US Presidency
2012

My grandparents were given the chance to go to college, buy their own home, and fulfill the basic bargain at the heart of America's story the promise that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be rewarded, that everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, D.C. And I ran for President because I saw that basic bargain slipping away. I began my career helping people in the shadow of a shuttered steel mill at a time when too many good jobs were starting to move overseas. And by 2008, we had seen nearly a decade in which families struggled with costs that kept rising but paychecks that didn'the; folks racking up more and more debt just to make the mortgage or pay tuition, put gas in the car or food on the table.