Pepas

The following is a transcript of First Lady Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention on Sept. 4, 2012.
SPEAKER: FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA
OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
With your help -- with your help.
(APPLAUSE)
Let me -- let me start
With your help -- with your help. Let me -- let me
start. I want to start by thanking Elaine. Elaine, thankyou so
much. We are so grateful for your family's service and
sacrifice. And we will always have your back.
(APPLAUSE)
Over the past few years as first lady, I have had the
extraordinary privilege of travelling all across this country.
And everywhere I have gone and the people I've met and the
stories I've heard, I have seen the very best of the American
spirit.
I've seen it in theincredible kindness and warmth that
people have shown in me and my family especially our girls.
I've seen it in teachers in a near bankrupt school district to
vowed to keep teaching without pay. I -- I have seen it in
people become heroes at a moment's notice, diving into harm's
way to save others, flying across the country to put out a fire,
diving for hours to bail out a town. And, I've seen itin our
men and women in uniform and our proud military families.
(APPLAUSE)
In -- in wounded warriors who tell me they are not just
going to walk again, they are going to run and they are going to
run marathons.
(APPLAUSE)
In the young men blinded by a bomb in Afghanistan who said
simply, ``I'd give my eyes and 100 times again to have the chance
to do what I have done, and what I can stilldo''.
(APPLAUSE)
Every day, the people I meet inspire me. Every day they
make me proud. Every day they remind me how blessed we are to
live in the greatest nation on earth.
(APPLAUSE)
Serving as your first lady is an honor and a privilege.
But, back when we first came together four years ago, I still
had some concerns about this journey we'd begun.
While I believe it if we dig deeply inmy husband's vision
for this country, and I was certain he would make an
extraordinary president, like any mother, I was worried about
what it would mean for our girls if he got that chance. How
would we keep them grounded under the glare of the national
spotlight? How would they feel being uprooted from their
school, their friends and the only home they'd ever known?
See our life beforemoving to Washington was filled with
simple joys. Saturdays at soccer games, Sundays at grandma's
house, and a date night for Barack and me with either dinner or
a movie because as an exhausted mom, I couldn't stay awake for
both.
(LAUGHTER)
And the truth is, I loved the life we had built for our
girls. And I deeply love the man I built that life with and I
did not want that to change if hebecame president.
(APPLAUSE)
I loved Barack just the way he was. You see, even back
then, when Barack was a Senator and presidential candidate, to
me, he was still the guy who picked me up for our dates in a car
that was so rusted out, I could actually see the pavement going
by in a hole in the passenger side door.
(LAUGHTER)
He was the guy whose proudest possession was a coffee tablehe'd found in a dumpster.
(APPLAUSE)
And whose only pair of decent was half a size too small.
But see when -- when Barack started telling me about his family,
see now that's when I knew I'd found in him a kindred spirit.
Someone whose values and upbringing were so much like mine.
You see Barack and I were both raised by families that did
not have much in the way of money or materialpossessions but
who had given us something far more valuable: their
unconditional love, their unflinching sacrifice and the chance
to go places they had never imagined for themselves.
(APPLAUSE)
My father was a pump operator at the city water plant, and
he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and my brother and I
were young. And even as a kid, I knew there were plenty of days
when he was in pain....