Primary Victory Speech - Aug. 19, 2008

I want to give a big thanks to the Northwest African American Museum for letting us come here. This place is great. It's gonna to draw crowds from all over the world. Please give it up for this museum. Thank you.

And please – a big shout-out for the great representative from this district, Eric Pettigrew. Thank you, Eric.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're winning in all four corners of the great state of Washington.

We have worked hard over the last three-and-a-half years to create one Washington. Today, we have one Washington with results for every single person in those respective counties. Thank you and congratulations.

As you all know, I have three very special people in my life. I owe my existence, my happiness, my love to each of these three people, one of whom is not here because she's on her honeymoon. But she just called – just got off the slopes in New Zealand to call and see how things were going. Please if you would give a big thanks to my amazing husband who has fought for veterans for the last three and a half years, Mike Gregoire.

I'm going to ask you for just a brief moment to please say a prayer. I want you to join me in a prayer for the 81st. Mike and I today said good-bye to approximately twenty-five hundred men and women who are in our National Guard for a year's tour of duty in Iraq. We thank their families and their loved ones and their friends for supporting them, and we told them you can rest assured, one, we're going to support your families while you're gone so don't you worry, and two, every one of you is gonna come back and we're going to welcome you home and we're going to thank you and honor you and respect you for your service to this great state and this great nation. Please if you would join me in a prayer, not just today but for the next 12 months, so we can bring these men and women home. And now I ask you to join me in a great shout-out of praise and admiration for each and every one of them and their families.

And the other daughter who's here working full-time on the campaign, knockin' on doors, dialing the phone, you name it she's doing it, my great daughter, Michelle Gregoire.

Michelle Obama said it right when she came to visit us. She said the kind of change that she and Barack Obama wanna see happen in Washington, D.C., is the kind of change that we've brought here in Washington state over the last four years. We're a model for America. Let's have America make the same kinda changes we've made here in this great state.

[chanting with crowd] Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!

No campaign, no campaign does anything without hard-working individuals. This room is filled with people who are making it every single day possible for me to get out there and run. I wanna thank each and every one of you. For the volunteers, thank you for the thousands of telephone calls and the thousands of doors. Thank you, thank you, thanks to all of the great volunteers and hard-working people [inaudible].

Are we ready for a world-class education from the day that child is born to whatever their dreams may be in the great state of Washington?

Are we ready to make sure that every single child has healthcare coverage by 2010 and then we move on so that every Washington, Washingtonian has affordable, high-quality, safe healthcare in this great state?

Are you ready to join me to make sure we continue to make sure our communities are safe with that 14-year lull in the crime rate in this great state?

And are you ready to keep making great jobs so that we can continue to be the third-best, the second-best and then the number one best state in the nation in which to do business?

And it's nice to be ranked one of the top three best-managed states in the country but we're going to go it alone next time with an A. We're going to be the best-managed state in the entire country.

And are you ready to join me to clean up Puget Sound and lead, not only in this state and in the West but in the entire country, and send the message around the world – we're going to stand up and lead when it comes to global climate change.

Tonight is our beginning – our beginning of the next four years. It's a message that what we've done, the results we've achieved are the kind of results Washingtonians want, the values that they believe in, and the priorities that they have. We're putting whatever happened behind us. We're moving forward. For the next four years, this great state's going to be even greater. You and I are gonna be proud to call ourselves one Washingtonian, and we are all Washingtonians.

We've got momentum. I thank you for the night. We are ready to go. It's on to November. The president of the United States is going to be Barack Obama, and the next governor is going to be Chris Gregoire. [inaudible]

Transcript from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxLY6J0ed2M&index=1&list=PLDLQiUqKaml562yCULyHFu6opXhPglV8s.