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MS. IFILL: As previous agreed, we'll go to closing statements now,
two minutes each. Coin toss: Senator Edwards, you begin.
SEN. EDWARDS: Thank you. Thank you, Gwen, thank you, Mr. Vice President,
for being here.
You know, when I was young and growing up, I remember coming down the
steps into the kitchen early in the morning, and I would see the glow
of the television. And I'd see my father sitting at a table. He wasn't
paying bills and he wasn't  doing
paperwork from work. What he was doing was learning math on television.
Now, he didn't have a a college education, but he was doing what he
could do to get a better job in the mill where he worked.
I was proud of him. I'm still proud of him. And I was also hopeful because
I knew that I lived in a country where I could get a college education.
Here's the truth. I have grown up in the bright light of America, but
that light is flickering today. Now, I know that the vice president
and the president don't see it. But you do. You see it when your incomes
are going down and the cost of everything -- college tuition, health
care -- is going through the roof. You see it when you sit at your table
each night and there's an empty chair because a loved one is serving
in Iraq or Afghanistan.
What they're going to give you is four more years of the same. John
Kerry and I believe that we can do better. We believe in a strong middle
class in this country. That's why we have a plan to create jobs, getting
rid of tax cuts for companies outsourcing your jobs, give tax cuts to
companies that will keep jobs here in America. It's why we have a health
care plan. It's why we have a plan to keep you safe and to fix this
mess in Iraq.
The truth is that every four years, you get to decide; you have the
ability to decide where America's going to go. John Kerry and I are
asking you to give us the power to fight for you, to fight to keep that
dream in America that I saw as a young man alive for every parent sitting
at that kitchen table.
MS. IFILL: Vice President Cheney.
VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Gwen, I want to thank you.
It's been a privilege to serve as your vice president these last four
years and to work alongside President Bush to put our economy on an
upward path.
We've cut taxes, added 1.7 million new jobs in the last year, and
we'll continue to provide opportunities for business and for workers.
We won't be happy until every American who wants to work can find a
job. We believe that all Americans ought to have access to available
-- to medical care, and that they ought to have access to the finest
schools in the world. We'll do everything we can to preserve Social
Security and to make certain that it's there for future generations.
I've worked for four presidents, and watched two others up close, and
I know that there's no such thing as a routine day in the Oval Office.
We saw on 9/11 that the next president -- next decision a president
has to make can affect the lives of all of us.
Now, we find ourselves in the midst of a conflict unlike any we've ever
known, faced with a possibility that terrorists could smuggle a deadly
biological agent or a nuclear weapon into the middle of one of our own
cities. That threat and the presidential leadership needed to deal with
it is placing a special responsibility on all of you who will decide
on November 2nd who will be our commander in chief. The only viable
option for winning the war on terror is the one the president's chosen,
to use the power of the United States to aggressively go after the terrorists
wherever we find them, and also to hold to account states that sponsor
terror.
Now that we've captured or killed thousands of al Qaeda and taken down
the regimes of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, it's important that we
stand up democratically elected governments as the only guarantee that
they'll never again revert to terrorism or the production of deadly
weapons.
This is the task of our generation, and I know firsthand the strength
the president brings to it. The overall outcome will depend upon the
ability of the American people and the strong leadership of the president
to meet all the challenges that we'll face in the days and years ahead.
I'm confident we can do it.
MS. IFILL: And with that we come to the end of tonight's
debate.
On behalf of the commission and the candidates, I'd like to extend a
special thank you to the students and administration here at Case Western
Reserve University. A reminder, the second presidential debate takes
place this coming Friday at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Charles Gibson of ABC News will serve as moderator of that encounter
where the candidates will field questions from an audience. Then, on
October 13th from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, Bob Schieffer
of CBS News will moderate a debate on domestic issues.
For now, thank you, Vice President Cheney, Senator Edwards. From Cleveland,
Ohio, I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.
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