After eight years of George Bush, people are hurting at home and our standing has eroded around the world. We have a lot of work ahead of us: jobs lost; houses gone; falling wages; rising prices; the Supreme Court in a right-wing headlock; and our government in partisan gridlock; the biggest deficit in our nation's history; money borrowed from the Chinese to buy oil from the Saudis; Putin and Georgia; Iran and Iraq.

I ran for president to renew the promise of America, to rebuild the middle class and sustain the American dream. To promote a clean-energy economy that will create millions of green-collar jobs, to create a universal, high-quality, affordable health-care system. To restore America's standing in the world, to end the war in Iraq, bring our troops home with honour, care for veterans, and give them the services they have earned.

Most of all, I ran to stand up for all those who have been invisible to their government for eight long years. Those are the reasons I ran for president, and those are the reasons I support Barack Obama for president.

Ask yourselves: Were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for that young Marine and others like him? Were you in it for that mom struggling with cancer while raising her kids? Were you in it for that young boy and his mom surviving on the minimum wage? Were you in it for all the people in this country who feel invisible?

We need leaders once again who can help us show ourselves and the world that with our ingenuity, creativity and innovative spirit, there are no limits to what is possible in America.

Now, this will not be easy. Progress never is. But it will be impossible if we don't put a Democrat in the White House.

We need to elect Barack Obama, because we need a president who understands that America can't compete in the global economy by padding the pockets of energy speculators while ignoring the workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas. We need a president who understands that the genius of America has always depended on the strength and vitality of the middle class.

Barack Obama began his career fighting for workers displaced by the global economy. He built his campaign on a fundamental belief that change in this country must start from the ground up, not the top down. And he knows that government must be about "we the people", not "we the favoured few". And when Barack Obama is in the White House, he'll revitalise our economy, defend the working people of America, and meet the global challenges of our times.

Democrats know how to do this. We did it before with President Clinton and the Democrats. And if we do our part, we'll do it again with President Obama and the Democrats.

Taken from a speech given to the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday

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