John Kerry: “last November was one of those truly rare moments in the short history of our country and our democracy. Any political…”

“last November was one of those truly rare moments in the short history of our country and our democracy. Any political science student taking a freshman lecture, of course, will hear how incredibly hard it is to remove entrenched congressional majorities. They know the statistics about how hard it is to defeat incumbents around here. It doesn't happen that often. But sometimes, the American people rise up in one moment, as they did last November, and they make history. Just six times in our 230-year history has one party lost both Houses of Congress, and 2006 was the first time the Republican Party failed to win a single House, Senate, or gubernatorial office previously held by the Democrats. We Democrats have been in that predicament. In 1994, Democrats woke up to a landslide defeat some people thought would never come. It wasn't always easy, it wasn't always collegial, but we listened and we learned. Together, we reached across the aisle to balance the budget and reform welfare. We wrestled with why we had lost, and we wrestled with what we had to do in order to come together--not just as a party but as a country. Evidently, some people still haven't wrestled with what happened last November 7. Last November, Americans were appropriately angry. They saw our young men and women in uniform paying the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq for a failed policy that was stuck on autopilot.…”