Sen. Tom Daschle's Speech Text

Aug. 15 -- Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle addressed the Democratic National Convention tonight to rally the party faithful. Read a full transcript of his prepared remarks here.

Sen. Tom Daschle:

There is something very special about Democratic conventions. They are a chance to celebrate the two extraordinary strengths of our party: our ideas and our leaders.

Democrats have always known that America’s families and our communities are stronger together than they are separately. In the last century, this powerful idea gave America the minimum wage and the 40-hour work week. This powerful idea, our idea, gave America Social Security and Medicare. Our ideas advanced the civil rights movement and the equal rights struggle.

In the last century, Democrats proposed these ideas — and Republicans opposed them — each of them, every chance they got. They’re still doing it today. But they were wrong then. And they are wrong now. Our ideas are law now because they are right, and because strong leaders fought for them. We know their names: Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton.

There’s a wonderful movie, The Straight Story. It’s about an old farmer named Alvin Straight. He wants to see his brother one last time to make peace before one of them dies — only Alvin can’t drive anymore because his eyes are bad and his hips are worse. So he rides his John Deere lawn mower nearly 300 miles. On the road, he meets a young woman who’s in a lot of trouble. He tells her that when his children were little, he would hand them a stick, and tell them to break it. And they would, just like that. Then, he’d put the sticks in a bundle and ask his kids to break it. They couldn’t. He gave them some advice: “That bundle is family. “That bundle is our community. We are stronger together than we are alone.” That is the simplest description I know of our party’s core belief.