Deval Patrick’s victory speech

From the very beginning, and on every day of this campaign over the last year and a half, I have asked you to see this not as my campaign, but yours. Not my chance to be governor, so much as your chance to reclaim your own political and civic future.

Thanks to you, not only did we win at the polls today; we turned a political campaign into a movement for change.

We defied the odds — the old fashioned way, by grit and hard work and determination and perseverance. We built neighbor by neighbor, block by block, town by town, listening to you, asking those of you who had checked out to check back in.

You knew an outsider wasn’t supposed to win without the blessing of the insiders. You knew a grassroots campaign wasn’t supposed to win against connections and money. But you also knew that that’s precisely the kind of politics that has been holding Massachusetts back.

You know it’s time to get serious about expanding our economy, about building successful businesses, large and small, and about making good jobs more plentiful across the state — and that it is just as critical to get serious about expanding economic justice.

You know it’s time to get serious about delivering both quality health care and universal health care — and getting control of runaway costs.

You know that education transforms lives and that it’s time to get serious about the need for consistent excellence in every public school; not just success on a test, but success at teaching the whole child, and about assuring every child a place in a public college and university worthy of the preparation we expect of them.