“Now, if you’ll indulge me for a minute, I want you to think about the process of boarding a commercial airplane. You wait until your group is called. You step onto an airplane that will rush down the runway and lift you into the air, traveling five hundred miles an hour at thirty thousand feet, for however long it takes to get where you’re going. You greet the flight attendants, make your way to your seat and buckle in for the ride. Usually before the flight departs, you hear from the people in the cockpit, whose job it is to deliver you safely to your destination. In most cases, you don’t see their faces until you’re disembarking, when you finally see the pilots standing at the head of the aisle to thank you for flying with their airline. You’ve just put your life in the hands of two people you’ll probably never see again without having seen their faces beforehand or knowing a thing about their credentials. Many of us have probably flown with a commercial pilot on his or her first day at the controls, yet it never occurs to us to question whether they should be there. I’m asking you, my fellow Americans, to put the same faith in me that you regularly place into the hands of those nameless, faceless pilots.

“I’m asking you to believe that by working together, by focusing on the things that unite us rather than divide us, that we can make the American dream more attainable to all. I ask you to reach out to your fellow citizens with empathy rather than fear, with understanding rather than hatred, with celebration for the many things that make each of us unique and special. We’re all Americans, descended from other countries and from former immigrants. We’re all Americans regardless of our skin color, our sexual orientation, our religious beliefs, our political affiliations, and we’re all in this together. If we rise, we do so together. If we fall, we go down together.

“No president can do this job alone. I certainly can’t. I need everyone listening to me tonight to be part of this moment in time in which we get to decide what kind of country and what kind of people we’re going to be. The week before President Nelson died, I announced that I would not run for this office in the next election. I haven’t changed my mind about that.”

A gasp went through the room.