Friday, February 26, 2010,
9:23 A.M.
Dear fellow Democrat,
Just over a year ago, President Obama and I were sworn into office to preside over a country in desperate need of change.
After eight years of misguided leadership, our economy was in shambles. In fact, just days before the inauguration, we’d received news that another 700,000 Americans had lost their jobs. Without decisive action, our nation’s economists predicted a second Great Depression.
Our image abroad wasn’t much better. We were fighting two wars – one without reason, the other without focus. As a result, our reputation around the world was deeply tarnished.
One year later, we have brought our economy back from the brink of collapse. We are now in the process of building the economy of the future— an economy in which America’s besieged middle class shares in the wealth they create, an economy that is not built on a bubble—not a real estate bubble or a dot com bubble—but a firm foundation of growth and innovation.
We continue to responsibly draw down our forces in Iraq. After nearly eight years of drift, the President has put in place a strategy for success in Afghanistan.
None of this was easy. Not all of it was popular. And as we saw in Massachusetts, Republicans want to exact a political price for our efforts.
• They want to stop us from expanding health care to the millions of Americans who don’t have it.
• They want to stop us from rebuilding our economy and creating the jobs that Americans so desperately need.
• And they want to stop us from enacting the financial reforms that will prevent Wall Street from ever taking us to the brink of economic collapse again.
That is why I’m writing to you today.
This year, we must recognize a tough reality. What happens in the November midterm elections will determine whether the progress we’ve made is just the beginning.
That’s where the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee comes in. The DSCC is the only organization tasked solely with supporting Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate. They are our first line of defense.
I served in the Senate for 36 years and in all of that time, I have never seen more Republicans committed to permanent, unyielding obstruction.
If we lose ground this November, the changes you voted for just a year ago will be imperiled. Big change requires hard work, and a big commitment. And that requires a strong majority.
The GOP is guided by the tea partier crowd, which doesn’t seem to appreciate that progress in this country isn’t about yelling the loudest, and that blind obstruction is not a serious answer to the serious questions we face.
There are only two possible motivations for their actions…
Either they want to return to the destructive policies of the Bushcheney administration, or they think the only way they can succeed is by causing us to fail. What their cynical strategy fails to recognize is that if we fail, America fails and the American people pay the price.
We simply cannot return to George W. Bush’s America. We cannot return to an America where the special interests run the show, and where Wall Street bankers can nearly destroy our economy without consequence. We cannot return to being a country where torture and secrecy and deception are business-as-usual, and where a crisis is met with inaction instead of resolve.
We never said that change would be easy or quick. It takes grit and determination to take on our challenges and overcome them. It’s hard work to change people’s circumstances. But that is what President Obama and I were elected to do.
What happens in the midterm elections this November will determine the success or failure of each of those efforts, and how successfully we’ll be able to respond to the challenges of the future. Strengthen our Senate majority and we can continue to pursue our vision of a better country on behalf of the American people. If we don’t, the GOP’s obstruction will be all-consuming.
That is why there couldn’t be a more important time for you to stand with us and the DSCC.
One year in, we’ve accomplished a great deal. But there is so much more left to do.
Please stand with me and President Obama by standing with the DSCC. Together, we can do more than win in November. We can give hard-working Americans a fighting chance to realize their hopes and aspirations. And we can diminish the prospects of conflict around the world. We can move forward instead of backward.
That’s what’s at stake. And that’s why we need your help.
Sincerely,
Joe Biden
Vice President of the United States
P.S. We simply cannot go back to the politics of the Bush-Cheney era, but if Republicans have it their way in November, we will. What we do now matters. Please stand with president Obama, me and the DSCC.