Chelsea Clinton's 2016 Democratic National Convention Speech

"Her Heart and Her Conscience" is a speech delivered by Chelsea Clinton to introduce her mother at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on 28 July 2016.

Transcript
Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. It is such an honor for me to be here tonight. I am here as a proud American, a proud Democrat, a proud mother and tonight in particular, a very, very proud daughter.

Mark and I can’t quite believe it but our daughter Charlotte is nearly two years old. She loves Elmo. She loves blueberries, and above all she loves facetiming with grandma.

My mom can be about to walk on stage for a debate, or a speech, it just doesn’t matter. She’ll drop everything for a few minutes of blowing kisses and reading Chugga Chugga Choo Choo with her granddaughter. Oh, Chugga Chugga got an applause.

Our son Aiden is five and a half weeks old. And we are so thankful that he’s healthy and thriving and well, we’re a little biased but we think he’s just about the cutest baby in the world. A view, I’m pretty sure my mom shares.

And every day that I spend as Charlotte and Aiden’s mother, I think about my own mother, my wonderful, thoughtful, hilarious mother.

My earliest memory is my mom picking me up after I had fallen down, giving me a big hug and reading me Goodnight Moon. From that moment, to this one, every single memory I have of my mom is that regardless of what was happening in her life, she was always, always there for me.

Every soccer game, every softball game, every piano recital, every dance recital, Sundays spent together at church and the local library. Countless Saturdays finding shapes in the clouds, making up stories about what we would do if we ever met at triceratops, in my opinion, the friendliest looking dinosaurs.

Although, my mom would always remind me they were still dinosaurs. As a kid, I was pretty obsessed with dinosaurs and the day that my parents took me to Dinosaur National Park, I didn’t think life could get any better.

Whenever my mom was away for work, which thankfully didn’t happen very often. She left notes for me to open every day she was gone. All stacked neatly together in a special drawer, with at date on the front of each one, so I would know which note to open on which day.

When she went to France to learn about their childcare system, I remember one was all about the Eiffel Tower, another was about the ideas she hoped to bring home to help the kids of Arkansas.

I treasured each and every one of those notes They were another reminder, that I was always in her thoughts and in her heart. Growing up, conversations around the dinner table always started with what I learned in school that day.

I remember one week, talking incessantly about a book that had captured my imagination, “A Wrinkle in Time”. Only after, my parents had listened to me, would they then talk about what they were working on, education, healthcare, what was consuming their days and keeping them up at night.

I loved that my parents expected me to have opinions, and to be able to back them up with facts.

I never once doubted that my parents cared about my thoughts and my ideas. And I always, always knew how deeply they loved me. That feeling of being valued and loved, that’s what my mom wants for every child.

It is the calling of her life. My parents raised me to know how lucky I was. That I never had to worry about food on the table. That I never had to worry about a good school to go to. That I never had to worry about a safe neighborhood to play in. And they taught me to care about what happens in our world and to do whatever I could to change what frustrated me, what felt wrong. They taught me that’s the responsibility that comes with being smiled on by fate.

And I know my kids are a little young, but I’m already trying to instill those same values in them. There’s something else that my mother taught me, public service is about service.

And, as her daughter, I’ve had a special window into how she serves. I’ve seen her holding the hands of mothers, worried about how they’ll feed their kids, worried about how they’ll get them the healthcare they need. I’ve seen my mother promising to do everything she could to help. I’ve seen her right after those conversations getting straight to work, figuring out what she could do, who she could call, how fast she could get results.

She always feels, like there isn’t a moment to lose, because she knows that for that mother, for that family there isn’t.

And I’ve, I’ve also seen her at the low points, like the summer of 1994. Several people this week have talked about her fight for universal healthcare. I saw it up close. It was bruising. It was exhausting. She fought her heart out and as all of you know, she lost. For me, then 14 years old, it was, it was pretty tough to watch. But my mom, she was amazing. She took a little time to replenish her spirits. Family movie nights definitely helped. Dad, as all of you now know, liked Police Academy.

My mom and I loved Pride and Prejudice.

And then, she just got right back to work, because she believed that she could still make a difference for kids.

People ask me, all the time, how does she do it? How does she keep going, amid the sounds and the fury of politics? Here’s how, it’s because she never, ever forgets who she’s fighting for.

She’s worked to make it easier for foster kids to be adopted. For our 9/11 first responders to get the healthcare they deserve, for women around the world to be safe, to be treated with dignity, and to have more opportunities.

Fights like these, they’re what keep my mother going. They grab her heart and her conscience and they never, ever let go.

That’s who my mom is. She’s a listener and a doer. She’s a woman driven by compassion, by faith, by a fierce sense of justice and a heart full of love. So, this November, I’m voting for a woman who is my role model, as a mother, and as an advocate. A woman who has spent her entire life fighting for families and children. I’m voting for the progressive, who will protect our planet from climate change and our communities from gun violence.

Who will reform our criminal justice system, and who knows that women’s rights are human rights.

And who knows, that LGBT rights, are human rights and around the world. I’m voting for a fighter who never, ever gives up. And who believes that we can always do better when we come together and we work together.

I hope that my children will someday be as proud of me as I am of my mom. I am so grateful to be her daughter. I’m so grateful that she is Charlotte’s and Aiden’s grandmother. She makes me proud every single day.

And, mom, grandma would be so, so proud of you tonight.

To everyone watching here and at home, I know with all my heart, that my mother will make us proud as our next President. This is the story of my mother, Hillary Clinton.

Ladies and gentlemen, my mother, my hero, and our next President, Hillary Clinton.