Transcript: Obama DNC Speech (8-5-10)

Obama shows off new stump speech at Chicago DNC fund-raiser. Transcript:

He's not in this to help lobbyists or special interests. He's not one of those politicians who's going to put out his finger to the wind to see which way it's blowing. He is somebody who is committed to you. You can trust him. He is going to be an outstanding senator, and I need you to fight for him so he can fight for you in Washington -- because we've got a lot of work to do. (Applause.)

Now, look, the last few years have been incredibly challenging. Over -- almost 20 months ago, I stood in the Capitol and was sworn in as the President. And that month -- some of you might have been there -- it was cold, remember? (Laughter.) It was cold, but a hopeful day.

But even as everybody was feeling that sense of hope and optimism, we had lost almost 800,000 jobs in that month alone. The economy was contracting at about 6 percent. Ultimately we discovered that we lost 8 million jobs in this recession -- the worst by far since the Great Depression. And had we not taken some steps immediately to address the crisis, we might have tipped into a second Great Depression.

Now, this would have caused enough hardship, but it was also compounded by the fact that we had had 10 years of sluggish growth, 10 years of inadequate job production, 10 years of incomes and wages that were flat-lining even as the costs for middle-class families were going up on everything from health care to tuition.

So the middle class, working families across America, were already feeling under enormous pressure. A lot of them were just barely hanging on, and then suddenly this storm sweeps in.

In the last six months of 2008 alone, 3 million Americans lost their jobs. And so these aren't just statistics. Behind each of these numbers is a story of heartache and frustration. A factory worker who might have just been a few years short of retiring -- suddenly he's lost his job, maybe he's lost his pension. A single mom who's sent out job applications to everywhere she can think of -- she's still waiting for the phone to ring day after day after day. A college graduate who thought her degree would land her a good job with a decent paycheck -- suddenly all she's got is a mountain of debt.