I am Al From, founder and CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council, and I am delighted to be here in Philadelphia to officially announce that this city will be the site of the DLC's 2003 National Conversation on July 27th and 28th. I am especially pleased to be joined today by: your governor, Ed Rendell; Delaware's State Treasurer and the National Conversation Recruitment Chair Jack Markell; the chair of the DLC's State Legislative Advisory Board Pennsylvania State Rep. Jennifer Mann; Pennsylvania Secretary of General Services and long-time DLC friend Don Cunningham, and Pennsylvania State Senator Connie Williams.
The National Conversation is the premier event for New Democratic elected officials from around the country, where rising political stars gather to hear from leading national voices and discuss the ideas and strategies that will shape the country's future. It is always a great testimonial to the strength, depth, and vitality of the New Democrat movement. Democrats who run, win, and govern in every region of the country, including many swing states and red states, will be on display here.
For the DLC, coming to Philadelphia is a return trip. In 1989, when we were a small, burgeoning organization, we brought our annual conference to this city. It was at that conference that we laid out the strategic and idea predicate for winning back the White House in 1992 from a President Bush. We brought a number of up-and-coming stars to that conference -- and one of the brightest was a young governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton, who became the first Democrat in six decades to be elected and re-elected to the White House. So Philadelphia has a particular warm spot in my heart. And, I hope on our return trip, we'll prove that history does indeed repeat itself.
The nearly 300 elected officials who will come here this summer are men and women who will set the direction of our country -- and of the Democratic Party -- for decades to come. They understand that the Democratic Party has to be bigger and broader than the narrow corridors of the nation's Capitol or the narrow concerns of interest groups and activists so visible in party caucuses.
They are attracted to the DLC because we understand that to build a governing majority we must attract not only the 30 percent of America who identify as Democrats but tens of millions of ordinary Americans who don't think about politics every day and have no ties to either party -- and because we believe the best way to build that majority is to offer ideas that work, which has been the specialty of the DLC for all of our 18 years.
The New Democrat movement is a values and idea based political movement. It is not a faction of the Democratic Party. It is the reform movement in our party. New Democrats are reformers and modernizers. We honor the first principles and most cherished values of the Democratic Party by offering new ideas and modern means for furthering them.
New Democrats honor the Democratic Party's best traditions: Jackson's belief in equal opportunity for all, special privileges for none; Roosevelt's passion for innovation and bold reform; Truman's tough-minded internationalism; Kennedy's ethic of civic responsibility; and Clinton's insistence that opportunity and responsibility must go hand in hand.
A Democrat in that tradition who is not afraid to use American power in dangerous times, who wants to reform government, not just expand it, and who offers a plan to grow the economy and increase middle-class incomes, not middle-class tax burdens, can send another President Bush into early retirement. We will discuss the strategies and ideas to achieve that end next month at our National Conversation here in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia is an ideal setting for that conversation. Pennsylvania is a crucial swing state in national elections. It is a state that, like the Democratic Party, has had to undergo a dramatic transition as our country changed from the industrial era to the information age. And, it is a state that is responsive to the New Democrat message, as evidenced again last year by Governor Rendell's victory.
Now it is my pleasure to call on Governor Rendell -- who as mayor of Philadelphia led the renaissance of this city, now as Governor of Pennsylvania is leading the renaissance of this great state, and, in the future, will lead, well who knows.
Gov. Rendell.
