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Former President BILL CLINTON:

Thank you.

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If this isn't good for my heart, I don't know what is.

Thank you.

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Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Governor.

ConGREssman Brady, Fattah, Congressman Hoeffel.

Joe Hoeffel, our next United States senator.

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All our candidates for ConGREss here, Allison Schwartz, Lois Murphy, Joe Driscoll, thank you and all the other officials who are here.

You know, I'm very grateful to be here today.

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And I thank all the people of Philadelphia and throughout the country for their e-mails and letters and prayers and support.

From time to time I have been called the comeback kid. In eight days, John Kerry's going to make America the comeback country.

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I know well that no one's presence can change a single vote, but I hope my reasons can affect a few votes.

I love this city and this state. You've been very good to me, to my family.

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And you've got a clear choice between two strong men with GREat convictions and different philosophies, different policies with very different consequences for this city, this state, our nation and the world.

On the economy, we have just lived through four years of the first job losses in 70 years, record bankruptcies, middle-class incomes declining and poverty going up.

In Pennsylvania alone, you've lost 70,000 jobs as compared with the 219,000 you gained by this time when that last fellow was president -- me.

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In Pennsylvania alone, 249,000 people have been added to the rolls of poverty, falling out of the middle class, as compared with 395,000 people who moved from poverty into the middle class the last time we had a Democratic administration; 333,000 Pennsylvanians have lost their health insurance; unemployment's gone up 26 percent. It dropped 35 percent in the first four years the last time we had a Democratic administration.

CLINTON: Their plan is more of the same. They gave two huge tax cuts to upper-income people like me and to special interests. They run these big deficits, and they go every month and borrow the money to cover our debts from the Chinese and the Japanese government and they're saddling it on our children. They're making our children pay for it today and tomorrow.

Over 2 million children not funded in the Leave No Child Behind Act, over a half a million children kicked out of their after-school programs, 140,000 unemployed workers kicked out of their job training programs, 100,000 working families losing their child care. Leaving the burden of the deficit for my tax cut on the children of this country, that's their plan.

John Kerry's got a better plan.

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He wants to repeal the tax cuts for those of us who have been fortunate enough to make a lot of money. He wants to finally give us a chance to make a contribution to America's economic recovery and to the fight against terrorism. It's time.

Most of us, without regard to party, want our chance to contribute to our country's welfare and our future. And we don't want our children and our grandchildren paying for the costs of our tax cuts.

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He wants to invest in education and health care and homeland security. He wants to give us a new jobs policy by creating a clean energy future independent of foreign oil funded by Americans working in high-wage, high-technology jobs.

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He's got a health care plan that will save the average health insurance policyholder $1,000 over the next couple of years, add over 90 percent of our people to health coverage and cover all of our kids and cut the cost of prescription drugs.

Their plan is more power and money to the drug companies, the health insurance companies, the HMOs.

We tried it their way. It's high cost and low coverage.

CLINTON: Let's have lower cost and higher coverage with John Kerry's plan for America.

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When your governor was the mayor of this city, and before when he was prosecutor, we worked together to bring down the crime rate. We did it with more cops on the street and assault weapons off the street. That's the Kerry policy.

Their policy is to take 88,000 cops off the street and put the assault weapons back on. John Kerry's has a better idea.

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And on security, where they have claimed to have the edge, President Kerry will give us a larger army, get more help and better management in Iraq, put more emphasis on homeland security -- where they're opposed -- doubling the inspections of our containers at our ports and airports, put more emphasis on getting weapons of mass destruction and more emphasis on Al Qaida, where there are still six times as many American troops in Iraq as there are in Afghanistan.

I think John Kerry's got a good plan for America.

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We have different philosophies. John Kerry and the rest of us who are supporting him want a country and a world of shared responsibilities and shared opportunities and a stronger community, where we cooperate with others whenever we can and act alone only when we have to.

Our friends on the other side want a world where they concentrate wealth and power on the far right, do what they want to when they can and cooperate with others only when they have to.

I am very proud of John Kerry and the campaign he has run. He never gives up.

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He never gives up.

I remember in the primary campaign, very early, they were saying, "Oh, Kerry's dead. He's dashed expectations. He can't win." He just kept being John Kerry. And he won in Iowa. He won in New Hampshire. And he won the nomination for president.

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I remember, early in this campaign, they said, "Oh, Kerry's beat. He's too far behind. He's dead as a door nail." And then he gave us three magnificent performances in those debates, and he's leading in this race.

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CLINTON: I am proud that John Kerry has treated the voters of America with genuine respect. He's given them his specific plans on jobs, on health care, on energy, on security.

In the closing days of this election -- and you know I've been home watching it, so I see all this stuff...

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... the other side, they're trying to scare the undecided voters about Senator Kerry.

And they're trying to scare the decided voters away from the polls. We know about that, don't we? It worked so well in Florida, they seem to be trying it elsewhere.

In the closing days of this campaign, John Kerry's gone on being John Kerry, talking about his hopes for America, his plans for America, his commitment to our security and our prosperity.

Now, one of Clinton's laws of politics is this: If one candidate's trying to scare you and the other one's trying to get you to think, if one candidate's appealing to your fears and the other one's appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope.

That's the best.

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My fellow Americans, we can do better. And in eight days we're going to do better with President John Kerry. Bring him on.

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KERRY: Thank you. Thank you.

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You guys look so beautiful all the way back there.

Thank you very, very much.

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KERRY: You look spectacular. It is so GREat to be here today.

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Thank you very much.

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If you do the work for the next eight days, you'll give me a chance to show how much I love you. Is that a deal?

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I want to thank Governor Rendell. I want to thank Mayor Street. I want to thank all of the conGREssmen and all of the civic leaders who are here to join us today.

And most of all, I want to thank Pennsylvania and Philadelphia for a GREat welcome here today. Thank you.

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Isn't it GREat to have Bill Clinton back on the trail?

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I'll tell you, he led this nation to the strongest economy we've ever had. He expanded health care for millions of children in America. He helped bring our security and the security of the world to the level it ought to be. And he did this by always putting people first and fighting for the middle class.

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I'll tell you, when I talked to the president before he went into the hospital and while he was in the hospital, he said to me -- you can just feel it. You could feel it in him. He couldn't stand the idea of not being out here on the trail with all of us.

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And he said, "I'm going to do any darndest to get back there before the end of this campaign."

Promise made, promise kept.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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You know, it takes a lot to keep President Clinton from the campaign trail, as we all know.

KERRY: But heart surgery is a big deal and when you have a triple bypass, to be back here in seven weeks, this president is the comeback kid.

And America loves you for it. Thank you.

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I asked the president before we came out here, I said, "Mr. President, can you tell me anything that you have in common with George W. Bush?"

And he thought for a moment. And he said, "In eight days and 12 hours, we will both be former presidents."

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So let me ask you, Pennsylvania, are you ready to move America in a new direction?

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KERRY: Are you ready to put common sense back into the decisions about our lives?

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Are you ready for a president again who is a champion of the middle class?

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Are you ready for new leadership from the streets to the top of these buildings?

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Well, help is on the way.

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But before I pick up on what the president said...

AUDIENCE: Kerry! Kerry! Kerry!

KERRY: Thank you. Thank you.

Before I pick up on what the president said about our domestic agenda, I want to first talk about something that's in the news today, because it is urgent and it tells us everything that is wrong and reckless and miscalculated about the president's policies on security in Iraq.

George W. Bush talks tough and brags about making America safer, but once again he has failed to deliver to the citizens of our country.

After being warned about the danger of major stockpiles of explosives in Iraq, this administration failed to guard those stockpiles where nearly 380 tons of highly explosive materials were being kept.

Today, America has learned that those stockpiles are missing, they're unaccounted for and they could be in the hands of terrorists.

Terrorists can use this material to blow up our airplanes, blow up our buildings, kill American troops.

Now, it's not bad enough that it's missing. In May of this year, the administration was warned that terrorists may be helping themselves to, quote -- this was the warning -- "the GREatest explosives bonanza in history."

And now we know that our country and our troops are less safe because this president failed to do the basics. This is one of the GREat additional blunders of Iraq.

The unbelievable incompetence of this administration, step after step, has put our troops at GREater and greater risk, overextended the American military, isolated the United States, put a greater financial burden on the American people. George W. Bush has failed the test of commander in chief.

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And I just ask you -- I want you to do exactly what President Clinton just said a moment ago.

KERRY: He said his presence here may or may not change a mind, but the reasons may be able to change the minds. And I want you to think about that in the context of this administration's choices.

They have miscalculated again and again and again with the security of our nation. Miscalculated how they chose to go to war. Miscalculated about how many troops they needed. Miscalculated about Osama Bin Laden at Tora Bora and outsourcing the job to Afghan warlords, rather than doing it ourselves and using the best trained troops in the world to go up in those mountains and capture and kill Osama Bin Laden.

And then finally, you all remember how Secretary Rumsfeld just casually dismissed the looting and said, "Well, looting happens." Now we know the impact.

Make no mistake, our troops are the best-trained, best-led forces in the world and they've been doing their job honorably and with courage.

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But the commander in chief has failed to do his and the result is if George Bush can't recognize his mistakes as he goes along, how's he going to fix them?

We don't want four more years of the same. We need a new policy, a fresh start, new credibility in order to get the job done in Iraq and get our troops home. That's what we need to do.

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Now let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, we need a president of the United States who can do more than one job at the same time.

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We need a president who can defend America and fight for the middle class.

And I'll tell you, all you have to do is look at what's happened to the lives of most Americans over the course of the last four years.

KERRY: The income of the average American family has gone down. Health care costs are up 64 percent. Gasoline prices are up 30 percent. Tuitions are up 35 percent. Medicare costs are up 17 percent on the premiums. Prescription drug costs are up 12 percent.

But this president's been satisfied to walk on by while the average family has a harder and harder time making ends meet.

I intend to be a president who fights, not just for the middle class, but who fights to have an economy where Americans aren't just working away, day after day, two jobs or three jobs, for the economy, but the economy is working for Americans.

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Let me tell you where we're going to begin. You know, right now, your tax money is being used -- whether you like it or not, it's being used to support a company that decides to take the jobs overseas.

When I'm president, it will take me about a nanosecond to send that to ConGREss. We're going to close that loophole. And we're going to reward the companies that stay and keep the jobs here in America.

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We're also going to fight for a fair playing field for the American worker to be able to compete on.

President Clinton, at the end of his term, with Jordan and Vietnam, managed to fight for labor standards and environment standards. We deserve a president who understands that if you give the American worker a fair playing field to compete on, there's no one in the world the American worker can't compete against. And that's what we're going to do.

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But, my friends, it is not just the new jobs that we have to create in the manufacturing and in the old things we used to do. It's the new things we need to do.

We're Americans. We are America. We have more ability as Americans if we put our minds to it to do what we want to do to create jobs and all of the new technologies in the areas of health care and things we need to do for Americans. But we need a president who's prepared to lead us there, not stop us from getting there.

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KERRY: You know, we're the country that rolled the first automobile off the assembly line. We're the country where two bicycle mechanics from Dayton went down to North Carolina and flew the airplane and changed the world.

I was with John Glenn the other day in Ohio. We're the country with people like John Glenn, who helped us put the first footprints on the moon and explore the stars and the universe itself.

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I'll tell you this president and this administration have been content to tell Americans, "Don't raise people's false hopes about research." But, my friends, what would have happened if somebody had said, "Don't raise false hopes about polio vaccine. Don't raise false hopes about smallpox vaccine"?

Let me tell you something: In our country, this country of dreams, we're not going to take anybody's hope away. We're going to do stem cell research so we can do the work and cure Parkinson's and diabetes.

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We also need a president, again, who understands that we ought to put in place the principle that no young American in uniform should ever be held hostage to America's dependence on oil from the Middle East.

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We're going to set a goal that by the year 2020, 20 percent of America's electricity is going to be produced from alternative and renewable sources, and America is going to be energy independent from the Mideast.

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Just this morning, I was in New Hampshire. I was with five women, each of whom has either been laid off or is struggling with a husband who's been laid off. Each of whom has children. All of them struggling to pay the cost of health care in America.

1.2 million people right here in Pennsylvania have no health care at all; 337,000 of your fellow citizens, your neighbors -- maybe some of you -- lost their health care over the course in the last four years, and this administration has turned its back and done nothing.

I'll tell you, when I am president, with your help, we are going to end the journey begun by Harry Truman, fought for by Bill Clinton. We are going to stop being the only industrial nation on this planet that doesn't understand health care is not a privilege for the wealthy and the elected or the connected.

KERRY: It's a right for all Americans.

And when people ask you, "How are we going to do this? How are we going to pay for this?" I'll tell you exactly how we're going to pay for it.

Every program I've laid out for America -- lifting our kids by funding No Child Left Behind, making sure that we relieve the burden of the property tax by helping fund special needs education, making sure that we create jobs with manufacturing jobs credit -- everything I've talked about is paid for. And we've paid for it by doing smart things like passing the commission that John McCain and I have proposed to shut $60 billion of corporate welfare, corporate giveaways and make the tax system work for Americans.

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And you know what else we do? The president mentioned it. We ask America to make a responsible choice.

If we want to lower the cost of health care for our businesses, if we want to lower the cost of health care for individuals, if we want to make sure that every American, as I do, can buy into the same health care plan that senators and conGREssmen give themselves, then we need to roll back George Bush's unaffordable tax cut for people earning more than $200,000 a year and invest in the future of our country.

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Now, my fellow Americans, when I was in that debate, I was standing over here to the right and the president was here at a podium like this. And every time I talked about the dreams and possibilities and the things we could do, the president kept responding, "It's hard work. It's hard work. It's hard work."

Well, my fellow Americans, I am ready and I would be privileged and I am impatient to relieve this president of that hard work.

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KERRY: I was at a rally in Ohio the other day, and this woman sent me a message. I did not get a chance to talk to her.

But she grabbed one of my staff people, and she said, "You make sure you tell the senator the following message." And she said to me, through that person, "Senator, we've got your back."

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But let me tell you something -- and I know President Clinton will aGREe with me about this -- for the next eight days, I want you to have my back, and on November 2nd, I want you to have it.

But this is not about me, this is about us. This is about you and your lives and who's fighting for you. And every single thing that makes a difference to the quality of your life is on the ballot on November 2nd.

This president wants to privatize Social Security. I don't. I will never privatize Social Security.

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This president has run up the biggest deficits in American history and piled the debt on our children. I'm going to cut that deficit in half, and we're going to restore pay-as-you-go, and be fiscally responsible in America.

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All of those issues -- after-school programs, health care, Social Security, Medicare -- all of the things that make a difference are on the ballot in eight days. But I'll tell you what else is on the ballot: the character of our country, the dreams of this nation.

As President Clinton will tell you, both the burden and the privilege of being president of the United States is not just being president of the United States, it's being leader of the free world. And the world is waiting to see what you do in eight days.

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I'm asking you for the privilege of making you proud, for the right to stand up and fight for middle-class Americans, and to stand up and do what's right by America itself to make us safer.

I will never stop hunting down, capturing or killing the terrorists. Just as I fought for this nation as a young man, I will fight and defend it as president of the United States

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KERRY: But what I'm really fighting for is the privilege of waking up on November 3rd and starting to work to build a country again that we're all proud of, that the world respects, so that I can go to that Oval Office every single day, look you in the eye and say to every American, "I've got your back."

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That's what this is about. Let's go out and make it happen. Let's win the presidency. Let's take back our democracy.

Thank you and God bless you all.

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