President carter with gratitude and with determination, i accept your nomination. [cheers and applause] president carter and i am proud to run on the progressive and sound platform that you have hammered out at this convention. [applause] president carter fritz and i will mount a campaign that defines the real issues, a campaign that responds to the intelligence of the American People, a campaign that talks sense. And were going to beat the republicans in november [applause] president carter well win because we are the party of a great president who knew how to get reelected, Franklin Delano roosevelt. [applause] president carter and we are the party of a courageous fighter who knew how to give em hell harry truman. [applause] president carter and as truman said, he just told the truth and they thought it was hell. [laughter] president carter and were the party of a gallant man of spirit John Fitzgerald kennedy. [applause] president carter and were the party of a great leader of compassion Lyndon Baines johnson. [applause] president carter and the party of a great man who should have been president , who would have been one of the greatest president s in history Hubert Horatio hornblower humphrey. [applause] president carter i have appreciated what this convention has said about senator humphrey, a great man who epitomized the spirit of the Democratic Party. And i would like to say that we are also the party of governor jerry brown and senator edward kennedy. [cheers and applause] president carter id like to say a personal word to senator kennedy. Ted, youre a tough competitor and a superb campaigner, and i can attest to that. [applause] president carter your speech before this convention was a magnificent statement of what the Democratic Party is and what it means to the people of this country and why a Democratic Victory is so important this year. I reach out to you tonight, and i reach out to all those who supported you in your valiant and passionate campaign. Ted, your party needs and i need you. [applause] president carter and i need your idealism and your dedication working for us. There is no doubt that even Greater Service lies ahead of you, and we are grateful to you and to have your Strong Partnership now in a larger cause to which your own life has been dedicated. I thank you for your support. Well make great partners this fall in whipping the republicans. [cheers and applause] president carter we are democrats and weve had our differences, but we share a bright vision of americas future, a vision of a good life for all our people, a vision of a secure nation, a just society, a peaceful world, a Strong America confident and proud and united. And we have a memory of franklin roosevelt, 40 years ago, when he said that there are times in our history when concerns over our personal lives are overshadowed by our concern over what will happen to the county we have known. This is such a time. [applause] president carter and i can tell you that the choice to be made this year can transform our own personal lives and the life of our country as well. During the last president ial campaign, i crisscrossed this country and i listened to thousands and thousands of people housewives and farmers, teachers and Small Business leaders, workers and students, the elderly and the poor, people of every race and every background and every walk of life. It was a powerful experience, a total immersion in the human reality of america. And i have now had another kind of total immersion, being president of the United States of america. Let me talk for a moment about what that job is like and what ive learned from it. Ive learned that only the most complex and difficult task comes before me in the oval office. No easy answers are found there, because no easy questions come there. Ive learned that for a president , experience is the best guide to the right decisions. Im wiser tonight than i was four years ago. [applause] president carter and i have learned that the presidency is a place of compassion. My own heart is burdened for the troubled americans. The poor and the jobless and the afflicted, they have become part of me. My thoughts and my prayers for our hostages in iran are as though they were my own sons and daughters. [applause] president carter the life of every human being on earth can depend on the experience and judgment and vigilance of the person in the oval office. The president s power for building and his power for destruction are awesome. Thel ability and powerful power for destruction are awful. It is greatest when the stakes are highest. In matters of war and peace. And i have learned something else. Something that i have come to see with extraordinary clarity. Above all, i must look ahead. Because the president of the United States is a steward of the nations destiny. He must protect our troops and the children they will have. And the children of generations to follow. He must speak and act for them. That is his burden and his glory. And that is why a president cannot yield to the shortsighted rich or no matter how powerful the special interest might be that makes those demands. [applause] and that is why a president cannot bend to the passions of the moment. However popular they might be. That is why the president must sometimes ask for sacrifice, when his listeners would rather hear the promise of comfort. The president is a servant of today. But his true constituencies the future. Of 1980why the election is so important. [applause] some have said that it makes no difference who wins the election. They are wrong. [applause] this election is a stark choice between two men, two parties, two sharply different visions of what america is and what the world is. Its more than that. Its a choice between two futures. [applause] the year 2000 is less than 20 years away. Just four president ial elections after this one. Children born this year will come of age in a 21st century. The time to shape the world of the year 2000 is now. The decisions of the next few course,ll set our perhaps by a near reversible pull. Most important of all, choices will be made by the American People at the polls less than three months from tonight. [applause] the choice could not be more clear. Nor the consequences more crucial. In one of those futures, we can choose. The future that you and i have been building together. I see security, justice, and. A future of economic security. Security that will come from tapping our own great resources of coal, oil, sunlight, and if a village approves, factories for a revitalized economy. Based on jobs and stable prices for everyone. [applause] and i see a future of justice. The justice of good jobs, Decent Health care, quality education. A full opportunity for all people, regardless of color, language, or religion. The human justice of equal rights for all men and for all women. Guaranteed equal rights at last of the United States of america. [applause] and i see the future of peace. The peace born of wisdom and based on a four fairness to all countries in the world. A piece guaranteed by American Military strength and by americas moral strength as well. [applause] that is the future i want for all people. A future of confidence and hope in a good life. Its a future that america must use and with your help and commitment, it is the future america will choose. [applause] [applause] but there is another possible future. In that other future, i see despair. Despair of millions. Who struggle for equal opportunity and a better life and they struggle alone. Nic surrender. The surrender of our Energy Future to the merchants of oil. The surrender of our Economic Future to a bizarre program of massive tax cuts for the rich, cuts for the poor, and massive inflation for everyone. Nic risks. The risk of international confrontation. The risk of an uncontrollable, unaffordable, unwinnable Nuclear Arms Race. [applause] republican,crat nor consciously see such a future. I do not think that my opponent does. But i do question this disturbing commitment to policies made by him and by those with him who have now captured control of the republican party. The consequences of those commitments and all lessees would drive us down the wrong road. It is up to all of us to make sure that america rejects this alarming and perilous destiny. The only way, the only way to build a Better Future is to start with the realities of the present. But while we democrats grapple with the real challenges of a real world, others talk about a world of tinsel and makebelieve. Lets look for a moment at the make. In their fantasy america, innercity people and laborers do not it do not exist. Women, like children, are to be seen and not heard. [applause] working womenf are simply ignored. The elderly do not need medicare. The young do not need more help in getting a better education. Given thee not guarantee of a healthy and safe ways to work. In their fantasy world, all the complex global changes of the world since world war ii have never happened. America, allasy problems have simple solutions. Simple and wrong. [applause] its a makebelieve world. A world of good guys and bad guys. Where some politicians shoot first and ask russians later. No hard choices. No sacrifice. No tough decisions. It sounds too good to be true and it is. [applause] the path of fantasy leads to irresponsibility. The path of reality leads to help and peace. The two sides could not be more different. Look at the hard consequences of our choices. You and i have been working towards a more secure future for our freedom, building up military strength steadily, carefully, and responsibly. The republicans talk about military strength, but they were in office for eight of the last 11 years and in the face of a steadilyoviet rep they cut real defense spending by more than a third. We have reversed the republican decline in defense. Every year since i have been president we have had real increases in our commitment to a stronger nation. Creases that are prudent and rational. There is no doubt that the United States of america can beat any threat from the soviet union. [applause] our modernized strategic forces, a revitalized nato. The submarines, the cruise missiles, the Rapid Deployment force. All of these guarantee that we will never be second to any nation. [applause] deeds, not words. Fact. Not fiction. We must and we will continue to build our own defenses. We must and we will continue to seek reductions in nuclear arms. [applause] the new leaders of the republican party, in order to close the gap between the rhetoric and the record, have now promised to launch an thatut Nuclear Arms Race would negate further efforts to. Egotiate a strategic agreement there can be no winners in such an arms race. All of the people of the earth would be the losers. [applause] the republican nominee advocates abandoning policies that have been important and supported by every democratic president since harry truman. And also by every republican president since white the eisenhower. This radical and irresponsible course with threaten our security and could put the whole world in peril. Never let this come to pass. [applause] its simple to call for a new arms race. But when armageddon threatens world peace, armed aggression threatens will tease, talk is not enough. A president must act responsibly. When soviet invaded afghanistan, we moved quickly to take action. I suspended the brain sales to the soviet union. I called for draft registration. [shouting] [continued shouting] and i join wholeheartedly with the congress , leaving more than 60 nations and boycotting the moscow olympics. [applause] the republican leader opposed two of these thoughtful but peaceful actions and he waffled on the third. So, when we ask him what he would do about aggression in southwest asia, he suggested blockading cuba. [laughter] even his running mate wouldnt go along with that. [applause] he doesnt seem to know what to do with the russians. He doesnt know if whether he should that he doesnt know whether to defeat them, play with them, or fight with them. As i look back at my first term, im grateful that we have had a country with a fulllength four years. And that is what we are going to have for the next four years. Hes. Its only common sense that if america is to stay secure and peace, we must encourage others stay peaceful as well. As you know, we have helped zimbabwe and rhodesia, where we stood firm for Racial Justice and democracy. [applause] and we have also help in the middle east. Some have criticized the camp david accords. They have criticized some of the delays in the limitation of the middle east peace treaty. Before i became president , there was no camp david accords and there was no middle east is treaty. [applause] peace treaty. [applause] thank you. David, before camp david, israel and egypt were poised across barbed wire, confronting each other with guns, tanks, and flames. But afterwards, they talked face to face with each other on the peace table and they communicated to their own ambassadors in tel aviv. Thats the kind of future we are offering, peace in the middle east if democrats are reelected in the fall. [applause] i am very proud to have given aid to israel in her 32 years of existence and that the aide has come during my administration. [applause] unlike our republican predecessors, we have never stopped nor slowed the aide to israel and as long as i am president , we will never do so. [applause] our commitment is clear. Security and peace for israel. Peace for all the peoples of the middle east. Is to have arld future of freedom as well as peace, america must continue to defend human rights. [applause] now, listen to this. The new Republican Leaders opposed our human rights policies. They want to scrap them. They seem to think it is naive or america stand up for freedom and democracy. Just what do they think we should stand up for . [applause] ask the former Political Prisoners who now live in freedom if we should abandon our stand on human rights. Ask the citizens of the soviet union about our commitment to human rights. Ask the hungarian americans. Ask the polish americans. Listen to Pope John Paul ii. Ask those who discovered liberty around the world. Ask the millions who fled tyranny. People. American i tell you, as long as i am president , we will hold high the banner of human rights and you can depend on it. [applause] here at home, here at home the choice between the two futures is equally important. American energy, nothing was so disastrously neglected in the past. Long after the oil embargo, the Republicans White House have still done nothing to meet the threats to the National Security of our nation. Then as now, their policy was dictated by the big oil companies. [applause] hard torats fought rally the nation behind comprehensive Energy Policies and good programs. A new foundation for challenging and exciting progress. Now after three years of struggle, we have it. The battle to secure american Energy Futures have been fully and finally joined. Americans have operated with dramatic results. We have his first reversed decades of danger on foreign oil and are 20 less oil. That is one 5 Million Barrels of Oil Every Day less than the day i took office. [applause] it with our new Energy Policy we can discover more, produce more, we ate work, and conserve more energy and we will use american resources, technology, and millions of American Workers to do it. [applause] now, what do the republicans propose . Their program for energy has two parts. The first part is to get rid of almost everything we have done for the American Public in the last three years. They want to reduce the Synthetic Fuels program. Solarant to slash the energy incentives. The aide to mass transit. Aid to elderly americans to help pay fuel bills. They want to eliminate the 55 mile speed limit and while they are at it, the republicans would like to got the clean air act. They never liked it to begin with. Thats one part of their program. The other part is worse. Built,lacement we have this is what they propose. To destroy windfall profits tax. Companieseash the oil and let them solve the Energy Problems for us. Thats it. [jeering] thats it, thats the whole program. There is no more. Can this nation except such an outrageous program . Yelling] know. We will begin it tomorrow morning with campaign for. Eelection [applause] when i took office, i inherited a heavy load of serious economic problems. And we have dealt with them all headon. We have put Free Enterprise back into airlines. Into the Financial Systems of the country. We are now doing the same thing for the railroads. This is the greatest change in the relationship between government and business since the new deal. We have increased our exports dramatically. We have reversed the decline in basic research and development and we have created more than 8 million new jobs. The biggest increase in the history of our country. [applause] but, the road is bumpy and last years skyrocketing opec price increases have triggered a worldwide inflation crisis. We took forceful action and Interest Rates have no fallen. The dollar is stable. Although we still have about a loner hands him a we are struggling to bring nation under control. Critical pointhe in the economic history o