>> illinois's state senator barack obama speaking at the 2004 democratic convention, expressing a sentiment so stirring, so patriotic that the speech is barely remembered for all of the parts of it that were about john kerry and john edwards. remember those guys? what we remember from that convention is the united states of america. but united is not the same thing as identical. we are not the identical states of america. and today the first business day of the new year, this is one of those days when you might really feel the difference between liberal america and conservative america. as of today, as of this week, people who earn the minimum wage saw their hourly pay go up in ten states. in all those states except for rhode island, the increase happened automatically because the state governments decided at some point that the minimum wage should go up automatically to keep up with inflation. and in those states, the average minimum wage is $8.12 an hour. $8.12 an hour. everywhere else in the country,