We're here not just to select a senator. We're here to decide who we are, what kind of party and what kind country we want to be. You choose.
We can settle for the status quo, where we sell Senate seats to the highest bidder and turn Congress into a wholly owned subsidiary of the industries it's supposed to be regulating.
Or we can say no. We can reject the politics of business as usual, the pay-to-play culture that corrupts Washington and corrodes our country.
Part of changing that culture, a member of the Senate once said, "is recognizing that special interests - the insurance companies, the banks, the drug companies, the HMOs - have come to dictate" our agenda. And "the only way you break out of that," this senator said, is to stop taking money from those groups "so that ordinary people's voices are heard."
I believe Senator Obama was right.
I am the only candidate in this race - and one of the few in America - who refuses to accept contributions from special-interest groups. When we win this election, I will owe my seat not to Washington, not to Wall Street. I will owe this seat to you.
