Senator Claire McCaskill at the Missouri State Democratic Convention in Columbia. Photo by Blue Girl.
Senator Claire McCaskill addressed the delegates at the Missouri State Democratic Convention in Columbia on Saturday, May 10th.
Senator McCaskill’s remarks:
[applause] Hello Democrats! [applause] All right! [applause] What a terrific, terrific welcome. [voice: “Give ’em hell!”] I am…I love that, someone yelled “Give ’em hell!” [voice: “Yeah.”] Yay! Harry would say, “We tell the truth, they only think it’s hell.” [laughter] You know, I am thrilled to be here today. I gotta tell you, it’s, I’ve got mixed emotions. You know, tomorrow is Mother’s Day and I’m going to share with you because you’re my family. [laughter] You really are my family. And, and, no, mother’s not here today. She said to tell you all, “Hello.” It’s embarrassing when I show up at these things because no one says, “Hi Claire. Hi Claire.” They all say, “Where’s your mother? Where’s your mother?” [laughter]…
…I’m not going to get a chance to stay and do what I love best. Which is hugging every one of you and telling you how blessed I am. And how much I appreciate you for giving me this opportunity to go out there to Washington to fight for you every single day. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. [cheers, applause]
I want to briefly talk to you about three things. Policies, priorities, and real people. Policies, priorities, and real people. And I want you to think back now to some dark days. And I’m going to tell you a story, and I wasn’t there, as you will tell when I tell you this story. You’ll know I wasn’t there. And I, I can’t say for sure this is what happened. But this is the way I imagine it. And it might actually be completely accurate.
The dark days were in November and December of 2004. And Governor-elect Matt Blunt sat in a room. He sat in a room and he was surrounded by his team. He was surrounded by his advisors. And those advisors told him, “We have a budget problem.” And he said, “Well, I want to know the numbers.” And they said, “Well, you know, we’ve got this Medicaid program that is, takes a lot of money.” And he said, “Well what are the numbers?” And no one in the room said, “Well, shouldn’t we talk about something other than the numbers?” Nobody said that. I’m imagining that it was about the numbers. And as the words came out of his mouth, “Cut Medicaid,” there was no one in the room talking about real people. There was no one in the room that said, “Should we talk about priorities?” There was no one in the room that felt the fear that that single mom, getting on the bus to go to work for slightly more than minimum wage, felt that day in January when she realized if anything happened to her she could not get health care and no one would be there to make sure that her young children got taken to the neighbor’s house every morning before she got on that bus to go to work. No one in that room talked about the real people that it would hurt. No one spoke up for them. It was about the numbers.
Now, when that happened, there then came a day that there were surpluses. Now imagine what that room would have been like if other people had been in office when there were surpluses. Would someone have said, “Hey, isn’t it time to restore those cuts? Isn’t it time to take care of more people? Isn’t it time to make a valuable investment that gives us six to seven hundred million dollars in Federal money every year that now is going to other states to help with their health care?” Oh, no. As they bragged about their surpluses no one in the room thought of real people.
Now, what about Sarah Steelman? What about Kenny Hulshof? Silent co-conspirators. Did they say a word? Did Kenny Hulshof stand up and say, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, this doesn’t make any sense. You’re giving away all this Federal money that we can’t get back? You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul?” Did Kenny Hulshof stand up and speak for real people? How ’bout Sarah Steelman? Did we hear anything from her? [voices: “No!”] It was awfully quiet, wasn’t it?
We’re talking about priorities that matter. Now, how about their friend, the president? [laughter] Well, as our federal budget started hemorrhaging and we began running to China for our money – nope, take this with you as you go back out in the streets – we’re going to China for two billion dollars a week guys. We’re running to China when we need to have equilibrium around the world and we need to have power to leverage we’re going to China as our banker. And we’re borrowing two billion dollars a week. This week, next week, the following week as long as George Bush and John McSame as Bush is around [laughter] we will go every week [applause], two billion dollars a week from China. [applause] And what are we doing with that two billion dollars a week? We’re taking care of Baghdad. We are taking care of Baghdad. [voice: “I love you Claire.”] I love you back. [laughter] We are taking care of Baghdad while we wear out our army. We are taking care of Baghdad while we diminish our alliances around the world. We take care of Baghdad in a time that all of this has got us pinned down and it’s not made us one bit safer. [voice: “All right!”, applause]
Are we going in debt to build our roads and bridges? No. Are we going into debt to fund No Child Left Behind? [voices: “No.”] Are we going in debt to get our kids in college? [voices: “No.”] These are real priorities that effect real people.
Elections make a huge difference you guys. And now what I want to do, is I want to tell you, this campaign is not about Jay Nixon, and it’s not about Barrack Obama, and it’s not about Hillary Clinton. I’ll tell you what this election is about. It’s about that single mom that on that day she heard that no one in the room spoke up for her. It’s about her. It’s about making sure that there’s somebody in the room that is speaking for her. That’s what this election is about. [applause]
And I would like to close with not now an imaginary story, but with a real story. And I think when I finish this story you guys will understand why I’m telling it. This is all true. Less than a mile and a half from here was where I lived beginning in the fourth grade. My parents moved to Columbia and I lived right over here down the road and I went to Russell Boulevard School. [voice: “Yay!”] There you go, there’s somebody from Russell Boulevard. [laughter] My sister and I were very close in age, my older sister. And I remember distinctly one morning when I was in the fourth grade and she was in the sixth grade, we hadn’t lived here very long, and we walked to school together. And that morning she discovered before we left for school that I had in fact ridden her bike. [laughter] This was a felony according to my sister. [laughter] I was in serious trouble. She punched me. I was mad. We walked to school, I tripped her. She fell down. If you walk Russell School on Rollins, all of you that are around here you know there’s this really deep hill you go down. Well, I tripped her on the down way of the hill. [laughter] So she’d roll a little further. [laughter] We fought all the way to school that day. And it so happened that day that we had a school assembly and my sister had a part in the school assembly and she got to speak to the whole school. And later that afternoon we had recess. And this really obnoxious girl in my class came up to me said, “You know, I think your sister is ugly and bossy.” And, for the first time in grade school, and maybe one of the few times in my educational career, I reacted in a way that was not appropriate. [laughter] When this girl called my sister ugly and bossy, this same sister I tripped and made fall on the way to school that morning, I reached out and pulled her hair as hard as I could pull it. [laughter, applause] Now, why am I telling that story today? I think you guys know.
We are busy right now fighti
ng for what we believe in, in our party. And we respect each other because we really do have two terrific candidates for president of the United States. [applause] And even though there have been days that somebody on this side felt like tripping somebody on this side, and even though there are days that somebody on this side felt like punching somebody in the arm on this side, when it comes time, and we’re on that playground I want everybody to reach out and yank that hair just as hard as they can. [laughter, applause] Because we are family. We are family. We are family. [applause, cheers] We are family.And as we come together, and as we realize that all of the passion and emotion we feel for our candidates is not as important as that single mom. It’s not as important as those kids who could go to college. It’s not as important as those guys coming home that deserve good mental health care. It’s not as important as all those other things that we are fighting for. As we allow our passions to subside, and as we come together and join hands as family we’ve got to fight as hard as we’ve ever fought. And we’ve got to work harder than we’ve ever, ever worked…for what we believe in. The policies and priorities that will make our nation strong, will allow the middle class to not be so scared anymore, it will stop the polar ice caps from melting, that will allow us to be able to afford to drive our cars, that will clean up our environment, that will make us safe around the world, that will make us proud to be Americans again. Go out and fight as hard as you can. God bless you and God bless America. [applause] Thank you guys. [applause]