Liveblogging Wesley Clark

I have finally arrived at the convention just in time to liveblog Wesley Clark’s speech. More to come, hit refresh!

he has just asked the crowd to stand up and applaud for the veterans. It’s about a one minute standing ovation.
“We love our troops. We’re Democrats and we want you to know it. From one side of the globe to the other, we’re here in Texas thanking you for protecting us.

When I come back to Texas it feels like home. [Makes joke about first calvary division]. I can do a calvary charge, at least I did one without falling out of the horse. It was great to come down to Austin, often we partied down in Austin. My life liked to go shopping in Fort Worth…Go down to Ft. Sam and play golf and do the River Walk in San Antonio…

When I am here it does feel like home. Except for one thing. We’ve got the wrong people leading this state. That’s the wrong team and we’ve got to get rid of them and we’ve got to do it this year. Now! This is urgent. As we like to say in the Democratic Party, this is an urgent problem, there can be no more “DeLay!”

I’m very proud to be an American and to have represented this country in uniform…I’ve spent my last four years abroad, and this country had the most wonderful reputation. We were a true ally. With those that opposed us, we were respected, we were admired for our efficiency but we were treated with weariness because we were strong…It is a nation that supports its friends and those it agrees with. That’s America.

We attracted young people from all over the globe to study our business methodology, to understand our culture and to have a piece of the greatest country in the world…We fought to contain Communist expanisionism in Vietnam and our troops there did a great job and I am proud to have served in that conflict and represented the United States of America. We maintained deterrants during the cold war….We established a climate of American leadership that the whole world relied on. We defined an era.
We were the power.

At home, we had incredible economic growth. Again, and again, and again our economy doubled. With the [VA BILL] we improved home ownership…created entire new industries. We invented the laser and semi-conductor. We were the leading economic forc in the world and our dollar became the trusted medium of exchange and store of value for the whole world. It was an incredible century of American accomblishment led int he most crucial times by Great Democrats…Roosvelt, Truman, Johnson, Kennedy, Clinton [huge applause, more than for Johnson!] who gave us 20 million jobs and uprecedented prosperity.

I look at what more we could..says the GOP under GWB have taken this country. You don’t know whether to applaud because I’m right or boo because you don’t like it. The boos have it!

The truth is we could be doing so much more. When this administration came into office in January 2001, they ignored the advice of the people who were in office for 8 years. We knew Osama Bin Laden was the principal threat, but Bush and Condi thought they knew more than they did and they shoved it aside. Terrorism? That was a Democratic problem.

When he learned Osama was going to strike the U.S., he went on vacation….It’s what I call command negligence. I think any reasonable person who was commander and chief and got a warning like that wold call the cabinet together….

I hope every Democrat in this country sees you on your feet today thanks to the Republican misleadership in this state.

[Talking about the war in Iraq; I'm trying to upload photos...]

You know how this legislature was taken over with money into a few select districts, and then congressional redistricting on top of that…sad travesty of democracy. We’ve got to fix it and we’ve got to fix it now.

We know who we are as Democrats and we know what Democrats believe. At home we believe in equal opportunity for every single American…race, sexual orientation, gender…we believe every American has a voice. That’s what we stand for. We believe we’ve got to have a strong economy, better business environment.

We know that America’s national security is not best protected by building fences around America but by building bridges and bringing people together, not tearing them apart. We’re Democrats and we’re pretty proud of it. {onto candidates}

“2006 is not local, it’s national. The misgovernment that has taken place in this government has local roots because the people elected to congress from the majority party today have failed…roll-over, do nothing, cover up congress and they are responsible for America!”

[MASSIVE applause, most are standing on their feets. I just noticed there are quite a few spectators in the "cheap seats" above the floor; I'm down with the rest of the bloggers down front in Blogger's Row. ]

Now Clark is talking about the significance of the Declaration of Independence.

“You are at the Texas state Democratic Convention of 2006. It is about 230 years later. We’ve been through a lot as a nation. We took 13 colonies with 4 million people and became the most significant nation in the world..We’ve got to use government as a force for good in the United States of America.

Ladies and gentlemen it is up to you. Do you really believe? Do you believe, On your feet for Chris Bell, for every Democratic candidate in Texas. ladies and gentlmen we can do it, 2006! Enough Is Enough!

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