"Politics as Usual" Will Not Make It
Politics '96 - September 1996
By Jim Gibson
In a word, Americans are disgusted with politics. They desperately want to overcome the rigidity and artificial polarization of the traditional left and hard right.
Democrats fall into this trap when they believe victory rests solely on Republican shortcomings and extremism. Democrats have tried that before and have paid the price of continual decline.
Yes, the Republicans are moving too fast, too far, and in a too harsh and too intolerant way. However, at every opportunity - including 1994, the electorate also rejects the same old traditional liberal agenda.
America does not need two Republican parties. Thank you, one is plenty enough. But it is foolhardy to think that Democrats can merely rewind tapes from the past and play back the New Deal and Great Society.
A Metro State student, after the recent Jesse Jackson-Oliver North debate, said it best in the Rocky Mountain News. "They talk about the 21st century but they're stuck in the 1960s."
Democrats need a new agenda that demands political audacity and imagination not seen in America since Franklin Roosevelt launched the New Deal. "Politics as usual" will not make it.
While spurning the conservative ethic of every man for himself, Democrats must realize that government cannot protect everyone from adversity. Rather, our agenda must move beyond entitlements to empowerment strategies that equip the middle class and those less fortunate to compete in the global economy.
We must promote economic opportunity driven by growth generated in the private sector. We must advocate values like work, family, responsibility, individual liberty, faith, and something not heard much about from Republicans these days, tolerance.
We should be about strengthening community and emphasizing our obligations to each other. The underlying ethic must be mutual obligation.
Government has a responsibility to organize public resources to create opportunities for ordinary citizens. But it works both ways. In turn, citizens have responsibilities to take advantage of those opportunities, take care of their families, and give something back to their community and country. Democrats must embrace the credo of equal opportunity for all and special privilege for none - or as President Clinton has put it, no more something-for-nothing.
Finally, government does have a role to play in our future but it must be reinvented so that it is more responsive to those it serves and more accountable to taxpayers who pay the bills. New strategies must include non-bureaucratic approaches to governing, eliminating unneeded layers of bureaucracy and giving citizens more choices in public services.
Our next speaker has been in the forefront of this important new and different type of pragmatic, problem-solving agenda. Our party can prosper as much as he has, if more of us take his lead.
You know his record well. Among his many other accomplishments, he has served as chairman of the Education Commission of the States and National Governor's Association. A member of the National Education Goals panel since its inception, he also serves as vice chairman of the national Democratic Leadership Council and CO-chair of the Colorado Democratic Leadership Council.
Ladies and gentleman, your Governor, Roy Romer.
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Our second speaker is the Political Director of the national Democratic Leadership Council, and until recently, senior fellow of the Progressive Policy Institute, where he directed policy development on crime, federal-state relations, welfare reform, and national service. Before joining the Progressive Policy Institute, he was federal liaison for Georgia governors Zell Miller, Joe Frank Harris and George Busbee. He also worked as communications director for US Senator Sam Nunn.
In my view, he is one of the best people in the country on how to develop a viable political message that reflects both good public policy and sensible politics in this very new and different public arena we operate in.
Ladies and gentleman, Mr. Ed Kilgore.
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Jamie Daves is the National Field Coordinator for the national Democratic Leadership Council, managing the DLC's efforts to engage up and coming Democratic elected officials at the federal, state and local level. Prior to the DLC, Mr. Daves served as the National Student Coordinator for the Clinton-Gore Campaign in 1992. During the 1993-94 election cycles, he served as the National Youth Constituency Director for the Democratic National Committee.