During one practice session, a Kerry speechwriter interrupted to say that Obama would need to rephrase or cut one of the lines from his speech because it was too similar to a line in Kerry’s acceptance remarks. The line in question was the climax to Obama’s famous passage on the red-states, blue-states divide. That passage, as Obama delivered it, reads: “The pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states-red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.” Axelrod says Obama had originally written the passage to end with something like, “We’re not red states and blue states; we’re all Americans, standing up together for the red, white, and blue.” But to satisfy Kerry’s speechwriters, Axelrod says, Obama grudgingly cut out the line. A transcript of Kerry’s competing text reads: “Maybe some just see us divided into those red states and blue states, but I see us as one America: red, white, and blue.”
After the rehearsal ended, Obama was furious. “That fucker is trying to steal a line from my speech,” he griped to Axelrod in the car on the way back to their hotel, according to another campaign aide who was there but asked to remain anonymous. Axelrod says he does not recollect exactly what Obama said to him. “He was unhappy about it, yeah,” he says, but adds that Obama soon cooled down. “Ultimately, his feeling was: They had given him this great opportunity; who was he to quibble over one line?”
Convention officials confirm that Obama was told to change his line, but they could not say for sure if Kerry-or, more likely, his speechwriters-had pilfered it. Still, several convention officials who spoke on condition of anonymity say pilfering happened elsewhere. Take the line “I’m John Kerry, and I’m reporting for duty,” the opening words of Kerry’s speech, which he delivered with a crisp military salute. That line, insiders say, was originally in a speech written by Max Cleland, the former senator from Georgia who had lost three limbs in Vietnam. After Kerry’s team read Cleland’s remark, they decided to appropriate it. “They stole that line,” says one official. “They said to Cleland: ‘Guess what: Kerry likes your closing line so much he wants to use it.’” The official added, “I don’t believe that was the case with Obama; I have to take them at their word that the line was already in Kerry’s speech.”
