Are you ready to fight for good jobs and and a solid level playing field? Are you ready to prove to another generation of Americans that we can build a better country and a newer world? Joe Biden is ready. Barack Obama is ready. I am ready. You're ready.

I'm still very connected to my family, to the world I grew up in. I understand what it means to be afraid that you can't pay a doctor's bill. Or to have to make the choice between buying a band uniform for a seventh-grader and making the insurance payment on time. That will never leave me. It was how I lived until I was well into my adult years.

The President's policy proposal, known as 'chained CPI,' would re-calculate the cost of living for Social Security beneficiaries. That new number won't keep up with inflation on things like food and health care -- the basics that we need to live. In short, 'chained CPI' is just a fancy way to say 'cut benefits for seniors, the permanently disabled, and orphans.'

We're Americans. We celebrate success. We just don't want the game to be rigged.

I want to be blunt: We should not be fighting about equal pay for equal work, and access to birth control, in 2012. These issues were resolved years ago - until the Republicans brought them back.

I don't want to overstate the gender difference. But women are more sensitized to the way that larger issues affect their pocketbooks, like pay equality or cost of living changes.

Our veterans deserve the very best, and that means ensuring that America's veterans receive high-quality services and cares when they come back home.