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
— during this period, more than 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created under President Obama.
And honestly, let's think about it, if that happens, I don't know what those families are going to do. So I know what I'm going to do.
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.
I'm so proud to stand before you tonight not only as the wife of our vice president but as a full-time teacher and a military mom. (Cheers, applause.) I'm here for our son Beau and for all of our troops, veterans and military families.
For as long as I've known him, Joe has never given up, never failed to see the possibilities and never had any doubt about who he's fighting for.
I am a young woman with a bright future. President Obama and Vice President Biden know this. They don't want any American student to accept that education is only a luxury or that opportunity is simply for someone else.
Biden can make the difference between being a statistic and being a success, between getting by and getting ahead. (Applause.)
You know, if private equity Mitt Romney met Governor Mitt Romney, he'd do what he says he likes to do. He'd fire him and outsource his job.
Clinton arithmetic. (Cheers, applause.) Yeah. (Cheers, applause.) Clinton arithmetic. We've had record budget surpluses every year I've been governor, averaging more than $400 million in surpluses, even during the Great Recession.
When too many of our elderly found their lives darkened by unaffordable and inaccessible health care, Lyndon Johnson and a Democratic Congress lit the candles of Medicare and Medicaid while Republicans stood on the sidelines and cursed the darkness.
(Cheers, applause.) We should not run from the term "Obamacare." I am glad Obama cares. (Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers.) Good evening, everyone, especially all of the veterans in the audience. (Cheers, applause.) My name is Ric Shinseki, and I'm a soldier.
And President Obama is determined that we will repay our debt to them. (Cheers, applause.) God bless our veterans.
That's the choice. That's the choice in this election. They see education as an expense.
(Cheers, applause.) Thank you so much, and God bless. (Cheers, applause.) Thank you.
And domestic production of natural gas is at an all-time high — natural gas, which, if developed safely and responsibly, could help bridge our energy present to our energy future.
Should we settle for an economy built on shifting and uncertain sands?
(Cheers, applause.) And we believe that government has a role to play, not in solving every problem in everybody's life, but in helping people help themselves to the American dream.
(Sustained cheers, applause.) This is the president who saved the American auto industry from extinction — (cheers, applause)
Nearly 8 million American women own small businesses, the engines of job creation and the backbone of the American economy.
President Obama has walked with seniors. President Obama's health care law won the support of the AARP because it strengthened Medicare without cutting benefits and helped millions of seniors with free preventive care and more affordable prescription drugs.
When I was governor during the worst recession since the Great Depression, Virginia maintained one of the lowest unemployment rates in America. We kept our AAA bond rating.
He promised — he promised to fight for equal pay for women, college affordability for students, fair treatment for LGBT Americans, and he's kept his word.
Look, Barack understood that the search for bin Laden was about a lot more than taking a monstrous leader off the battlefield.
And once again — once again I saw the leader our country needs. (Cheers, applause.) You know, I used to play quarterback just down the road from here at Wake Forest University.
(Cheers, applause.) As a Catholic woman, I take reproductive health seriously, and today it is under attack.
The Wisconsin I know knows that their plan will only bust our budget, not boost our economy. We believe in a level playing field. More than a decade ago the big Wall Street banks came to Congress and asked us to repeal an important law called Glass-Steagall, allowing them to gamble like hedge funds.
And when Governor Romney says he would repeal "Obamacare" and put insurance companies back in charge of a woman's health, that's personal too. (Cheers, applause.)
The single biggest cause of our economic collapse was the failure of the Republican right wing — unfortunately, some Democrats joined in — to allow the public sector appropriately to regulate the private sector. I want a strong financial community.
Growing up, I learned from my mama and my neighbors and my church members a certain set of values: Respect your elders; help your neighbors; honor your commitments; stand up for education.
(Cheers, applause.) In Tampa last week, we heard all about job creators. But at our company, we recognize that job creation requires time and investment and commitment to the long term.
They both pledged — they pledged that they would never — never — ask millionaires to pay one more dime to reduce our deficit.
It was about safe workplaces, health care, the 40-hour work week, middle-class jobs. Standards that all of us believe in.
And if we can work together and stand together and vote together on November 6th for President Barack Obama, that's a dream we will put within reach of all our people.
When your constituents are your financial shareholders, perhaps it makes sense to take control of the company, to suffocate it with debt and get rid of the workers' pensions. That kind of thing worked for Mitt Romney when he sat in his corporate office, but it won't work for the country if Mitt Romney is sitting in the Oval Office.
So join us. Join us as we Nuns on the Bus, all of us, drive for faith, family and fairness. Thank you so much.
He provided hope — he provided hope when there was none, and he has transformed that hope into a plan rooted in reality. And it takes — it takes hard work.
(Cheers, applause.) So this November, we're going to keep moving forward, and we're going to re-elect President Barack Obama.
Medicare is on the ballot. Democrats will preserve and strengthen Medicare. Republicans will end the Medicare guarantee.
(Cheers.) President Obama knows that the value of education is not just in the equations our students memorize or the books they read.
Under this plan, under the Ryan budget, Mitt Romney's own taxes would drop almost to zero. But for the middle class, the Ryan budget's a rip-off.
They're the values I grew up with on Long Island. Before World War II, my community was mostly potato peels and pumpkin farms.
Today President Obama wants to ensure that same opportunity to achieve the American dream is available for all families. The American dream is why President Obama made the largest investment in college affordability in our nation's history.
In large part it's because this president, this administration gave ordinary people a leg up: construction jobs afforded by recovery act dollars, better schools pushed by the president's education reform, growing hospitals and health centers and booming life science companies born from national research support.
Yes, we fight for them. (Cheers, applause.) And we fight — we fight for President Obama, and we know he fights for us.
Democrats will fight for comprehensive immigration reform, and keep America secure and keep our immigrant families united.
And believe it or not, when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bill was actually higher than our mortgage.
That bill would give immigrant children who've never pledged allegiance to any flag but ours the chance to earn their citizenship.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to return us to the fantasy land of never having to pay for things we buy, such as education, medical research, good roads and clean energy. That's not conservative, that's not responsible, and that's not what this country needs.
The America I love is a place where when we say freedom, we mean my freedom to make decisions about my life, not someone else's freedom to make them for me.
President Obama learned that value from his Kansan family, and that's why he believes that an America where women get equal pay for equal work — (cheers, applause) — where every person, in the words of that great Minneapolis mayor, Hubert Humphrey, said, can walk out of the shadows and into the bright sunlight of equal rights, where you can serve the country you love without hiding who you love and where, in the country of the Statue of Liberty, every child — every child can live the American dream.
When he visited Sderot in 2008, an Israeli town along the Gaza border besieged by constant rocket attacks, President Obama saw for himself the terrible toll terrorism takes on Israelis.
On November 6th, America faces a choice: return to the Romney- Ryan ticket of failed policies of the past, or move ahead with a smart, focused and determined president who understands that America always does best when it harnesses the winds of innovation and change.
But President Obama made the tough and right call so taxpayers will never again be on the hook for Wall Street's risky bets. (Applause.) Some said he couldn't take on the insurance companies that were ripping us off.
Excerpts from Republicans
Republicans mentioned various topics
some number of times per 25,000 words
He led a great — (cheers, applause) — he led a great automobile company and became governor of the great state of Michigan.
(Cheers, applause.) Like a lot of families in a new place with no family, we — we found kinship with a wide circle of friends through our church.
By the way, I'd thought about asking my church's pension fund to invest, but I didn't. (Laughter.) I figured it was bad enough that I might lose my investors' money, but I didn't want to go to hell, too.
(Cheers, applause.) Now — now, we weren't always successful at Bain, but no one ever is in the real world of business.
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.
(Cheers, applause.) They lived and died under a single flag, fighting for a single purpose. They pledged allegiance to the United States of America.
(Cheers, applause.) We will sustain a balance of power that favors freedom. Now to be sure, the burdens of leadership have been heavy.
We must work for an open global economy and pursue free and fair trade to grow our exports and our influence abroad.
We are blessed with a gift of oil and gas resources here in North America, and we must develop them.
In that way we stay young and optimistic and determined. We need immigration laws that protect our borders, meet our economic needs and yet show that we are a compassionate nation of immigrants.
He — he's been loyal to his sons, to his country, to his employees and to his church. Well, I'm sure now that the press is going to tell you he isn't perfect.
The Democrats have brought back that old dance, the limbo, to see how low they can go in attempting to limit our ability to practice our faith. But this isn't a battle about contraceptives and Catholics but about conscience and the Creator.
Tonight — not because we're Republicans — it's because we are Americans that we proudly stand with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, and we say, we will do better. (Cheers, applause.)
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.
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.
Talked about the size of government. How much should it tax families and small businesses? And when we left that lunch, we got in the car, and I looked over at Chuck and said, I'll be damned; we're Republicans.
in three years. (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)
I believe we can't afford to substitute a political timetable for a military strategy. By committing to withdraw from Afghanistan before peace can be achieved and sustained, the president has discouraged our friends and emboldened our enemies, which is why our commanders did not recommend these decisions and why they have said it puts our mission at much greater risk.
I trust Mitt Romney to know that good can triumph over evil, that justice can vanquish tyranny, that love can conquer hate, that the desire for freedom is eternal and universal and that America is still the best hope of mankind. (Applause.) And now, my fellow Americans, let's elect our next commander in chief and the next leader of the free world, my friend Governor Mitt Romney.
But if America is going to succeed, we must stop the assault on marriage and the family in America today. (Cheers, applause.)
(Cheers, applause.) Why? Because I held its hand. I shook the hand of the American dream. And it has a strong grip. I shook the hands of farmers and ranchers who made America the bread basket of the world — hands weathered and worn, and proud of it.
These times call for new leadership to get this great country out of debt and back to work. And the choice is very clear: the status quo of the entitlement society versus a dynamic change to an opportunity society.
We will lift up and grow the middle class. We will celebrate job creators again. We will restore that great American dream that led my grandfather here from Ireland a hundred years ago.
We can and we will overcome any economic challenge if — and listen to this — if the federal government gets out of the way and if it lets go of the regulatory chokehold that's zapping the air out of our economy.
They know that it's hardworking American families, not the federal bureaucracy, that has built our great and glorious nation. Mitt Romney is ready to lead. He has the experience.
But, you know, it could have just as easily been the story of anyone who's built something from nothing, no guarantees, no government there to hold your hand, just a dream and the desire to do better. President Obama doesn't get this. He can't fix the economy because he doesn't know how it was built.
Mitt's jobs plan will build a stronger middle class through energy independence, schools where our kids, not the teachers unions, come first, free trade, the path to a balanced budget and an end to the uncertainty and the tax hikes that threaten small businesses.
If it's possible — if it's possible to feel your soul being touched, then that's what I felt. As we carried the flag out before a capacity crowd and a worldwide television audience, the silence was deafening.
I've got a theory. I think when it comes to jobs, new businesses and economic growth, they just don't get it. (Cheers, applause.)
He sought to involve everyone so everyone could grow. Mitt taught faith in God, personal integrity, self-reliance and service to our fellow men.
We give some kids a chance, but not all. That failure is the great moral and economic issue of our time, and it is hurting all of America.
There's so many to choose from: the stimulus, his energy policy, "Obamacare," taxes, Joe Biden. (Laughter.) Now, I hear Joe's particularly interested in tonight's proceedings.
In addition, our international competitors do not have to face the upcoming costs associated with funding a multi-billion-dollar health care plan, overreaching emissions standards and the unnecessary war on coal. These factors create a tremendous disadvantage in the global marketplace.
Instead Americans have missed out on jobs from this pipeline because the Obama administration has played politics with the Keystone project.
The court agreed that the Constitution does not allow the federal government to force states to adopt a budget-busting expansion of Medicaid.
As a 24-year-old Virginian in Iraq, I worked with some of the most courageous men and women this nation has to offer. And we were united in a singular cause: to protect the nation that we love.
Twenty-seven years ago, this California boy was introduced to ski racing at the first Veterans Administration winter sports clinic. I decided then and there to dedicate to my life to racing and coaching other injured veterans.
But when you seek to punish the rich, the jobs that are lost are those of the poor and the middle class. (Cheers, applause.) When you seek to punish Mr.
But the American people don't, and that's why this election is so very important. It's a choice about who we are. Are we still a country that takes risks, that innovates, that believes anything is possible?
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.
(Cheers.) When you hear the party that glorified Occupy Wall Street blast success, when you hear them minimize the genius of the men and women who make jobs out of nothing, is that what you teach your children about work?
In fact, in 1984 I was fortunate to receive the national award from President Reagan for being the most successful minority business in the United States. (Cheers, applause.)
This administration is killing us out there. Small business needs a leader, a leader who understands the entire spectrum of business and industry, a leader who can work with all parties involved, a leader who will not avoid dealing with difficult issues, a leader with experience to understand what it takes, a leader who is in touch with America's small businesses.
(Cheers, applause, chuckles.) We are ready for government to get out of the way so our job creators can actually create jobs.
With over 4 million Americans living overseas, it is often a challenge to convince overseas voters that their vote matters. But consider the 2000 election: it was the overseas voters from right here in Florida that determined the outcome of that election.
This year alone 2,000 Kentucky miners lost their jobs because of overregulation and Obama's war on coal. For every mining job lost, three additional jobs are threatened, including those at Toyota.
We'll talk about protecting Medicare and Social Security for this generation of seniors and the next. Ladies and gentlemen, we can do better.
Now out-of-control spending, crushing debt, job-destroying regulations — they threaten our children's future.
There is no greater threat to the health care of our nation and the health care of our seniors than "Obamacare." (Scattered applause.) And no matter what path we take to save Medicare, the very first step is to repeal "Obamacare." (Cheers, applause.)
President Obama has put America on the wrong track, but my home state, North Dakota, shows a different way forward. We have less than 3 percent unemployment, rising salaries and a budget surplus.
We are curing diseases on the cutting edge of science and health care. And Tampa remains proud to be home of MacDill Air Force Base, the headquarters of United States Central Command and United States Special Operation Command.