America is the greatest nation on earth -- a beacon of freedom and opportunity for the whole world to see. But even as nations everywhere rush to embrace our values, there are signs that the American dream is faltering here at home. For all the glow of our splendid military victory, most Americans feel their country is on the wrong track.

After more than ten years of Republican rule in Washington, America's economy has been devastated. Today the Republican borrow and spend policies offer a hollow promise of prosperity for the ordinary men and women of America. Our social fabric has been torn by increasing tensions of class and race. More and more, America's schools don't teach our children well, America's streets are filled with crime, and our government costs too much and does too little.

When most Americans look at politics nowadays, they see too many old answers, and choices that offer no choice at all. The old ideologies on the right and left are no longer sufficient to realize the aspirations of the American people, and both political parties will be left behind unless they put forth new answers and new institutions for a new era.

For years, the Republicans have consistently chosen private gain over public responsibilities, put self-interest ahead of the common good, and clung to a doctrine of every man for himself in a nation that pledged long ago to go up or down together.

A reckless Republican fiscal policy has plunged the federal government into insolvency, burdened working families with one of the least progressive tax systems on earth, and paralyzed national initiative and progressive government.

So long as millions of America's families lack basic health insurance, so long as American workers aren't getting the skills they need to keep the best jobs here in America, so long as some Americans still suffer from discrimination while a Republican Administration plays politics with civil rights, so long as 18 nations do a better job of bringing healthy babies into the world than we do -- this country needs a strong Democratic Party more than ever.

But in the minds of too many Americans, the Democratic Party has stood for government programs that don't work, special interests before the interests of ordinary people, and a reluctance to assert American values at home and abroad. The New Deal policies that built and united the middle class no longer command its loyalty.

America doesn't need two Republican parties, two establishment parties, or two parties from Washington, D.C., but it does need a Democratic Party that will stand up for ordinary people.

Our party's challenge today is to discard the orthodoxies of the past and make government a champion of national purpose and not a captive of narrow interests, a creator of opportunity and not an obstacle to it. Democrats should once again stand for change and innovation, not blind loyalty to programs of the past. Unlike the Republicans, we believe in government and want to make it work in the information age.

America needs a new choice, and we believe that only Democrats can provide it. We have gathered from every state and region to show that Democrats everywhere want to set a new course for our party and our country.

The new choice we offer is a new public philosophy, not a new set of programs. It is built on a set of common beliefs and broad national purposes, not on promises to disparate interest groups. It looks for leadership not from Washington but from states and communities that have become America's laboratories of innovation.

We believe the mission of government is to expand opportunity, not bureaucracy. We want a government that takes power away from the entrenched bureaucracies and special interests in Washington and puts it back in the hands of ordinary people. Centralized bureaucracies are no longer the best or most effective way to deliver services in the information age. We believe government can give people more choices, more responsibility, and more for their money.

We believe that America must lead the march of nations toward democracy and free enterprise, not retreat from the world. Some things are worth fighting for -- like liberty, justice, and human decency. We reject doctrinaire efforts either to play power politics or to shed the responsibilities of power. Unlike the Republicans, we support a foreign policy that upholds the moral principles most Americans share.

We believe the role of government is to guarantee equal opportunity, not mandate equal outcomes. We reaffirm the Democratic party's historic commitment to secure civil, equal, and human rights. We oppose discrimination of any kind -- including quotas. As Democrats we believe it is fundamental that women and men who suffer the burden and injustice of discrimination be afforded the legal means and economic opportunity to right those wrongs. Where others seek to exploit racial differences for political advantage, we support a broad opportunity agenda to give all Americans the tools to get ahead.

We believe that America needs a national strategy to compete for the best jobs in the world. We want to make our economy an engine of growth and opportunity again, with a government that helps to create wealth, not just redistribute it, and seeks to expand trade, not restrict it. We support a new social compact to make our free enterprise system more democratic and productive. We demand a more progressive tax system, and a government that spends more on the future, not the present or the past.

We believe government should protect the environment. We believe government should be caretaker of our natural resources and seek to protect and manage natural resources for future generations.

We believe our society has a moral duty to experiment with fundamentally new approaches to liberate the poor from poverty and dependence by promoting work, family, and independence. America will not succeed in the information age if we continue to waste the potential of millions of disadvantaged citizens.

We believe in reinventing government. We want to eliminate unneeded layers of bureaucracy, and give citizens more choice in public services, from child care and care for the elderly to public schools.

We believe in government that stays true to America's moral and cultural values. Government ought to let individuals take responsibility for their own lives; respect individual liberty and stay out of our private lives and personal decisions; take affirmative action to assure that opportunities are in fact equal; give every American who works hard the chance to get ahead; and ask citizens to give something back to their country.

Our goal is to make the beliefs, ideas, and governing approach of the new choice the dominant political thinking in America before this decade is out. Just as the New Deal shaped the political order for the industrial age, the new choice can define politics in the information age.

Our purpose is not to seek the middle of the road but to build a new road that leads beyond right and left to move America forward.

The industrial age is over; the old isms and the old ways don't work anymore. Today, and in the months to come, we will put forth new answers and a new way of thinking which are based on the principle of inclusion and work for the greatest public good. We invite the American people to join our cause.

The complete "Cleveland Proclamation is only available in PDF format. To open this file, click on the Cleveland_Proclamation link on the right of this page.

Blueprint Keywords: Extra Timeline