General Wesley K. Clark
Chair, WesPAC
Transcription by Kat
We encourage you to listen to the clip.
I'm really grateful for y'all coming. I'm very proud of your support. I just want to introduce you to our three panelists here.
These are my friends. These are the people that drafted me into the race in 2003.
(Applause)
My wife used to.... she always said “You're using that term in a special connection, aren't you, because look what they did to you.”
(Applause and laughter)
It was one of the great experiences in my life and they made it possible for me to have a voice even out of uniform and talk about things of national security and national significance because they were.... these are the people who, in baseball terms, that keep the Yankee box scores.
These are the people who follow politics, they follow world events, they follow what's going on in our nation. They're informed, they're making a difference, they're engaged in local party organizations, some of them have run for school board, some of them have run for state legislatures, and they're very active. Many of them are newcomers to professional politics. They're not your standard... well, some of them are... but most of them are not party regulars who sort of grew up with it, they're people who care about the country and love it and this is their way of offering public service.
So, thank you all very much for being here. We're going to have a great panel this afternoon. We're going to talk about how we can win in Red States. Basically, we've got 3 grat panelists. Congressman Chet Edwards. He's my friend from Texas. When I was a 2 star at Ft. Hood Texas, Chet was a young bachelor congressman who was the rage of Washington and he was one of the people that everybody knew had a great future in American politics and he is the only survivor from the wave of Delay inspired gerrymandering to Texas which cost us so many great representatives. I'm very proud of Congressman Chet Edwards and Chet, thank you very much for being with us today.
(Applause)
Senator Ken Salazar is a fifth.... he's a fifth generation Coloradan, but this is his first term in the United States Senate. I was honored to come out and appear at his fund-raiser out in Denver last fall. We had a star-studded cast with a bunch of movie stars and other people out there. We packed a guy's home and it was wonderful.
I think the Senator got a lot of help from some of WesPAC people also when I dropped out of the race. A lot of folks in Colorado said “Let's get behind Ken Salazar and get him up there.” At least that's what they told me. I hope you know some of these people like Stan Davis and others who pulled very hard on your behalf and they're now, you're one of our team that we're very proud of . A new Democrat in the United States Senate and thank you very much for joining us.
(Applause)
I want to introduce Jim Kessler who's also with us today. He's Vice President of Policy in an organization called Third Way. And this is an organization that Jim and a couple of other people, including Matt Bennett, who worked on my campaign, put together in the wake of the 2004 defeat to craft a stronger, more centrist position in US politics and to try to help Democrats find the answers on some of the tough questions ranging from gun control to a woman's right to choose, and religion in America. So they've done some groundbreaking work in this area. So Jim, we're very happy to have you.
(Applause)
So, I'm going to turn first to Jim. I'm going to ask him to set the stage for us and then turn to Congressman Edwards and Senator Salazar and follow up with some of their comments on this.
Jim, you're welcome to come up to the podium if you'd like. You can see the audience better from up here so you can gauge whether they're in synch or not.
(Applause and laughter)
