Excerpts of Elizabeth Edwards' Convention Speech

(As Prepared for Delivery)

BOSTON, July 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The following are excerpts from Elizabeth Edwards' Convention Speech:

John Kerry was in the Navy, and so was my father.  I grew up traveling around the world, living on Navy bases, but I always knew I was home when I saw the American flag.  Like John Kerry, my father fought for this country; like John Kerry, he was decorated risking his life in her service.  My father has another thing in common with John Kerry and with so many of our uniformed men and women across this country and around the world: he has the right stuff

***

I married the smartest, toughest, sweetest man I know ...   But none of the things I have mentioned are the reason I married John Edwards.  I married him because he was the single most optimistic person I have ever known.  He knew there was a brighter day ahead even as he swept the floors in the cotton mill as a high school student.  He knew, if he worked hard enough, he could be the first in his family to go to college.  He knew that he could outwork and any battalion of lawyers to find justice, and he continued that fight in Washington.  Courageously, eloquently, with one over-arching and simple goal: to make the great opportunities of America available to all Americans.

We deserve leaders who allow their faith and moral core -- our faiths and moral core -- to draw us closer together, not drive us farther apart.  We deserve leaders who believe in each of us.

Source: Democratic National Convention Committee

CONTACT:  Kim Rubey of the Democratic National Convention Committee,
+1-617-654-0066