Yes! We live in changing times. The question is what type of change will we make of it.
As we search for common ground and the way forward together let's ask one another, let's ask the leaders
and the Republican Party without any anger, meanness or fear how much less do you really think
would be good for our country? How much less education would be good for our children?
How many hungry American kids can we no longer afford to feed? Governor Romney, how many fewer
college degrees would make us more competitive as a nation?
The future we seek is not a future of less opportunity it is a future of more opportunity, more opportunity
for all Americans. (applause) Close your eyes. See the faces of your parents and your great grandparents.
They did not cross an ocean, settle a continent, do hard backbreaking work so their children and
grandchildren could live in a country of less. They came here because the United States of America
is the greatest job-generating, opportunity-expanding country ever created by a free people in the history
of civilization and she still is. Let us not be the first generation of Americans to give our children
a country of less. Let us return to the urgent work of creating more jobs, more security, and more
opportunity for our people and together let us move forward not back by re-electing Barack Obama,
President of the United States. God bless you all.