【正文】 n children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour. More to do for the father I met who was losing his job and choking back tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits he counted on. More to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn39。t get me wrong. The people I meet in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks, they don39。t want their tax money wasted by a welfare agency or the Pentagon. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can39。t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. No, people don39。ve defined his life. From his heroic service in Vietnam to his years as prosecutor and lieutenant governor, through two decades in the United States Senate, he has devoted himself to this country. Again and again, we39。ll offer them to panies creating jobs here at home. John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves. John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren39。d joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week. As I listened to him explain why he39。s full ine, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or with nerves shattered, but who still lacked longterm health benefits because they were reservists. When we send our young men and women into harm39。re going, to care for their families while they39。s not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there39。s a child on the south side of Chicago who can39。s not my child. If there39。t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it39。s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It39。s keeper, I am my sister39。s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still e together as a single American family. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there39。s the United States of America. There39。 there39。 Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I39。t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.In the end, that39。m not talking about blind optimism here the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don39。m talking about something more substantial. It39。 the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores。 the hope of a millworker39。 the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!In the end, that is God39。 the belief in things not seen