At the National Conventions, the Words They Used
by Democrats
by Republicans
by Democrats and Republicans
Excerpts from Democrats
Democrats mentioned various topics
some number of times per 25,000 words
(Cheers, applause.) And Joe Biden — Joe Biden did a great job with both. (Sustained cheers, applause.)
They want to actually increase defense spending over a decade $2 trillion more than the Pentagon has requested without saying what they'll spend it on.
They also want to block-grant Medicaid, and cut it by a third over the coming 10 years.
Lot of folks don't know it, but nearly two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for Medicare seniors — (applause) — who are eligible for Medicaid.
It will gobble up a bigger and bigger percentage of the federal budget we'd rather spend on education and health care and science and technology. It — we've got to deal with it.
They'll hurt the middle class and the poor and put the future on hold to give tax cuts to upper-income people who've been getting it all along.
If you want a future of shared prosperity, where the middle class is growing and poverty is declining, where the American dream is really alive and well again and where the United States maintains its leadership as a force for peace and justice and prosperity in this highly competitive world, you have to vote for Barack Obama.
— and the third started a small business. Me, I was waiting tables at 13 and married at 19.
I talk to nurses and programmers, salespeople and firefighters, people who bust their tails every day, and not one of them — not one — stashes their money in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. (Cheers, applause.) These folks don't — (inaudible)
That's how we create jobs and reduce the debt. (Cheers, applause.)
— and I can't believe I have to say this in 2012 — a country where women get equal pay for equal work. (Cheers, applause.) He believes in a country where everyone is held accountable, where no one can steal your purse on Main Street our your pension on Wall Street.
(Cheers, applause.) I grew up — I grew up in the Methodist church and taught Sunday school. And one of my favorite passages of scripture is, "In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," Matthew 25:40.
(Cheers.) Over the next few years big decisions will be made in Washington on jobs, the economy, taxes and deficits, energy, education, war and peace — decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and on our children's lives for decades to come.
If you choose this path, we can cut our oil imports in half by 2020 and support more than 600,000 new jobs in natural gas alone.
You're the reason a young immigrant who grew up here and went to school here and pledged allegiance to our flag will no longer be deported from the only country she's ever called home — (cheers, applause)
If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void, the lobbyists and special interests, the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are trying to make it harder for you to vote, Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry or control health care choices that women should be making for themselves.
That's why he cut taxes for working families and small businesses and fought to get the auto industry back on its feet. (Cheers, applause.)
(Laughter.) Yeah, we were so young, so in love and so in debt. (Laughter.) And that's why Barack has fought so hard to increase student aid and keep interest rates down — (cheers, applause)
He's the same man who started his career by turning down high-paying jobs and instead working in struggling neighborhoods where a steel plant had shut down, fighting to rebuild those communities and get folks back to work — because for Barack, success isn't about how much money you make. It's about the difference you make in people's lives.
So President Obama went to work lighting candles. He promised to bring Osama bin Laden to justice — done. (Cheers, applause.) He promised to end the war in Iraq — done.
(Cheers, applause.) We should not run from the term "Obamacare." I am glad Obama cares. (Cheers, applause.)
That ideal is written into our laws, the rules of the road that create a level playing field in this country. Those are the rules I became attorney general to uphold.
Doing nothing while the middle class is hurting — that's not leadership. Loose regulations and lax enforcement — that's not leadership.
The president knew that one of the most important things he could do was give small businesses a fighting chance. So he took action. Right away, President Obama cut small business taxes, not once or twice, but 18 times.
Today they're talking about strategies to fill larger orders, blueprints for bigger factories and plans to hire more workers, like Raleigh Denim, a husband-and-wife team making blue jeans right here in North Carolina — (cheers)
And President Obama learned the same values from the veterans in his family. During our first meeting nearly four years ago, the president's commitment to veterans was clear.
They have served selflessly with unmatched valor, sacrifice and distinction. And President Obama is determined that we will repay our debt to them.
The last Republican president gave huge tax cuts to millionaires that exploded our deficits. Mitt Romney not only wants to make those tax cuts permanent, he wants to add more tax breaks for the wealthy that would make our deficit even bigger.
President Obama hasn't stopped fighting for those families, and now we need to fight for him. (Cheers, applause.) To those like Mitt Romney who want to take us backward, let us send a strong, strong message in November.
Mitt Romney and Congressman Ryan want to take away the promise that makes Medicare Medicare. They want to give seniors a voucher that caps what Medicare will cover and then tell our seniors they're on their own for what's left.
What does Romney promise today? More jobs, less debt, smaller government. But he didn't do it then, and he won't do it now!
He raised educational standards, invested in early childhood education and worked hard to make higher education more affordable for everyone. (Cheers, applause.)
(Boos.) And they'll shred the safety net and gut vital investments in education, innovation and infrastructure in order to help the wealthiest avoid doing their fair share.
Most of all — most of all, President Obama had an unyielding faith in the capacity and the capability of our special forces, literally the finest warriors in the history of the world.
A war of choice in Iraq had become a war without end, and a war of necessity in Afghanistan had become a war of neglect. Our alliances were shredded.
I don't agree with President Obama about everything, but I've gotten to know him, and I've worked with him. And the choice is crystal clear. When he took office, the economic crisis had already put my state of Florida on the edge of disaster.
(Cheers, applause.) Clinton arithmetic. Clinton arithmetic. (Cheers, applause.) Yeah. (Cheers, applause.)
There's the Romney who was going to be better on gay rights than Ted Kennedy. Now there's the Romney who checks with Rick Santroum on that issue.
Since we were together in 2008, we have lost some of our leaders and our friends. First, one of Charlotte's own, Susan Burgess.
God bless North Carolina, and God bless the United States. (Cheers, applause.)
Democrats, go home. Roll up your sleeves. Register voters and make sure that every vote in your community is cast for our Democratic team.
They mean a U-turn back to the failed theory that lifted the yachts while the other boats ran aground.
— because when Mitt Romney says he'll get rid of Planned Parenthood and turn the clock back on a century of progress, it has real consequences for the 3 million patients who depend on Planned Parenthood each year, women like Libby Bruce, who you just heard from, or women like Brandy McKay (sp), a 27-year-old woman whose stage 2 breast cancer was caught at a Planned Parenthood health center, and thank God, she's now cancer-free — (cheers, applause)
I want to encourage our president and all of us to continue to hope for an America that remembers, recognizes and fervently protects its greatness.
Simply, with a Republican Congress sitting shotgun, Mitt Romney will put the middle class on the roof and take us for a long, painful ride.
(Boos.) The Romney-Ryan budget could cut federal funding for first responders by nearly 20 percent.
And that's why he's created 4.5 million of them, growing the economy from the middle out, not from the top down.
He's made sure women can fight for equal pay for equal work and stood up for the freedom to make our own decisions about our health.
(Cheers, applause.) But we're also scared. Governor Romney repealing health care reform is something we worry about literally every single day.
At the hospital, I realized my new responsibility: to honor the buddies who saved me by serving our military men and women. And I became the director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs.
My great-grandparents were immigrants to this country. I'm Jewish, I'm gay, I'm a father, I'm a son, I'm an entrepreneur, and I'm a congressman from the great state of Colorado.
And he gave his best to everyone he met, whether a sick child, and injured soldier, an unemployed worker. That idea guided him through the bigger battles: to guarantee the right to organize, to end apartheid, bring peace to Northern Ireland and health care to all. (Cheers, applause.) It guides us — and it guides us in the tough campaign ahead as we fight for our middle class and an economy that's built to last, defend a woman's right to choose, keep a college education affordable, protect our seniors' retirement security and ask every American to do their part to safeguard the promise of this country.
And we are creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, good middle-class jobs as we move forward with a clean energy economy. (Cheers, applause.)
The Democratic women of the House are committed to closing the wage gap for America's families and to move America forward. (Cheers, applause.)
The same policy that put banks before people, Wall Street before Main Street, plunging us into a recession and devastating the middle class.
President Obama has walked with our small businesses, our job creators. He knows small businesses are the backbone of our economy.
Excerpts from Republicans
Republicans mentioned various topics
some number of times per 25,000 words
(Cheers, applause.) But Paul, I still like the playlist on my iPod better than yours. (Laughter, applause.) Four years ago I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president.
When every new wave of immigrants looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty or knelt down and kissed the shores of freedom just 90 miles from Castro's tyranny, these new Americans surely had many questions.
But driving home late from that second job or standing there watching the gas pump hit $50 and still going, when the realtor told you that to sell your house, you'd have to take a big loss, in those moments you knew that this just wasn't right.
And let me make this very clear: unlike President Obama, I will not raise taxes on the middle class of America. (Cheers, applause.) As president, I'll protect the sanctity of life.
Every American was relieved the day President Obama gave the order and Seal Team 6 took out Osama bin Laden. (Cheers, applause.) On another front, every American is less secure today because he has failed to slow Iran's nuclear threat.
But we've also learned that he's so much more than that. Mitt Romney is a devoted husband, a father, a grandfather, a generous member of his community and church, a role model for younger Americans like myself.
(Cheers, applause.) These are tired and old big-government ideas that have failed every time and everywhere they've been tried.
They immigrated to America with little more than the hope of a better life. My dad was a bartender.
Instead we got a long, divisive, all-or- nothing attempt to put the federal government in charge of health care. (Boos.) "Obamacare" comes to more than 2,000 pages of rules, mandates, taxes, fees and fines that have no place in a free country.
So they just took it all away from Medicare — $716 billion funneled out of Medicare by President Obama. (Boos.) An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is being sacrificed all to pay for anew entitlement we didn't even ask for.
(Boos.) Republicans — Republicans stepped up with good faith reforms and solutions equal to the problems.
Tell it to you this way: In the automobile of life, dad was just a passenger. Mom was the driver.
For — make no mistake about it, everybody — the problems are too big to let the American people lose: the slowest economic recovery in decades; a spiraling, out-of-control deficit; and an education system that's failing to compete in the world.
Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the torrent of debt that is compromising our future and burying our economy. Mitt Romney will tell us the hard truths we need to hear to end the debacle of putting the world's greatest health care system in the hands of federal bureaucrats and putting those bureaucrats between an American citizen and her doctor.
We need to fix our burdensome regulatory system. And we need an energy policy that encourages the development of our resources right here, in the ground, in America.
This is the classic American story not of government telling us what to do but of free men and free women willing to work hard and take a risk to build something of value for themselves, their families and their community. (Cheers, applause.)
Mr. President, you say the rich must pay their fair share. But when you seek to punish the rich, the jobs that are lost are those of the poor and the middle class.
The American dream is that any among us could become the next Thomas Edison, the next Henry Ford, the next Ronald Reagan. But to lead us forward away from this looming debt crisis, it will take someone who believes in America's greatness, who believes in and can articulate the American dream, someone who has created jobs, someone who understands and appreciates what makes America great, someone who will lead our party and our nation forward.
(Cheers, applause.) And not too long ago, The Wall Street Journal said anyone still thinking the U.S.
We deserve a president who won't sacrifice American jobs and American workers to pacify the bullying union bosses he counts as his political allies.
And like Republicans all across this nation, I chose to make the tough decisions on issues like economic development, education reform and redesigning how state government operates, on job creation and reducing state spending and eliminating red tape. It hasn't been easy, and we're not through it yet.
Nevada was hit hardest by the recession, highest unemployment, highest foreclosure rate, highest bankruptcy rate.
That's what you get. That's what you get from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Now, in a few weeks, we will celebrate the 225th anniversary of our federal Constitution.
Moments like that remind us that what makes America so great, what makes us exceptional, is that throughout our history, in moments of crisis, be they economic or fiscal, military or spiritual, what makes America amazing has been that there have always been men and women of courage who think more about the future of their children and their grandchildren than they did about their own political careers.
Thank you. I am proud to represent Arkansas's 2nd Congressional District. I'm fighting to change Washington at its core because I know we can do better.
(Cheers.) Let's elect Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and send Barack Obama and Joe Biden on a permanent vacation. (Cheers, applause.)
Olympic Committee just hours before the ceremony asking me if I would be able to be one of the eight athletes selected to carry the World trade Center flag into the opening ceremonies. (Cheers, applause.)
With that money, my wife, Sylvia, who's a pharmacist, and I, started our own business in Hialeah, Florida, Vida Pharmacy. (Cheers, applause.)
And he never looked at Staples merely as a financial investment. He saw the engine of prosperity it would become.
He issued that challenge again and again. (Cheers, applause.) The church itself was a marvelous vehicle for extending that challenge.
Of 34 advanced nations in the world, American students rank 17th in science, 25th in math. Only one quarter of high school graduates are ready for their next steps.
I'm glad she did. Her devotion to my future has given me a chance to succeed. I've graduated from Wagner College, and I'm looking forward to a life of learning and serving my community.
We're seeing this story play out in the lives of many other Hispanic-Americans who have become leaders in the Republican party and throughout our nation. These leaders, along with Hispanics across the country, play a vital role in the Romney-Ryan comeback as we fight to put America back on the path to prosperity.
For example, both crippled American energy production when there were better ways to develop and use our abundant energy resources. The Romney plan for North American energy independence is exactly the kind of bold visionary leadership Reagan believed in, and it is what we need now.
(Boos.) If he can take credit for government building small businesses, then he can accept responsibility for breaking his promise and adding $5 trillion to the national debt — (applause) — because he did build that.
We need immigration laws that protect our borders, meet our economic needs and yet show that we are a compassionate nation of immigrants. (Cheers, applause.) We have been successful, too, because Americans have known that one's status of birth is not a permanent condition.
Of the four people on the two tickets, the only self-professed evangelical is Barack Obama, and he supports changing the definition of marriage, believes that human life is disposable and expendable at any time in the womb, even beyond the womb, and he tells people of faith that they have to bow their knees to the god of government and violate their faith and conscience in order to comply with what he calls health care. Friends, I know we can do better. (Cheers, applause.)
And for the values — the values that make America great, the justice that is our right, the freedom to unleash the greatness within each of us and the liberty that God endowed every American — for that, I will never give up.
The court agreed that the Constitution does not allow the federal government to force states to adopt a budget-busting expansion of Medicaid.
The big-government bureaucrats of the Obama administration have set their sights on our way of life.
I decided then and there to dedicate to my life to racing and coaching other injured veterans. Being a gold medal paralympian gives me a whole new way to honor and serve my country.
It's the moms of this nation — single, married, widowed — who really hold this country together.
It is a success story of fiscal responsibility, controlled government spending, lower taxes and pro-growth policy. But it is also one of caring and compassionate attention to a social and faith-based agenda of unprecedented reach and consequence.
But dreams meet daybreak. The jobless know what I mean. So have the families who wonder how this administration could wreck a recovery for three years and counting.
He washed dishes, making 50 cents an hour to pay his way through college and to start a small business in the oil and gas industry. My father is here today.
It's the American dream, and it has been realized by countless men and women since the very founding of this country.
And his regulations have had a smothering effect on businesses, and it has paralyzed the job creators. Folks, this is the wrong philosophy, these are the wrong policies, and we need a new leader.
Everyone who runs a business understands this — everyone but our federal government. They won't lead, their rules and regulations are too hard to follow, and they won't get out of our way.
They will be unapologetic in championing the American dream. Now, in 70 days, let's renew our founding fathers' victory for freedom.
We are paying more for health care and getting less choice. There is a war on young people, a war on paychecks and a war on our ability to succeed.
As in every recent election victory, in November, success will depend on our ability to energize and mobilize women voters. (Cheers, applause.) Recently, our National Federation of Republican Women conducted a survey of more than 8,500 Republican women and asked them what they want from their government.
This election will determine whether we continue on the path of more spending, more debt and economic disaster, or whether we choose real solutions and return to the basic principles of free enterprise and limited government.
There is only one ticket that will save Medicare from bankruptcy, will preserve Medicare for today's seniors and will strengthen Medicare for the future.