Remember, if McCain had been elected, he would have nominated two supreme court justices, replacing two liberals with two conservatives for life. We would be looking at an overturning of most of the advances made in my lifetime, from civil rights to Roe V. Wade to environmental laws.

So I get a call yesterday while I’m at a business lunch (very successful, BTW) from Travelocity. An absolutely unintelligible man (Indian or Pakistani, and I usually have no trouble with their accents) tells me that i have a missed connection on my flight returning from Jordan in November, and asks if I have received an email from the airline. I say no, and he asks for my email (Travelocity doesn’t have it???) and promises to email me. This morning, not having received anything, I look at my flight schedule online and sure enough, British Midland has changed the time of my last flight so that it departs an hour and a half before I arrive in Chicago. I am now on hold with a very nice, intelligible agent from Travelocity who is trying to straighten it all out for me, with very little cooperation from British Midland. There was a possibility that woould work, but they aren’t allowed to book joint flights with British Airways for some reason, probably monopoly laws. They offered me one which got me in to phoenix four hours later, extending my trip to 28 hours from 24, and arriving in Phoenix at midnight, then having to take a two hour shuttle home. I said no way. Then they offered me one if I would stay overnight in London. I said sure if they pay for the hotel. LOL! Now she is back talking with them to see if they can do it with me staying an extra day in Jordan.

Yes, our families believed in the American values of self-reliance and individual responsibility, and they instilled those values in their children. But they also believed in a country that rewards responsibility. A country that rewards hard work. A country built upon the promise of opportunity and upward mobility.

They believed in an America that gave my grandfather the chance to go to college because of the GI Bill. An America that gave my grandparents the chance to buy a home because of the Federal Housing Authority. An America that gave their children and grandchildren the chance to fulfill our dreams thanks to college loans and college scholarships.

It was an America where you didn’t buy things you couldn’t afford; where we didn’t just think about today – we thought about tomorrow. An America that took pride in the goods it made, not just in the things it consumed. An America where a rising tide really did lift all boats, from the company CEO to the guy on the assembly line.

That’s the America I believe in. That’s what led me to work in the shadow of a shuttered steel plant on the South Side of Chicago when I was a community organizer. It’s what led me to fight for factory workers at manufacturing plants that were closing across Illinois when I was a Senator. It’s what led me to run for President – because I don’t believe we can have a strong and growing economy without a strong and growing middle-class.

President Barack Obama, 9-8-2010