As chairman of the DLC, I am delighted to welcome you to this conference. And let me begin my welcome with a name from last week's news, Colin Powell. Remember him? I'm glad you do. I hope all of us do.
I know that a lot of Republicans and Democrats breathed a sigh of relief when General Powell announced that he would not be running for President. His name will now fade, at least temporarily, from the front pages. But we make a mistake if we forget what Colin Powell represented. Many Americans are profoundly disappointed in his decision not to seek the presidency because there remains in this country a powerful yearning for something more than the traditional politicals and policies of the Republican and Democratic parties.
There is, my friends, a yearning for a new kind of politics for a third way. Frankly, I had hoped that General Powell would follow his policy pronouncements of the last few months to their logical conclusion and join the Democratic Leadership Council. And that is because we are, I believe, the third way that most Americans want today.
Our third way rejects both the old Democratic notion that government can and should solve all the people's problems, and the new Republican notion that government can and should do little or nothing to solve the people's problems. The third way substitutes in their place the principle of mutual responsibility, that government does best when it helps people solve their own problems.
The current stalemate over the federal budget illuminates the dilemma of modern American governments in harsh klieg lights. It is politics and posturing run wild. And it is totally unnecessary.
Most Capital Hill observers can tell you now the outlines of the eventual budget agreement. So why do Republicans attach unreasonable amendments which they know the President will veto, has to veto, to reasonable measures which would give both sides time to negotiate a good balanced budget agreement? Inside the Beltway, Democrats and Republicans, at least many of them, act as if this budget battle is a political armageddon with high principles at stake. But out there in the real world I'm afraid it looks very different. Out there, it is a picture of politics as usual, Washington at its worst. It is another reason why America wants and needs a third way.
We in the DLC know that times are tough, that people are worried about their future in a world where wages are stagnating and jobs are downsized and lost. Where the values America was built on seemed constantly under attack. Where one-third of the babies are born to women who are not married. Where one-half of the people are afraid to go out in their own neighborhoods, the neighborhoods where they live, to take a walk in the evening. Where parents cannot comfortably sit down to watch television with their kids during the family viewing hour any more for fear that their values will be insulted, their parenthood undermined. And where children in the United States of America, to get to school for their education, must walk through metal detectors.
My friends, the DLC hears the cries for help from America's middle class families who for too long felt the Democratic party turned away from them and their concerns, did not respect them, was not there to help them. We, in the DLC, know the strength of these mainstream Americans and their values. We know that they will pull us through these tough times just as they have pulled us through every challenge that has confronted this country throughout its history if we give them a government that builds on their strengths, and reflects and respects their values, their faith in God, their willingness to work, their commitment to family and community, and country, their fairness and their tolerance.
For ten years now we in the DLC have acted on our faith that ideas can change history. We have turned our ideas into position papers and into legislation that has helped elected officials throughout the country to create programs that had made America better than it would otherwise be. We have a president who carried our principles and our policies from the chairmanship of the DLC to the 1992 campaign, to the White House where he has transformed a remarkable number of those DLC programs into reality. We have congressmen and senators, and governors and mayors, and state legislators, all moving our ideas forward.
In the past year alone, the DLC and the Progressive Policy Institute have proposed a work first welfare reform system which became the basis of the Senate democratic welfare reform plan, much of which was adopted in the Senate Welfare Reform Bill. We proposed a comprehensive national program to combat the epidemic of teenaged pregnancy which is at the foundation of so many of our country's crises. And much of that program, too, was included in Senate passed legislation.
The DLC and PPI proposed a GI Bill for job training, offered a principled and progressive response to the inequities that we believe characterize the current affirmative action program. We fashioned a sensible cut and invest budget plan that combined fiscal discipline with wise investment in education and the economy. And DLC and PPI wrote a thoughtful Medicare/Medicaid reform plan that truly will reform Medicare to save it instead of using these vital programs as simply another place to squeeze funds. The DLC third way is a policy program eager for advocates.
And in our democracy, that means candidates, Democratic candidates. And that is where we hope that you in this room, and countless others throughout America, will join our movement. The fact is that this is by far the biggest, most successful annual conference the DLC has ever held. We have set a record with more than 1,500 registered participants here, 110 state legislators, more than 200 other elected officials from around the country, more than 200 students, and men and women from 48 states and two commonwealths. So, I would say to you at this point, if you live outside the Washington Beltway, would you stand up and give yourselves a round of applause.
Please do.
My friends, I have seen the future of the Democratic Party and it is right here in this room today.
Joining all of us today for the first time are 13 radio talk show hosts, most of them nationally syndicated. Communicating to millions of listeners across the country the fact that the DLC is alive and well and one the march. I urge you to stop by their stations outside this hall and let them know why you are part of the DLC movement. And for the first time in DLC history, our conference is traveling along the information super highway. All four of the major on-line services, Microsoft Network, America On-Line, CompuServe, and Prodigy, are here. And a little bit later in the morning I'll be sitting at a computer terminal talking with people around the country and the world about the DLC.
Yes, our DLC third way has come a long way. But let us be frank with one another. We still have a long way to go. Public opinion polls tell us that our policies and programs appeal to a majority of the American people and a majority of grassroots democrats. But it is less clear to me that they appeal to a majority of Democratic members of Congress or a majority of Democratic Party activists. Until we can say so, that that is so, our party is endangered and our work in the DLC will simply not be done. Even now, here in Washington, we are in a struggle with others in our party who are fighting to defend the status quo while we are working to fulfill the President's promise, our promise, to end welfare as we know it. Even now we are battling others in our party here in Congress who view the current federal budget debate as an occasion to score political points instead of an opportunity to help the President create common ground on which a constructive balanced budget can be achieved.
While it is true that many Americans worry today that congressional Republicans are going too far, it is also true that they believe that Republicans were at least headed in the right direction. Have at least embraced concepts of change. And that too many Democrats have simply not done that.
I said at the outset of my chairmanship last March that we are on a long march. Our eyes are focused, not on the next election, but on the next generation. Our goal is a revolution in party politics and government policies. And that goal, that revolution, will clearly not be realized overnight. But a long march begins with individual steps and that clearly is the work that we will continue here at this conference today and tomorrow.
We want you, the next generation of leaders, to have the very best ideas that we can offer. Ideas around which you can not only assemble electoral majorities, but also better govern our cities, our states, and our nation. The ideas we discuss today and tomorrow, welfare reform, health care, trade, environmental protection, the economy, crime, education, race relations, and many more, are not the end products of special interest accommodation. They are not focus group driven sound bytes designed for short term spikes in public opinion polls. They are fresh, new common sense ideas from our PPI scholars and thinkers. And they are designed for long term progress for America.
So I ask you, I appeal to you, the next generation of Democratic leaders, take these ideas and make them the basis for a renaissance for our party and our country.
Thank you very much.
