Kucinich: It's time to close ranks and support Kerry
The following email was sent by the Kucinich campaign on September 28, 2004
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Good morning! Welcome to breakfast in my back yard. I want to thank you for the help that you gave me over the last few years, and now with 40 days to go before the general election I want to talk to you this morning about how urgent it is that we close ranks and help John Kerry get elected the next President of the United States.
Oh, there's a lot of people throwing up their hands right now and saying, "Well the campaign isn't strong enough...the candidate this...the candidate that..." Know what? The time's over for those discussions. We have to close ranks. We have to get out there -- knock on doors, put up signs, and make phone calls, and rally people because there is a profound difference between John Kerry and George Bush.
John Kerry has an exemplary record of 19 years in the United States Senate. He served this country honorably in every way. He's someone who has integrity. He's someone who cares about people. We need to close ranks behind him. Do we have differences of opinion? Yes. But the time is over to continue talking about those. We need to focus on what we need to do in the next few weeks to make it certain that John Kerry will be elected.
Now, can he win? You bet he can. This election has been volatile right from the beginning. The bottom line is that George Bush took us into a war we didn't need to be in, he's going to keep us in it, and we'll never have an opportunity for a domestic agenda. Any hopes that we have for changing health care in America, improving education, protecting workers' rights, protecting social security are going to be lost if this President gets re-elected.
We have to recognize that we have a good candidate. He's not perfect, but look, none of us are. And so we have to realize - this is the time to close ranks and after we get John Kerry elected, then we have plenty of time to get to work to try to move him in the direction that we want to create progress in this country.
But now's the time we need to close ranks.
Now's the time we need to come together. This isn't even a close question. This is not the time for temporizing about, you know, "What should we do?", "What can we do?", "Can we win?" Of course we can win!
Let me give you an example. In Ohio, four years ago, I was contacted by the Presidential campaign of our candidate then who told me they were pulling out of Ohio because they had a poll that showed them 14 points down. Said they couldn't win. You know what? We said, "We have to stay in this anyway because of what we believe in. We're gonna keep pushing." And we persisted. And you know what happened? A 14 point gap closed to within three points in Ohio. We could've won Ohio if only we'd had a campaign that would've stayed with us. John Kerry's staying with us in Ohio, and we're staying with him. And we're going to help him win Ohio, and you can help him win not only Ohio, but every state that's represented right now.
So, it's not just a matter of "hanging together", but it's a matter of unifying, so that we create a new force in American politics to take an upward path. John Kerry's the beginning of that, and we're the continuation of it.
So thank you. Thank you for a moment of your time to consider what I'm saying. This is a moment when we're called upon to stand up for everything we believe in. It's not about just John Kerry, it's about us, it's about our future, it's about our children's future. It's about what we hope for in America, and it's what we hope to have a chance to continue.
So please join with me. Join with me in taking a strong stand for a good candidate, for a decent man, for someone who'll make a good president with our help.
Thank you very much. Let's close ranks and let's elect John Kerry the next President of the United States.
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