Hillary Clinton's powerful convention speech: "Keep going ... we're not big on quitting."

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Hillary Clinton’s powerful convention speech, "keep going"

By Ray Hanania

All Barack Obama and Joe Biden could do Tuesday was sit back and envy the charisma and power displayed by Hillary Clinton, probably one of the best qualified candidates for president in America today.

Clinton’s speech was the most inspiring and moving I have heard. Imagine having someone like that leading this country? Someone who isn’t afraid to take on challenges and doesn’t waffle on issues or run from past associations?

Every politician has enemies and haters and Hillary Clinton is no different, but she has the strength and the determination and even more importantly the guts and courage to do what this country needs.

Obama missed his chance to make his ticket the most powerful this country has ever seen. So far, Obama has been full of talk and rhythmic cadence in his speeches but words are not enough.

Hillary Clinton’s words not only resonated with America, many people in the convention probably were sitting there thinking, "Oh my God. What have we lost?"

The dream of an Obama-Clinton ticket would have sealed the deal and raised the rest of America to a confidence level that would lead this country though a badly needed reorganization, reassessment and refocus.

Obama-Clinton could have reversed the economy, stopped the bleeding of building debt, restored world confidence in this great nation and motivated Americans to go back out and fight to create new jobs and restore this nation’s wealth.

Obama-Clinton could have overcome the difficult challenge of bringing the crooked health insurers into line to force them to cover the 47 million Americans who, thanks to the lying cheating and deceitful companies like Humana and Blue Cross, have no health insurance. More than 47 million Americans have been denied coverage not only because they can’t afford coverage but because these health robber barons refuse to acknowledge the public’s health needs and reject the "risky."

Obama-Clinton could have restored America’s sagging and weak image abroad. America is the leader of the free world that has not been leading under the incompetent and self-serving administration of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. They would have ended the illegal war in Iraq and refocused this country’s defenses in the right direction in Afghanistan.

America is fighting a war in Iraq to protect oil company interests and contracts for Halliburton and KBR and other companies tied to Dick Cheney, and they are negligent of the need to fight the real war on terrorism in Afghanistan, where our troops need more support and assets and soldiers.

Osama Bin Laden remains on the loose not because of his cunning but because of the ignorance and the pathetic mishandling of this country by Bush-Cheney and his "Axis of Evil" cabinet.

Obama-Clinton could have swept the elections this November and guaranteed eight years of solid leadership. And a retiring President Obama in 2016 could have passed the batton of leadership to the vice president, Hillary Clinton, and insured that as we embarked into the middle of a new century, we would have another great president leading us until 2024.

Vice President and then President Hillary Clinton would have put the last nail in the coffin of the gender gap and the sexist bias that still exists in this country against women, Americans who often shoulder more of the burden for less than their male counterparts.

And while Hillary Clinton did the honorable thing to urge her supporters to through themselves on their swords to help the weak Barack Obama, whose speeches appeal with wishful talk but lacks the tactical and strategic solutions to achieve his carefully crafted speeches.

The truth is her quote of Harriet Tubman only motivates her supporters to stand more firm and demand that this country be respected. That we are not to be ignored an disrespected and that we Americans have a right to insist not on good but to demand the best.

Hillary Clinton said:

By following the example of a brave New Yorker, a woman who risked her life
to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad.

And on that path to freedom, Harriet Tubman had one piece of
advice.

If you hear the dogs, keep going.

If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.

If they're shouting after you, keep going.

Don't ever stop. Keep going.

If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.

Even in the darkest of moments, ordinary Americans have found the faith to
keep going.

I've seen it in you. I've seen it in our teachers and firefighters, nurses
and police officers, small business owners and union workers, the men and women
of our military — you always keep going.

We are Americans. We're not big on quitting.

And those Americans who believe that this country, this day and this year and this century deserves and needs the best leadership, will not quit either.

If you want a great president, don't give up. Keep going.

The opportunity now faces John McCain. Can he fill the gap? Or, will he be a last resort placeholder for four years to allow Hillary Clinton to return to the stage in one last and final chance for America in 2012, putting the crown on the head of a commander-in-chief in waiting?

END