A Day of Service

It has been an amazing and historic week. Our nominee, Barack Obama, has led the country in a giant step forward. Change is surely coming to America.

But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you.

For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result. You have shown what history teaches us - that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it - because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

America, this is one of those moments.

A new politics for a new time. What kind of change do you want to create? How will your America look? Democratic delegates gave their answer in many ways this last week, but the most tangible way they did was when they showed their commitment by living their commitment. Democrats Work volunteers and over a thousand delegates from across America, went outside the walls of the Convention, and spent the day at service projects ranging from homeless shelters to building playgrounds to taking care of seniors.

Some of the delegates were quite well known; some were attending their first Convention. The Nation's future First Lady Michelle Obama, and Colorado's First Lady Jeanne Ritter brought together the Democratic National Convention Committee, Volunteers for America, Democrats Work, and Metro Volunteers for a day of action that spoke louder than even the amazing words of the Convention speakers.

President Jimmy Carter joined with his family to plant trees in Aurora, Colorado's Bicentennial Park. There is perhaps no greater example of a career of service than the life of President Carter, and so nobody would have asked more of him than a symbolic shovel full of soil around a tree. He gave more. He planted his tree, moved on to another, and then another. He took time to talk to powerful politicians, and to work in friendly partnership with the man who drove the Georgia delegates bus. That is the ethic that not just President Carter, but that every delegate embodied that day, and they carried that spirit back with them into the convention hall and back to every city and town on the map.

"A new politics for a new time," that is what Senator Obama said, and if you would like this story to be about you, then it is time to take action. On September 6th, Democrats Work and our friends at Obama Works are calling for a National Day of Service. With over twenty projects already planned and more being added every day, we want you to help put a pin on the map in your community. If we each just give a few hours, we can show Washington and the world our new politics. We can not only show the nay-sayers that this is not just an election about one man, but we can show them it has been about us, and how it can be about them as well. Some of them might even accept our invitation to say, "Yes we can."