Shortly after putting up this blog post, I received an email from the Deval Patrick campaign with a copy of his speech for the Massachusetts Democratic Convention. It seems particularly applicable and I'm including it below as another example of politicians speaking strongly about hope.

Thanks so much for your warm welcome. And thanks to every delegate here today for your service.

Before I say another word, let me be clear about what I want out of this convention. I want your vote, every single vote in this hall – on every single ballot. I want your vote today, and again in September and again in November.

See, I didn’t come here today to do some backroom deal or to play games. That’s just more politics-as-usual. And politics-as-usual is what I came here to change.

Because what’s missing from politics-as-usual is hope. We have been governed by fear, low aim and salesmanship for too long. But salesmanship is not leadership. What’s missing is a reason to hope.

Hope is a tangible force. I was 14 years old when I came to Massachusetts in 1970. I grew up on the South Side of Chicago in a two-bedroom tenement with my mother and sister and grandparents. I shared a set of bunk beds with my mother and sister, so we rotated – top bunk, bottom bunk, floor – every third night on the floor.

I went to broken public schools. My family spent some time on public assistance, when that’s what we needed to get by.

In the fall of 1970 I got my break – right here in Massachusetts, when a program called A Better Chance brought me to Milton Academy. They might as well have brought me to another planet.

But it opened doors that opened other doors that opened still other doors. I have had some extraordinary chances.

But I can still remember when I first came to Massachusetts. I wasn’t a lawyer then. I wasn’t a business leader or a senior government official then. I wasn’t a husband or a father then. I was a 14-year-old boy, staring at a chance different from anything my own family could even imagine. And I was scared.

But my grandmother had a saying that was with me then: “Hope for the best – and work for it.”

Hope for the best – and work for it.

That’s what I did. I hoped for the best – I learned how not to accept what is right in front of me, what someone else said were my limits.

And I worked for it. I worked and I worked and I worked. And I learned to listen to common sense and wisdom, from whatever still, small voice it came, and to be true to my core values.

Standing on the brink of an uncertain future, with all the challenges we face today in Massachusetts, all I know how to do is to hope for the best and work for it.

And that fundamentally is what I am asking you to do now, here in this hall, for Massachusetts. I want you to see what I see about what’s possible in Massachusetts – and to work with me for that.

Because

· Together we can have advances in stem cell research if we focus on healing instead of on politics.

· Together we can lead the world in renewable and alternative energy and conservation – to save our planet and build our economy.

· Together we can give our kids a real chance to move forward with smaller classes, a longer school day, after-school enrichment programs, great teachers and principals, and public colleges and universities that are the envy of the world.

· Together we can build a health care system on the premise that health is a public good, a system that is affordable, patient-centered, and truly universal.

I want more than short-term band-aids. I want more than government by photo op and press release and sound bites. I want real and lasting and meaningful progress. I want you to see the potential I see in you, the same way Massachusetts people saw potential in this frightened little boy from Chicago.

I have been a leader in government, in business, in non-profits and in community work. I have built bridges across more differences and helped solve more problems in more varied settings than any other candidate in this race, from either party. I don’t have the insider connections and the money the other candidates do. But what I do have is a plan to move us forward, the life and leadership experience to make it real, and a grassroots organization across this state the likes of which we have never seen.

Even so, it’s not all up to me. It’s never up to any one leader. It’s up to us. Our cause succeeds only if you see this not as my campaign, but as yours. Not just my chance to be governor, but yours to rebuild our community, to reclaim your stake in your neighbors’ dreams and struggles as well as your own.

I cannot hope for the best and work for it alone. You have to go to work.

If you go to work, I win. And if I win, so do you.

Because when I win, Democratic values win.

It’s time for Democrats to stop apologizing for being Democrats and to be proud. We are the Party that hopes for the best – and works for it. But we have become captives of cynicism, people who think they are smarter than you here and those outside. And that is our biggest challenge.

My late uncle Sonny was a sometime-resident of that little apartment on the South Side of Chicago. He struggled through most of his life with an addiction to heroin. He used to shoot up in the living room when he thought no one was looking. I know now that he was looking for a way to soothe his pain, a way not to face his own personal demons and challenges. A way out.

Well, cynicism is an opiate, too, a comfort drug. And it’s everywhere. It helps us brace ourselves against the pain of disappointment, to endure the letdown we have come to expect. Some politicians and some of the media, frankly, are dealers, peddling cynicism by tearing down anything positive and hopeful.

Well, cynicism, it turns out, is addictive. It leads us to expect less and demand less of our leaders and of ourselves. It restricts our capacity to imagine, let alone to care about, problems we have created for ourselves.

It’s time to put our cynicism down. Put it down. Stand with me and take that leap of faith. Because I’m not asking you to take a chance on me. I’m asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations. Take a chance on hope.

That’s the lesson of our party. That’s the lesson of our Commonwealth. That’s the lesson of my own life.

For our Party, for Massachusetts, for the Nation – I challenge you to hope – defiantly – for the best. Now, let’s go to work.

God bless us all. Thank you so much.