THE VICE PRESIDENT: Governor, thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you all very, very much. (Applause.) I told the Governor he should have known better than accept the job as party chairman. It is one tough job, but all of you make it possible. I want to — I will not go through all the acknowledgments again, but with Stetson at the helm, we ought to be in good shape as the finance chair — and with everybody else here. (Applause.)
Look, hey, guys, I notice more women were introduced than men. I don’t want to say anything about that. (Laughter.) But the truth of the matter is when anyone, as you all know, invites you to Washington after all the money and help you’ve provided and said this is a thank you, you know what’s coming next. (Laughter.)
So I might say just as he knows better, you all should know better. But I know one thing: Barack and I would not be here were it not for all of you. And on behalf of President Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama, and Jill and me, I just want to say thank you — thank you very, very much.
Now, look, folks, I was told by my staff I was going to give you a speech. But be prepared, I’m not going to give you a speech. I’m going to make two generic points. The first one is you all worked for change. You wanted to see change. Well, that wasn’t a hard thing to try to communicate to the American people. Obviously — obviously, we needed to change, almost no matter who was running. But what Barack insisted on was he said he wanted to change the dynamic of American politics. He wanted to change — literally not figuratively — America’s role and place in the world, and restore its respect. And he wanted to change our economic policy, so that when our administration is finished, we can say with a degree of certainty that we actually strengthened and grew the middle class.
Now, he said all those things, and I hope all of you understand that he deeply is committed to all of those things. It’s pretty easy, this last time out, these first 59 or whatever days — and that’s all it’s been — it’s been truly — I’ve served with eight Presidents; this is truly a remarkable guy. No President — let me say this again — no President — no President has gotten off to the start that he’s gotten off to. Not merely in terms of his continued popularity, being able to continue to hold the imagination, hopes, dreams, and expectations of the American people, but he’s actually — actually done things that have never been done before.
We started off and fought, since I got involved as a young kid at 29 years old, for equal opportunity for women and equal pay. Well, the Ledbetter case was reversed in the first several weeks that we were in office. (Applause.) I won’t go through the litany the Governor mentioned, but the