Ten years ago: Obama makes national debut
Hard to believe, but it's been ten years -- ten eventful years -- since millions of Americans met an Illinois state legislator named Barack Obama.
On the night of July 27, 2004, state senator Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, a speech that would help propel him to the presidency four years later.
"I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story," Obama said in Boston that night. "That I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible."
That convention nominated Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who had selected Obama for the keynote speech. Today, Kerry is secretary of state for President Obama.
As Kerry lost the 2004 presidential election to George W. Bush, Obama was winning a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois.
Obama's 2004 speech included items he would echo in his own presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012. It is probably best remembered for his rejection of the idea that there are separate "red state" and "blue state" Americas:
"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.
"Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.
"There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.
"The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.
"We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states.
"There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.
"We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."