For Immediate Release:
Contact: Karin Kullman Freedman/John Bray (202) 546-0007 / (800) 546-0027

The following is a statement made by Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) Founder and CEO Al From at a Washington, D.C. press conference previewing a DLC-Americans for Gun Safety (AGS) conference in Atlanta on Democrats and cultural issues and releasing a new AGS poll on voter attitudes on the gun issue.

This weekend in Atlanta the Democratic Leadership Council will host more than 70 elected Democrats from 18 states for a two-day workshop on how Democrats can make cultural issues work for us.

Senator Pryor, Congressman Artur Davis of Alabama, and Harold Schaitberger, the president of the International Association of Firefighters, among others, among others will join us for that session.

That conference is part of on our ongoing effort at the DLC to help prepare our large network of state and local elected officials -- the next generation of leaders in our party and our country -- for dealing with the tough issues and political challenges that they face every day.

We, at the DLC, believe it is important that Democratic leaders face up to tough issues, even ones they sometimes feel uncomfortable talking about -- we consider that our role as the party's reality therapists.

The gun safety issue is one of those issues. That's why our partner in this endeavor is Americans for Gun Safety, led by Jon Cowan and Jim Kessler. AGS has shown by applying a central element of the DLC philosophy -- that with rights come responsibilities -- to the issue of gun safety that the gun issue can work positively for Democrats, even in "red states."

This morning we are releasing a new poll conducted for AGS by Mark Penn and Peter Brodnitz that shows that Democrats need should not be hesitant to take on the gun safety issue. In fact, this poll shows when Democrats remain silent on the issue they are presumed to be against gun rights -- and that perception impedes our efforts to build a durable Democratic majority.

But as Mark will tell you in a few minutes, his data show that by becoming both pro-safety and pro-2nd amendment Democrats can do right on both the policy and the politics and make a realignment of a sizeable portion of gun owners possible. Let me emphasize that we are not arguing that Democrats should "move to the right" on gun issues or abandon their support for important gun safety measures. It's just a matter of making it clear that gun rights, like most rights, come with certain responsibilities.

For all the current preoccupation with the economic and foreign policy failures of the Bush Administration, it's important for Democrats to remember the continuing impact of cultural issues on U.S. politics in recent years.

Democratic criticisms of the growing extremism of the Republican Party on cultural issues like guns and abortion was an important factor in preventing the GOP from achieving majority status during the 1990s.

In the 2000 and 2002, however, the perceived positions -- or in some cases, simply the silence -- of Democrats on cultural issues played a significant role in the disappointing results of those two elections.

In 2000, Republicans enjoyed big advantages among gun owners, people who frequently attend religious services, military personnel and defense-intensive communities, married people with children, and white men generally. New exit poll data from 2002 show they continued those advantages across the board. It's no longer feasible to dismiss the "culture gap" of 2000 as a temporary phenomenon caused by many scandal investigations of the late 1990s. And it's also clear that cultural issues don't just matter in "red states." They are powerfully important in many battleground states as well, and could have a decisive effect on what is expected to be a close 2004 election.

The DLC and Americans for Gun Safety believe that progressives need not fundamentally change their basic positions on cultural issues in order to dramatically reduce, and in some cases reverse, conservative advantages. Democrats are not hostile to gun owners, people of faith, the military, families raising kids, or white men. But Republicans have consciously and aggressively spread disinformation to reinforce these negative stereotypes, and they will persist if progressives try to evade cultural issues through silence or efforts to change the subject to other issues.

Instead, we urge Democrats to meet cultural issues head-on with "values centrism": an inclusive message that combines progressive policy positions with language that embraces the shared values of most Americans and exposes the extremism of the opposition. The purpose of the Atlanta event is to flesh out that message and give Democrats a confident and effective voice on all these issues.

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) leads the New Democrat movement, a national network of elected officials and community leaders whose innovative ideas are modernizing progressive politics for the 21st Century. For additional information on the DLC or for more background on the elected officials around the country who are governing as New Democrats, web users may access the Democratic Leadership Council online at www.ndol.org.