 The truth is not always pleasant, so I can come before you and tell you some jokes and tell you about all the people who are supporting me, and when we have some music and all that stuff and I get votes, but that's not what we're trying to do. What we are trying to look at the harsh realities of American life, and by the way, those realities do not appear on television very often. And one of the points that we have made throughout this campaign is when we deal with the reality of American life, you can't count on media to tell you that reality. You have got to go into your own hearts and souls and determine what that reality is. You make that reality, you analyze that reality, not the stuff that you see on television because that often is not the reality facing this country. So in a sense, in a very profound sense, what this campaign is, is redefining reality. All right, what is reality in America today? Number one, everybody here in this room believes in democracy. We appreciate so much, and I speak to you as the former chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. We appreciate so much the sacrifices men and women in the military have made for so long in defending American democracy. I was in San Diego the other day, and I was introduced to a man in a wheelchair. I believe he is in his late 90s, and he fought in World War II, and you get chills in your own body meeting somebody whose courage has helped save America. But when we talk about democracy and the sacrifices that so many people have made, here is a truth that everybody here has got to appreciate, not a pleasant truth. And that is, as a result of this disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, we now have a corrupt campaign finance system which is undermining American democracy. Democracy, you know, we have had a long, long road that we've traveled since the inception of this country in terms of what democracy means. You all know that when this country was founded, the only people who could vote were wealthy white males, and the struggle for hundreds of years has been to expand democracy. That has been the struggle. And yet today, as a result of this Citizens United Supreme Court decision, what we are seeing is billionaires buying elections. And what this campaign is about is asking the American people not to take what we see in front of us, the status quo of our lives. Don't believe that that has to be the status quo in years to come. We can make change. So when you read in the paper that the Koch brothers or some other billionaires are spending hundreds of millions of dollars, do not accept that as what American politics should be about. When billionaires buy elections or try to buy elections, that is not democracy. That is oligarchy. And we will not allow that to take place.