Congressman Chet Edwards (TX-17)
U.S. House of Representative

Senator Ken Salazar (CO)
U.S. Senate

Jim Kessler
Vice President of Policy
Third Way

Transcription by Kat



We encourage you to listen to the clip.

WES CLARK: You know, we have a few minutes for questions, let's take some questions from the group. Back here, Mike.

Q: My question is for Jim Kessler. Your talk was based on the report “The Politics of Polarization” I've had another report that we've done caught on quite as (unintelligible) some other research since 2004 If you could just... that's a great report, really just great analysis. One of the things that struck me in that report was the idea that on the morals and values question. We weren't necessarily looking for specific (unintelligible) values, but rather something a little bit more amorphous in that they were looking for character that believed in their values, Can you talk a little bit more on that?

JIM KESSLER: I'll tell you that ... that's a really good point that on the cultural issues. That, look, there are some voters who if you believe in a woman's right to choose. There are certain voters that you're never going to reach if you're a Democrat because culturally, you know they're just in a different place.

There are a lot of voters out there that what they can find as a moral issue or a cultural issue is more akin to integrity and character. And that, I'll give you an example of that on the Republican side. Barry Goldwater, when there was the fight over gays in the military, Barry Goldwater came out and he said, “I support gays in the military. I don't care if people ARE straight as long as they can shoot straight.” But the thing was that Goldwater wasn't criticized because he'd built up this ferocity of liberty. That that was essentially what he backed. And that if Democratic candidates have established for themselves a profile for themselves that defines themselves in a way that voters can understand and they can see that it's got character and integrity, the positions that you
take necessarily on abortion or on gay issues or on guns or whatever won't matter as much because they'll see it in context of who you are and as it relates to your higher character. And we don't do well when we say things, “Well, I personally oppose.... I'm personally against abortion, but I don't want my views to be the views of the world.” That fails the character test.

WES CLARK: All, right... Thank you. Over here.

Q: Great panel. Thanks for all of you This is sort of a question for Congressman Edwards. First of all, I'm from Austin Texas, so it's great to have a fellow Democrat from Texas in the room.

CHET EDWARDS: I'd like to have a few more Democrats like you have down in Austin.

Q: Well, Lloyd Doggett also survived, so he's like one of the only ones. I think what you said is great about “Define yourself, define your opponent” and respond immediately. I had a little living room conference in LA where I saw Tom Harkin recently, he said the exact the same 3 things. And he's a blue Democrat running in a red state. One thing you said that I disagree a little bit about the way you said it, which is you took a page from Karl Rove's book to respond to your opponent. I think we need to make this clear that you responded with the truth about your opponent, not lies.

(Vigorous applause)

It's always fair game to speak the truth, I think it's not fair game to speak a lie. And so I think we belittle ourselves when we say we're going to follow Karl Rove's model. We're not.

CHET EDWARDS: I appreciate that. Let me word that more appropriately. Just as Wes Clark spent a lot of time in the Army understanding more about the military enemy than they knew about themselves, one of the things I fault myself and Democrats for is we don't listen and understand the other side. We need to listen to their radio; we need to listen to some of their TV, (unintelligible). We need to listen to it, but I do think the Bush lesson...not with the tactics of deceiving anybody, but with the truth or taking their deceptions that they've used as a great strength. For example, they believe in faith-based values and programs, but their budget has nothing to do with a faith-based program because I don't know of any religion in America that teaches you take the most from those who have the least and take nothing from those who have the most. That's the way (unintelligible due to applause)

WES CLARK: This will be the last question.

Q: By the way, I'm from New Jersey so I'm on a little bit of a high from the election a couple of weeks ago. We're happy about that.

It seems to me that Republicans have been very successful in developing these wedge issues. Frankly, if you're on the wrong side of the wedge, it doesn't seem that you can get over to the other side unless we pull the wedge out.

One issue that I think is a real big problem for us is gay issues, gay rights, because the religious leaders on the Republican side have been able to cite the Bible, saying that the Bible says you should be killed if you're gay. And the fact of the matter is gayness is like being redheaded or prematurely bald or a lefty, right? It's not an elective condition. People are different. How do we deal with that straightforward way? Because they're going to come after us with that issue again.

WES CLARK: I'd like to ask each of our panelists how you would respond to the issue. Let's start with Jim, then we go to the Congressman and then the Senator.

JIM KESSLER: Here are a couple of different ways to respond to it. One is to make it about a higher principle. For example, I believe in individual freedoms, I believe in gun rights (not for terrorists and illegal aliens) but I believe in individual gun rights. Only once in our history did we take away anybody's rights and that was Prohibition, it was a disaster. So I believe that's the most important thing to me. You can couch it into another principle that people find valuable.

Another way to do it is to say, “I do not think it ... I think it's unfortunate that courts are making rulings that should be more appropriately left up to individual voters and legislatures. I'd like to work with voters and legislatures to come up with a compromise that everyone can live with instead of pushing it off against the courts. And the other is that I would just ... for most people it is the toughest of the cultural issues. But people where religion is very important, but there is also a point where voters feel that religion is being abused for political purposes. And it's important to try to find that point and be on the other side and I think we saw that recently in Gilbert Pennsylvania when the school board was thrown out over intelligent design and what was really interesting
was (unintelligible) voter that said “When I went to school we said the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord's Prayer, and that was practicing religion, not teaching you anything.

So I think it's important to try to find the point where people believe that this is encroaching sort of on my life and me on the right side on every corner.

WES CLARK: Okay, thank you. Congressman Edwards?

CHET EDWARDS: Just a couple of points. I think you win campaigns on whether you fight on your turf or on their turf. And I think Democratic candidates, particularly in tough districts need to address that issue in whatever way they feel comfortable, but then say “But now, let me talk about the values that our families care about, a good job, a decent home, affordable health care, quality education for their children and retirement security. I think we ought to paint these others as, in effect, fig leaf issues that they're trying to use to get you to forget the fact that they're cutting college student loans, and undermining health care for pregnant women, and cuts to Medicaid and focus on these other issues and one other point. Bill Clinton once said something the Democratic
Members of the House a couple of years ago that not anybody else mentions. But I've never forgotten it. He said, “One of the great problems we Democrats have, is we don't understand the difference between an issue and a message. Whether it's abortion, gay marriage, gun control, the flag amendment. We always debate the issue and get caught up in the technicality. For instance, I opposed the partial birth abortion bill, but I think on the issue, I'm right. But we've been murdered, because the message to America was that Democrats want to take perfectly healthy babies right before childbirth and kill them, which is absolutely a lie. But, if you forget everything else, I'd say, think about the point about issue vs. message. Republicans are horrible on the issues, they're unbelievable effective
(and have been) on the message. We Democrats have got to do a better job on the message. And I think whenever someone's views that might disagree with me on abortion or gay rights or other issues, if I talk about their values and I'm a person that cares about family values. What they're trying to say on gay issues is that we Democrats don't care about families, that we don't care about family values. And that's a lie and we've got to be sure they know it's a lie.

WES CLARK: Okay, thank you Congressman. Senator Salazar.

KEN SALAZAR: A couple of quick thoughts on it. First, I think it's important for us not to let them define the issues, so if they want to make the debate or the campaign about gay rights or gay marriage, I think Chet's right, whether it's in the debate or broader media, we're talking about national security, we're talking about jobs, we're talking about issues that affect America's families. So I think keeping the debate on those things is a fact 99% of us, I think is the place to keep the debate. I was fortunate to have been able to do that in my race in Colorado, so I didn't have to deal with at least, the issue of gay marriage in any significant way it was a non-issue in my campaign. So we minimized those wedge issues, would be the tactical advice I would give to somebody else.

Secondly, I will tell you that, I think, that the Republicans feel that they have won the war on morality and I think that there are 2 things that we can do and should do. One is I don't shy away from talking about my faith. I don't shy away from saying that the Bush budget is immoral. I don't shy away from what's happening now in the Republican controlled Congress is that we are delivering a budget that is hurting the most vulnerable and is a violation of the basic ethics of Christianity as set out in the Beatitudes. I will talk about it in that kind of a context. I also think that it's important for us to think about the labeling that has gone on that the Republicans have clearly won. This is related to the gay and abortion issues. Pro-life/pro-choice. Yeah, I think that we as a Democratic
Party, as a nation need to redefine those terms. Now with Mayor of Denver, John Hickenlooper, just a few days ago... he was saying, you know, he's another traditional label, he's pro-choice...

He said, ” You know, I consider myself to be pro-life, because I believe in suicide prevention programs, because I believe in taking care of women and their children...” and he went and on about how he considered himself to be pro-life. Yet, we have somehow become the Democrats, the pro-death party. That is what the Republicans have defined us as.... “You call yourselves pro-choice, you really are the pro-death party. We're the pro-life party”.

Well, I think most people would like to be part of the pro-life party. Yeah, I believe that a decision on abortion should be one that is made between a woman and her God, but I will forever as a politician and a US Senator define myself as a pro-life person because that's the way I vote in the Senate.

WES CLARK: Thank you very much, Senator Ken Salazar.

(Applause)