tom hart. he said it is not an affliction, we are both iris. h. thank you to the democrats for the invitation to be with all of you tonight. dr. maguire, thank you for your leadership of the state party. sometimes, there is a truth, it is not how low you go, it is how high you balance. [applause] how high you bounce. so, tonight, i want to talk with all of you about a story of us about all of us, the story of baltimore, and the story of iowa iowa, the story of maryland, and the story of america. the story of us. and 200 years ago, in the war of 1812, the british had just taken washington, and had burned our public buildings to the ground. the capitol building and the white house. and the people of my home city could see the glow from the flames in the skies to our south. now we knew that they were coming for us. amidst the ashes of washington the commanding british general at the time declared i am going to march on baltimore, and dine there. even then, we had great restaurants. in baltimore. [laughter] then he said, i am going to burn baltimore to the ground. our nation was not yet 40 years old. and think about it. the american dream