"I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to – it belongs to you." - Barack Obama, Election Night 2008

Read the full speech, as prepared for delivery . . . 

Reform No Child Left Behind

Obama and Biden believe teachers should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests and he will improve the assessments used to track student progress to measure readiness for college.

Invest in Early Childhood Education

The Obama-Biden comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. And they will help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.

Make College Affordable to all Americans

Obama and Biden will create a new American Opportunity Tax Credit worth $4,000 in exchange for community service. It will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students.

In this video, Senator Barack Obama talks about his plan for education, including reforming No Child Left Behind, supporting teachers and schools, giving tax incentives to college students, and demanding more accountability at all levels:


You can read more about this plan in our section on education. You can also view a side-by-side comparison showing how the candidates stand on the issue of education or give us your feedback on education policy.

Poder, a leading Hispanic magazine distributed in the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Chile, presents its analysis of the 2008 election in its latest number and gives a ringing endorsement of presidential candidate Barack Obama. Read the full endorsement:

Throughout his long career in the U.S. Senate, John McCain has been a friend and supporter of Latin America and the Hispanic community in the United States. Despite strong opposition from his party, he co-authored with Ted Kennedy a groundbreaking bill for comprehensive immigration reform that sought compromise, pragmatic solutions to this very complex and emotional issue. McCain has been a staunch free-trader and a consistent champion of deepening commerce and investment links in our hemisphere even as these notions became increasingly unpopular amongst the American electorate. Moreover, he has been a firm ally of democratic governments in the region in the fight against drug-traffickers and terrorist groups that threaten the very fiber of their institutions and societies. However, despite his admirable personal history and distinguished political service, this magazine believes that Barack Obama is the better choice for U.S. president on November 4th; for Latin America, for the Hispanic community, for the United States and for the world.

For one thing, the McCain of today seems to have strayed widely from the McCain of old. Of course, electoral pressures have abetted this transformation. But his reversals and hard veers to the right on issues of crucial importance (and that seemed so close to his heart) as immigration and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans are disquieting. The hustle and bustle of the campaign has also exposed facets of his character and temper that, while useful for, and even becoming of, a maverick senator, appear ill-suited for a commander-in-chief in a time of war, economic crisis and political polarization. What is more, his claim to the moral high-ground in campaign tactics (he was on the receiving end of a vile hatchet job by the Bush political machine in the 2000 primaries), has fallen by the wayside. But this magazine's endorsement of Obama is not predicated on McCain's shortcomings. Rather, it rests on three arguments: Obama's virtues for leadership, the symbolism of his presidency, and the benefits it could yield for the U.S. Hispanic community and our hemisphere.

That Obama's intellect is first-class, no one can doubt. Few presidents in U.S. history can boast of being Editor of the Harvard Law Review and Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. His outlook is thoughtful, nuanced and open-minded, befitting of fast-paced, uncertain times and a reality that deals in shades of gray. The management of his campaign has been creative, nimble, forward-looking, and as close to flawless (despite its extraordinary length) as any in recent American political history. But what has shone through most in the last few months and the debates is that Obama appears to possess a first-class temperament as well. Obama's demeanor is collected and poised, and he reacts to even the most vitriolic criticism with a smile. In an age of rising fanaticism, his instinctive moderation is a breath of fresh air.

The symbolic power of an Obama presidency cannot be underestimated. His election would provide, in a fashion, final closure on some of the darkest chapters in American history, the civil rights movement, and it would also open new horizons of aspiration and possibility for millions. The child of an African father and a white American mother, who spent a formative part of his life in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, Obama is a product of our post-Cold War, interdependent age. His immense popularity abroad (a recent poll by the Economist of 30,000 international readers reveals that 84% of them prefer him over McCain) is a testament to the fact that he is, in a sense, the world's candidate for U.S. president. The boost from his election to America's international stature and its dwindling reserve of soft-power, and thus to its ability to shape global affairs, could prove staggering.

The last nationwide survey of Hispanic registered voters conducted by the Pew Center in June and July of this year, showed Obama beating McCain by a 66% to 23% margin. His stands on universal health-care, immigration reform and tax relief for households earning under $200,000 a year, as well as his condition as a minority American, have struck a chord among a group that, despite great strides, remains under-privileged. Today, with the financial crisis in full-force, his support is likely much higher. The countries where these people originally hail from also stand to benefit from an Obama presidency. On the one hand, a dark-skinned, half-African U.S. President would be profoundly unsettling, if not thoroughly destabilizing, for those regimes in the region which, to one extent or another, have reaped political capital from fomenting hatred of "an arrogant, supremacist Empire". One would hope this would help tilt them from irresponsible demagoguery and bluster, to more reasoned policies and action. Furthermore, few have realized that in a context of economic slowdown and even larger Democratic majorities in Congress, which now seems all but certain, only the prestige of a Democratic president can move U.S. policy in the direction of freer trade and greater engagement with Latin America.

Admittedly, Obama's greatest drawback is his limited political experience. As the New Yorker's recent endorsement of the Senator from Illinois put it, "We, too, wish he had more of it". But, not to downplay his trackrecord as a lawyer and law-maker, experience can sometimes be a handicap, especially when tainted by a mindset that harks back to a different era. Besides, leadership in a wired, multi-polar era is much more about vision, judgment and the capacity to inspire, than about accumulated knowledge or bureaucratic ability. After all, the latter traits can be outsourced, the former can't. This fall, words from J.F.K.'s presidential nomination acceptance speech ring truer than ever, "It is a time ... for a new generation of leadership -- new men to cope with new problems and new opportunities."

Great and lasting political movements are built on a plurality of voices – when everyone comes together to demand better wages for their families, decent schools, clean energy, affordable and quality health care, better roads and bridges, and a foreign policy that keeps us safe at home and abroad.
 
Spanish-speaking Latinos all over the United States and are a key part of our movement for change, and this is why we have thousands of volunteers reaching out to Latino voters across the country who are also worried about the economy, their jobs, health care, immigration, education, and the failed foreign and economic Bush-McCain policies.

ABC News recently reported:

Close to 3 million Hispanic Americans will vote for the first time in this election, according to Efrain Escobedo, senior director of civic engagement at the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO). "We are going to see the largest turnout of Latino registered voters in history," Escobedo said. 

As part of our efforts to reach out to and engage as many of these voters as possible, our website now has an expanded Spanish-language section that includes a “get to know the candidates” section, an “issues” section, a blog that’s updated daily, and other tools for Spanish-speaking voters interested in learning more, volunteering, making a contribution, or registering to vote.  
 
If you know someone in your community who would benefit from this valuable Spanish-language resource – a friend, an uncle, or a neighbor – let them know about our Spanish site. Send them the link, give them a call, or boot up their computer and show them how it works. Help us engage this key voting bloc so that we can carry the day together this November 4th. And practice your Spanish while you are at it! ¡Sí se puede!

Supporters across the country are calling friends, family, and even strangers to talk about Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the final days before the election.

With early vote well under way in critical battleground states like Ohio and Florida, we have a small window of time to talk with hundreds of thousands of Latino voters who will help determine the next President of the United States.

Get stated calling Latino voters by selecting the state you'd like to call on the map below. If you live in a battleground state that is not available on the map, you can get a list of voters in your community to call here. Once you've logged into the calling campaign, you'll immediately be provided a simple script and targeted list of voters to call.

Select the state you'd like to call above and login to begin reaching out to Latino voters. Every conversation you have could bring us one vote closer to victory.

Check out a phonebanking tutorial in Spanish from the Spanish Blog, which is updated daily.