Back in 1962, I had the honor of being in an audience in New
Haven, Connecticut when President John F. Kennedy said these
words:
"Too often we hold fast to the cliches of
our forebears . . . we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the
discomfort of thought."
That sums up for me the dilemma of American politics today.
Many members of both parties have not given enough thought to the
significance of the fundamental changes that are occurring in our
country. As a result, people are disillusioned, alienated, and
frustrated. Their elected leaders are talking about all sorts
of things except what is important to them, such as the fact
that three out of five Americans are making fewer real dollars
than they did 15 years ago. That is a startling reversal of
fortune. It is the stuff of which revolutions are made.
The economic decline parallels (and contributes to) a decline
in family unity, relations among the races, public safety and the
sense of community, and adherence to common values that has
always been the foundation of our democracy.
The rising tide of public discontent requires a
thoughtful, bold and fresh response. Yet many Republicans
and Democrats are holding fast to ideological rocks with which
they are familiar and comfortable. But those old rocks will not
save them, because the tide is rising quickly and they will pay
the price for their failure to climb to higher ground.
Many Democrats, still tied to an orthodoxy that preaches
expanding government to a shrinking choir of special interests,
felt the wrath of voter's discontent last November, and have
been wandering around ever since with a kind of post-traumatic
stress disorder, some denying the election's significance and
most not knowing what to do next.
Too many Republicans, overly emboldened by their victory,
interpret the call for "change" as a signal to
"retreat" and zealously try to dismantle government
with neither strategic vision nor apparent concern for the
consequences to real people.
The Contract with America has few genuinely new ideas and was
packaged more by poll and focus group than by visionaries
designing a novel approach to leadership. There is very little in
it for those tens of millions of Americans who ask themselves,
"How am I going to send my kid to college...prepare for
retirement...find a new job when I get laid off...be sure my
health insurance won't be taken away...and protect my family from
crime?"
Those questions get to the heart of the seismic shift that has
taken place in American life and people are waiting for an
answer. That presents us with a critical choice: Do we remain on
the old, worn roads of comfortable partisanship and ideology...or
do we set out in a whole new direction toward a third way, where
the concerns of the people are met with fresh, common sense
ideas?
I am excited about the opportunity to chair the Democratic
Leadership Council at a time when we are at this crossroads
because I believe charting a new course represents the best
choice for our party and for our nation. And I believe the
Democratic Leadership Council can be the beacon of light our
nation and our party needs to guide us along the path to a
progressive future.
The DLC does not simply seek to illuminate a political
navigational course between left and right. Rather, we are
working to define a wholly different way of governing a rational
way that adapts the best of America's traditions to the post-
industrial world in which we live.
That requires us to:
- Abandon the failed programs, not the people those programs
were supposed to help.
- Restore upward mobility for more Americans in the new, high
tech, global economy.
- Support business because that is source of all new
jobs.
- Recreate a sense of community and citizenship based on
values we hold in common: faith, family, work, patriotism, and
responsibility.
- Come to grips with the post-Cold War world and protect
America's security in that world.
- Reform government to be smaller and more effective in this
information age, and empower people, not bureaucracies, so they
can choose solutions that meet their particular needs.
Bringing this practical, progressive agenda to life has not
been and will not be quick or easy. We are on a long march.
Although Democrats will work hard to win back the Senate and the
House and reelect the President in 1996, the DLC takes a longer
view of its mission.
Our eyes are focused on the next generation, not simply the
next election. Our goal is a virtual revolution in party
politics and governmental policies and those changes will not
come about overnight.
Because we are talking about big changes, the most important
thing the Democratic Leadership Council and its Progressive
Policy Institute can do is to be the home for an intellectual
renaissance that helps our government better meet the needs
of the American people with ideas that make sense.
And we also hope to be the entrepreneurial force that builds a
wider community of interest -- a new national political
network -- to contribute to and advocate our ideas all
across the land.
Among those ideas are charter schools to reinvigorate
education, bold but sensible changes in welfare, innovative ways
to help families afford college for their children, vouchers for
job training, and reasonable cuts in spending to reduce the
deficit and invest in economic growth.
There is much, much more to be done, of course. But implicit
in our ideas is a sense of humility and a realization that
government does not have all the answers to the problems we face.
And so we need to get beyond the stale debates over safeguarding
or slashing this or that program or regulation and move to a
broader discussion about how to reorganize government in a
fundamental way so we can keep people safe from enemies abroad
and criminals at home, educate our children, and help our economy
grow, without getting in the way of the people's aspirations for
a better life.
For the growth of government in recent years has paralleled
the decline of "civil society," in which people
historically have joined together to pursue interests or address
concerns they have in common. Robert Samuels said "as
government expands, civil society recedes...Americans want to
believe in their government again, and this means not only
checking its excesses but also conducting its affairs with a
dignity and candor not seen in recent years."
That, too, reflects what I hope to bring to my term as DLC
chair -- candor about the problems we face, respect for those who
disagree, and a civil discourse, not partisan wrangling. The DLC
will wage its battles on the field of ideas, not immune from
politics, but not held captive by it. We must be about solving
tomorrow's problems, not holding together yesterday's coalitions,
or winning today's straw polls.
So this is my vision for the DLC and for our party -- building
up the DLC as the intellectual center for the Democratic Party
and the architect of a new kind of governance in America, one
based not so much on ideology as on what works, one that will
reconnect with the middle class and those who want to be part of
it, one that will reestablish the Democratic Party as the
American people's best hope for opportunity, upward mobility,
civility, and security.
That was the kind of party I first joined shortly after
hearing John F. Kennedy speak in 1962, and it is the party we can
and must become again in the years ahead. I pray that I be able
to use the opportunity before me constructively to realize the
goals I have spoken about today.
