VP Debate - Closing Statements: ...

MS. IFILL: Governor Palin, you get the chance to make the first

closing statement.

GOV. PALIN: Well again, Gwen, I do want to thank you and the

commission. This is such an honor for me. And I appreciate, too,

Senator Biden, getting to meet you finally also and getting to debate

with you. And I would like more opportunity for this.

I like being able to answer these tough questions without the

filter, even, of the mainstream media kind of telling viewers what

they've just heard. I'd rather be able to just speak to the American

people like we just did. And it's so important that the American

people know of the choices that they have on November 4th.

I want to assure you that John McCain and I, we're going to fight

for America. We're going to fight for the middle class, average,

everyday American family like mine. I've been there. I know what the

hurts are. I know what the challenges are. And thank God I know what

the joys are, too, of living in America. We are so blessed. And I've

always been proud to be an American and so has John McCain.

We have to fight for our freedoms, also, economic and our

national security freedoms. It was Ronald Reagan who said that

freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't

pass it to our children in the bloodstream. We have to fight for it

and protect it and then hand it to them so that they shall do the

same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years

telling our children and our children's children about a time in

America back in the day when men and women were free.

We will fight for it, and there is on