Thank you. Thank you very much, et cetera. Thanks Mayor. Thank you so very, very much. Thank you so much, Representative Riley, for not only that gracious introduction, but for taking up that challenge in that park in that Saturday morning in Milwaukee, a challenge that you and so many others in elected office and in our political process, and who understand the obligations of citizenship are manifesting here today. This is an extraordinary moment, the Fifth Annual National Conversation, and what I hope that I could do in the minutes that I have is to engage in that conversation with you.

I have many memories of the DLC, going back to the 1980s. I remember New Orleans and Cleveland. I remember being in Frank Greer's small office, night after night, as Bill Clinton hammered out those three speeches, Al, that he delivered that really brought the DLC ideas to the forefront of our national politics. And along the way I've only become more convinced that ideas matter, that ideas really shape who we are, what we believe in, and drive our politics. And the DLC stands here at a moment of great opportunity, but also I think we owe a debt of gratitude to those who carried the burden all those years. It wasn't always easy and it certainly wasn't always popular to talk about moving the oldest political party in the world, namely the Democratic Party, into the future, of taking risks, of being willing to say, you know, some things don't work anymore. We have to look at the world differently as it is. We have to think outside the box, we have to reinvent ourselves and our politics. And there are many people here who deserve our thanks, but none more than Al From, and I want personally to thank Al for his extraordinary efforts. And of course, he's been joined by a great team over the years: Bruce Reed, who not only led the idea machine before the '92 election, but then led it in the White House; people like Will Marshall, and Rob Shapiro, and others. We are here because for you it's not just a yearly conversation, it's an hourly conversation that never ends; 24 hours a day Al, seven days a week, year after year. But that's what it takes to bring about change. And I don't know that certainly we'd have such a large and distinguished gathering without that lifelong commitment.

I'm delighted to be here with my good friend and the Senator from this state, Evan Bayh and his wife Susan, who have been friends of Bill's and mine for longer -- you look at them and you think they started in kindergarten -- but actually during the time that both Bill and Evan were governors and now in the Senate. I want to thank the Lieutenant Governor and also Governor O'Bannon who has done a superb job leading this state; a Democratic governor following a Democratic governor -- who'd have thought it in Indiana -- and what a great legacy. I want to thank Mayor Peterson for welcoming us to Minneapolis, but it's especially nice to come when there's a Democratic mayor. I don't know what's happening in Indiana. Who knows, maybe even Indiana will go for the next Democratic President in the year 2004. And I want to thank my colleagues from the House, Congressmen Roemer and Hill, and others who might be here, Joe Andrews for your service to the national party. I saw Dan Glickman come in who did a superb job as our Secretary of Agriculture, and I thank Dan for his service.

So we're here for this conversation, but you know it's not easy to come to a meeting in the middle of July. Some of us got up very early to get here, some of you came in yesterday. Why are you here? Because you also recognize that the future of the Democratic Party, and in a very real sense, the future of our country, comes from the ideas and the energy that are generated by those ideas. And so we're here today because we understand that our futures, in a very personal and real way, will be or at least should be articulated by the policy agenda that comes out of a conversation like this. If you go back and look at the New Orleans and Hyde Park declarations, you see a blueprint, a very clear blueprint, one that shaped the Clinton-Gore administration to the betterment of our country and our world.

Now we have to ask ourselves, what next? Was the DLC and the new Democratic agenda just a passing phenomenon? Will it just fade into the woodwork because we don't have the White House? Well, I don't think so and neither do any of you. But what we have to ask ourselves is how do we take the ideas and keep pushing them forward. It is not enough to merely repeat the same old rhetoric, no matter how well it describes good ideas. Political process has to be fueled by the kind of determination that the DLC brings to this conversation. So I'm here to talk about a few of those ideas with you, to ask where we go, and many of you are the ones really that are generating the ideas at the state and local level. You're, in effect, the Johnny Appleseeds of progressive ideas for our party and our country. Now I heard just recently that Johnny Appleseed had another agenda besides just planting apple trees -- some of you may have heard the same news report. He really was so popular because by going around planting apples, he created the basis for hard cider which was really welcome on a lot of the frontier because the harder the better those days. But, you know, we can have a little fun while we create these new ideas; it doesn't all have to be grim and earnest.

And so part of what we have to do is while looking back at what we have done, take heart by what we can do. Think of the successes of those Clinton-Gore years that others have already referred to, ideas like national service, charter schools, community policing, the expanded earned income tax credit, the single best tool for lifting working people out of poverty that our country has ever adopted. Think about what it meant to have empowerment zones that helped to create ideas and bring investment into underutilized parts of our country, more modern and effective government, and we never could have seen those achievement if the seed work had not been done by all of the work of the DLC leading into the years of the Clinton-Gore administration. So in addition to thanking Al and Bruce Reed, I want to thank Bill Galston and Rob Shapiro and Elaine Kamarck and so many others.

But where do we go from here? You know, for the last couple of weeks I've been reading a lot about the greatest generation. And my mother in her inimitable way, who is a card-carrying member of that greatest generation, said, you know, you really should say the greatest generation of the 20th century. And I said, well, why is that mom? And she said, well, because the founders were the greatest generation of the 18th century, the Civil War leaders were the greatest generation of the 19th century, so what we did in the depression and World War II, we're the greatest generation of the 20th century. I said, okay, so the greatest generation of the 20th century, but it's a fair point because at each critical juncture of our history, even while we were still being created, ideas have generated action, and people have stepped forward to put that action on the map and to create history. And if you look at the greatest generation that went through the depression and fought against fascism and for freedom, and stood against communism, we all have a debt of gratitude to them. Indeed the very phrase "greatest generation," I think, has become so common today because we're looking for the underlying values that made a difference.

What was it that sustained people through a great depression? What was it that enabled young men to risk their lives landing on beaches in the Pacific and the European theater? What was it that took my colleague, Danny Inouye, a Japanese American who was put into an internment camp and yet turned to the people who interned him and said, I'm an American, I want to fight on behalf of our freedom, and was sent to Italy where in the course of combat, he lost his arm. What was it that motivated and drove that generation? What can we learn from them, what can we take into the future, and how do we fulfill our own rendezvous with responsibility? Because to those to whom much is given, much is expected, and those of us in this room at this conversation have the luxury of being here. We are so blessed. How do we make sure those blessings continue to expand and ripple out further and further onto the next and the following generations.

People ask me sometimes, well, what is it about the DLC that you support? And I used to give long, kind of wonkish answers. You know, coming to a national conversation of the DLC is an absolute treat for a policy wonk like me. You know, it's like a garden of earthly delights talking about all these ideas. But I would see people's eyes glaze over and I finally just really struck upon four words. I said, well, the DLC comes up with ideas to make America richer, safer, smarter, and stronger, and that is really what I believe. And those are all interrelated: richer, safer, smarter, and stronger. That's what the driving force of what these ideas have led us to be. Yes, we became richer in the 1990s; not everyone to the extent we should have, but we expanded that winner's circle of opportunity. Yes, we became safer because all of a sudden we got smart about reducing crime, and we understood that you had to put more police on the streets and deploy them differently and take the guns out of the hands of criminals and prevent people who shouldn't have guns from getting them. So, yes, we got safer, and I believe we got stronger. We got stronger because people took more responsibility for themselves and their families, and because we began to understand the mutual responsibility, the net that really does bind all of us together as one community.

You know, I wrote a book called It Takes a Village and I was stunned when I saw people in the other party attacking it because if you read it, it was a call to responsibility. It was a recognition, just as we heard from Tom Daschle, that none of us are in this alone -- children least of all are not rugged individualists -- that we have obligations one to the other, and how we go about fulfilling our personal responsibility and our mutual responsibility defines our communities, our states, our nation, and eventually our world.

So, yes, I think we were stronger, and we got smarter. We got smarter about a lot of things. We got smarter about how to have better schools. We learned a lot and we implemented good policies. Unfortunately some of our best ideas, coming from the DLC -- smaller class size to focus the most attention on the children who need that kind of individual help -- we're going to have to fight to keep that. This administration didn't go along with putting 100,000 teachers in the classroom. Modernizing our schools to provide the same kind of opportunities to students willing to take responsibility. They didn't go along with that either. But we made some incredible strides in the '90s. We opened the doors of college to countless more people. We said we were going to make government smarter, make our military smarter, understand more about the risks that were worth taking and be better prepared to take them. So I think we ended the '90s richer, safer, smarter, and stronger. And we had a blueprint, a blueprint to follow as to how we could go forward.

Now yes, there would be disagreements -- my goodness, even in the Democratic Party we still have disagreements. You know that old answer to the question: are you a member of an organized political party? No, I'm a Democrat. Well, you know that there will always be the underlying tensions and disagreements -- that's healthy, especially in a country like ours, as pluralistic and diverse as it is. But we had a blueprint: be fiscally responsible, pay down the debt, make investments that will lead to us being richer, safer, stronger, smarter, be ready to think about the problems that are not even yet on the horizons and get prepared for them, lead at home and abroad. We had a blueprint. My biggest concern about the last six months, is that the new administration has missed such an opportunity, an opportunity to build on, with variation of course, but to build on what has worked. And instead, they've chosen a very different direction. I hope that it's just a temporary detour and that we get back on the track to the kind of positive idea-driven policies that have proven successful, and I think can lead us into the future.

You know, Congress and the administration just passed a bill and the President signed it, approving a memorial to the veterans of World War II, something that I feel personally very committed to. My father was a veteran, many of your fathers and grandfathers were. But even as they agreed to build a monument to the World War II generation, too many of those in the other party and this administration are walking away from its values and vision. The fiscally irresponsibly tax cut imperils our long-term prosperity, it imperils our ability to handle the impending demographic tidal wave of the baby boomer retirements, and it certainly impairs our ability to make the most of the opportunities of the 21st century. Their repeated attacks on the environment and public health from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to rolling back the arsenic standards, to undermining the tobacco litigation, to giving up on workplace standards for the 21st century workplace, all signals a retreat from proven effective policies rooted in DLC ideas. Their budget recommendations not only cut out child care assistance aimed at making work pay and making it possible for parents to be responsible workers and responsible parents, but they also cut out programs like the cops program that put 100,000 police on the streets and led to the decrease in crime.

Some of their budget recommendations actually run counter to their rhetoric. On the one hand there is rhetoric about conservation; on the other hand, there are budget cuts in renewability, conservation, and energy efficiency. Their foreign policy calls into question our commitment to our common agenda that has always been bipartisan. Withdrawal from the Kyoto Treaty signals a lack of American leadership on one of the serious issues facing our planet. Opposing the comprehensive test ban treaty, wavering in the commitments to end North Korea's dangerous missile program -- these and so many other of the actions and missteps we've seen in the last six months sends a very different message about where America stands in relation to the rest of the world.

We can do better than that. We've proven we can do better than that, not just as Democrats, but as Democrats and Republicans working together, and primarily, as Americans. You know, in Washington I find there are still some who brand government the enemy, and we produced the lowest growth in government -- we had the smallest in 40 years. We eliminated the deficit, paid off $500 billion of the national debt, cut the welfare rolls in half, reduced crime, doubled our investment in education, reduced poverty to a 20-year low: why is government still the enemy for those on the other side? Why don't they appreciate what was accomplished with DLC ideas to give us the government we need: leaner, more effective, but still focused on bringing to people the opportunities that they need to help themselves. You know in Washington I also see many of those who are prepared to turn inward, to limit our engagement around the world, as if the concerns elsewhere were just not ours. But new Democrats proved that America could lead, from the Balkans to Northern Ireland, to the Middle East, to the Far East. We also still see those who are loath to involve our nation in the global challenges of AIDS, or human rights abuses, or global warning. I think new Democrats understand we have a responsibility to ourselves and our children to be involved and engaged in finding solutions for those problems that know no boundaries.

And there are many who have chosen to ignore the infrastructure challenges we face: crumbling schools, inadequate waste water treatment, roads and bridges and dire straits needing maintenance, new transportation necessities for mass transit and other means. We have a lot of issues in front of us, and those are issues that are really going to be addressed by conversations like these where people come up with ideas to keep lowering the rate of child poverty. I still believe that in this richest and most blessed of all nations, we should make it an absolute sacred goal that we will work toward the day when no child in America is born into poverty, where we work to make sure that there's decent affordable housing for people, there are jobs that pay decent wages that will put the bread on the table and enough set aside so people can save for the future of a new home and a college education. That healthcare will, yes, someday be available and affordable to every American. That we create an environment in which what we're protecting we understand is our very health and our futures.

You know, when people talk about the environment, it is as though it exists somewhere far away from us, that it's some beautiful mountaintop or seashore. The environment is everywhere around us. I think one of the issues we will have to tackle is how what we're learning about the human genome and how we are susceptible to environmental influences -- both what we do to ourselves in terms of what we eat, or smoke, or ingest, but also what we're exposed to because we don't know any better -- how that interaction between the environment and genes determines what our health will be like. The chronic illness rate in this country is going up: asthma, autism, many cancers are found at higher than national average rates, auto immune diseases. We need to start investing in preventive health and doing the research into the environment and tracking chronic disease so we can save money by preventing health problems and not having to pay for the treatment of chronic health issues.

We have to ask ourselves, what does privacy mean in an Internet age. I don't know you if you've seen the stories about the people walking down the street in Tampa wearing masks because there's a new kind of surveillance system that is being put out into the streets. I mean it's one of those ideas that sounds good in somebody's office: let's put cameras on the streets so we can take pictures of everybody walking down the street so if there are any criminals out there, we can match it to the mug shots and go out and arrest them. You know, it sounds an awful lot like Big Brother to me. You know, you add up all the assaults on our privacy, where will it end? Privacy is not just an end in itself, it is a means by which the individual defines or identifies him or herself. This is a big issue for the DLC and for the future of who we are as a people. Medical research which has saved us and led us to all kinds of cures is also putting some very difficult questions on the table. What are we going to do about stem-cell research? What are we going to do about cloning? How are we going to deal with what science can now create without the unintended consequences that breach our sense of morality and ethics? These are not just issues for those of us who are elected; they're not even just issues for the DLC. These are issues for all of us, so that the conversation has to grow far beyond the walls of this room.

Now I hope that as we move forward from this conversation and to many others, we're going to be coming up with those new ideas that will help us take back the White House, add to the majority in the Senate, and take back the House. But I don't advocate that just for the sake of having more Democrats. I advocate it because if we have good ideas, we will deserve to have more Democrats, and we will deserve to lead. With the decision of Senator Jeffords we've been given that opportunity. I am so delighted that Tom Daschle was here this morning because I can't say enough about how effective a leader he's already been. He took the Patient's Bill of Rights and got it through the Senate in two weeks when it had been languishing for five years under the previous administration, and we're going to see more of that kind of leadership.

And my friend Joe Lieberman who has helped to lead our party on many issues, including toward a strong, fiscally strong economy and the environment and defense, has also contributed to the education bill along with Evan, and is still in the forefront of linking our culture and our politics. But I think we have to have a broader look at that as well. You know, there are many, many elements that go in to making up the culture that we're now looking at in this blueprint that, effect how our children are raised, and the real responsibility starts with parents. And we may have to have some very tough conversations about what it means to be a parent, and the primary obligation that anyone who becomes a mother or a father has to put your child first before personal gratification and choices that in any way distract from the commitment you have to that child. That to me is the primary obligation anyone as a parent has.

And I want to say a special word of real appreciation to Evan and Susan Bayh. Everybody knows that Evan Bayh is a rising star. Everybody knows that he has leadership potential that is unlimited, having served successfully as a two-term governor, and now serving so well in the United States Senate where I'm proud to work with him, and where I stood with him when he introduced the family agenda that came out of the DLC work. And when he made his decision that with his twin sons this was not the time to run with President -- I've heard people say that and kind of thought to myself, well, that may not be really the reason. I know Evan and Susan Bayh; that was the reason, and it was the right reason, and that was a great example to set for the rest of our country.

But it's not only those who are serving in the Senate or in governorships, it's all the people around us who are breaking new ground at the state and local level. And I want to thank all of them because what you bring to this discussion is our rock-bottom beliefs about why politics matters, and what we can do to energize our politics with good, vibrant ideas. You know, we've heard a lot about how we just don't have to recognize the Republican agenda for what it is; we can just say, well, you know, they deserve a chance. Well, they do deserve a chance, but their ideas are backward looking. They've had that chance in the last six months to show that they were willing to move the Republican Party into a new arena, but they have not done so. We still welcome Republicans who are willing to work on the ideas that bring us here today. And I hope that there will be more who will do what Jim Jeffords did or be willing at least to work in a bipartisan manner.

But we can't wait any longer because we have now the obligation to lead, those of you on the local level, those of us at the federal level, and I want to thank people like Ellen Tauscher and the House who has really carried the banner of the DLC. I want to thank my friend, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, I want to thank Representative Riley, and also the others who are here with me like Carroll Robinson and many others who are really on the front lines of shaping not only the DLC, but the Democratic Party. And I want to thank my good friend and our DNC Chairman, Terry McCullough who has made a difference already in the way the DNC sees the world and works. And I think the partnership between the DNC, the DLC, the DSEC, the DCCC -- the whole alphabet soup -- means that we are going to be stronger in the future than we have ever been in the past, and I want to thank Terry for his leadership.

So here we are: another conversation and a lot of issues on our plate, but I hope that it won't just stop at conversation. I hope that many of you will find yourselves in small rooms like Al and I, and my husband and others have over the years, hammering out ideas, having knock-down drag-out arguments about what would or wouldn't work, staying up all night and drafting, and redrafting speeches. In fact I have to confess to you when my husband found out I was getting up at 4:00 in the morning to catch a plane to come to Indianapolis for the DLC he said, well, what are you going to say? And I said, well, you know, I've got a few thoughts written down, and he said, well let me see them. That's right. You know, a title that Bill had before and that he's regained, which Evan just said out loud, he still is the editor-in-chief of the ideas of the future. But I'm grateful to both Bill and Al because they did turn our party around, and they showed in the White House what it would take not only to govern from the vital center, but to raise vital voices on behalf of the values that we share and the vision that we hold for our future, because let's not forget that there's more at stake than just the DLC or the Democratic Party. I really believe that we are at a critical turning point, and I'm regretful that the new administration wouldn't continue down the path of proven prosperity and progress. We're going to have to do our best to try and get that train back on the right track and move it forward, but we're also going to have to keep coming up with the ideas that are really the fuel, that all of us need to keep going.

You know, I used to end my speeches in my campaign in New York talking about Harriet Tubman, one of my favorite historical figures. You know, a woman who was born into slavery, and escaped, made her way north, and she ended up in Auburn, New York where she could have stayed and basically lived out the rest of her days in freedom. But instead, she kept going back down south. She kept going back down and she would send word out that she was coming, and she wanted everybody to gather that could sneak away to come to the grove of trees or to the edge of the swamp and she'd lead them to safety if they could get there. If they could take the personal responsibility, the risks, the danger, to get there, she'd give them the opportunity for freedom because she understood that we had to build a community of free people.

So they'd get there, and Harriet Tubman would say, now we're going to start on this journey and it's not going to be easy and it's going to be dangerous. And if you hear the dogs, you keep going. If you hear men behind you yelling, you keep going. If you hear gunshots, you keep going: you keep going until you get to freedom. Well, thank God for people like Harriet Tubman, and all the others who sacrificed themselves so that we could be here talking about ideas. But the best way to honor them is to keep going, to translate these ideas into policies and actions that actually affect and change people's lives, that expand responsibility, offer opportunity, and create a one community in America. That's what I am going to try to do, and with your help, we will keep going.

Thank you all very much.