Election Day 2000 in Rhode Island was an affirmation of the basic issues that
are important to Rhode Island's working families. Citizens voted for candidates
who they believe will take action to address essential priorities like creating
new jobs, providing affordable health care and housing, and improving the
quality of teachers and neighborhood schools.
But while the election nationally was perceived as a significant victory for
the Republican Party and President Bush, few GOP landslide victories occurred.
In the races for control of the Senate, votes for both parties were almost as
evenly divided as they were for the 2000 presidential race. Tuesday's election
could be regarded as less about policies and more about personalities.
Nevertheless, the results have given Republicans in Congress, working with the
president, the opportunity to pursue an agenda that regrettably does not "put
families first."
If there is a lesson from Election Day 2002 for Democrats, it is this:
candidates need to advocate ideas that enable voters to draw a clear
distinction between Republicans and Democrats. I believe that in a few key
races, Democrats failed to provide voters with a clear alternative, especially
on the economy, and offered overly cautious and too-carefully modulated
messages.
In the coming months, there will be a virtually unstoppable legislative effort
to make the tax cuts for the richest one percent of Americans permanent and
confirm President Bush's conservative nominees for judicial positions.
In addition, over the next two years, the White House and a Republican Congress
will work together to approve drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge and a prescription-drug plan promoted by pharmaceutical companies.
There will also be a renewed effort to approve the CARE Act -- also known as
the "faith-based" initiative -- to make it easier for religious organizations
that provide social services to obtain federal grants and contracts.
Unfortunately, the Bush administration has been pressing Congress to approve
the bill without explicitly prohibiting employment discrimination and
preventing religious-service providers from using government funding to convert
people seeking food, shelter, and medical assistance.
We must continue to maintain our resolve against Iraq, but avoid precipitating
unilateral American action. Pressure from Democrats in the Senate has helped
keep on track the Bush administration's pursuit of a multilateral approach to
confrontation with Iraq, rather than the "go it alone" tack initially advocated
by the president. The United Nations vote last week was a positive sign, and
the Bush administration should continue to work within this framework to ensure
multilateral opposition to Iraq.
As I stated on the floor of the Senate last month, acting alone would increase
the risk to our forces and to our allies in the region and increase the burden
that we must bear to restore stability in the Middle East. The surest way to
reduce the dangers and ensure the long-term success of our policy towards Iraq
is to lead an international coalition to enforce United Nations resolutions.
Democrats must now begin to define our agenda and the issues we will pursue
during the next two years of the 108th Congress.
Democrats should focus on the issues that matter most to working people --
their health, their paychecks, their families, their homes, their
neighborhoods, and their future. During the next Congress, Democrats should
fight to improve access to health care for all Americans, secure tax breaks for
lower- and middle-income families, and make greater investments in education.
Democrats should also work to craft legislation that will provide an
affordable, comprehensive and reliable Medicare prescription-drug benefit for
all Medicare beneficiaries, and resist any effort to privatize Social Security.
We must also work to prevent common-sense gun-safety legislation, such as the
ban on assault weapons and the Brady Bill, from being taken off the books.
The economy and the drastic impact of the Bush tax cut last year -- which
increased the deficit -- were largely ignored in election campaigns. Improving
the economy and reversing the recent trends of rising unemployment, slowing
productivity, and a sluggish stock market all require a carefully balanced
economic plan, and the federal government has a significant role in stimulating
investment through targeted programs. Democrats must be forceful in their
opposition to eliminating the estate tax and making last year's tax cuts for
the wealthiest Americans permanent. Such measures, if enacted, will do little
to stimulate immediate investment in the economy and will further exacerbate
the federal deficit.
Increased consumption and investments by business will result from restructured
tax cuts for low- and moderate-income families, who will spend almost every
dollar they receive. The responsible approach for Democrats, and the one that
will distinguish them from Republicans, is to consider tax cuts for working
families balanced against competing priorities, such as providing
prescription-drug coverage, saving Social Security, improving education, and
providing affordable health care and housing.
If the Democrats do not provide meaningful alternatives to the president and
the Republicans in Congress on the tough decisions that must be made, we are
not protecting the interests of the nation.
US Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island was just re-elected to serve a second
term.
A clarion call for Democrats
BY JOHN KERRY
Pundits and pollsters are today weighing whether the elections of 2002 reflect
a mandate. Let's end that debate. They do. There is today a mandate to change
politics in this country and the direction of this nation. Increasingly voters
are assaulted by appeals to our worst instincts, and increasingly people recoil
from participating. Republicans have given those who believe in their agenda a
reason to vote; Democrats have failed to excite those who share our cause. But
together, both parties have failed to provide the broader leadership all
Americans deserve.
One of the reasons so many Americans aren't interested in politics is that they
think politicians aren't saying anything very interesting. Indeed -- the
biggest threat to our country is not from our opponents, but from the growing
ranks of voters who have stopped listening to either side. We must reach out to
the politically homeless -- and give them a home again in their own democracy.
People don't want a war of words; they want a contest of ideas -- with action
and results.
We Democrats must have the courage of our convictions. We must be ready to
refuse the course of least resistance, to confront the seemingly popular, and
to offer a vision that looks beyond the next poll to the next decade and the
next generation. Instead of just quoting the words of Franklin Roosevelt and
John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, we need to match their leadership with our
own, with daring and commitment, with new thinking equal to a new and different
time.
We must begin by demanding a different, better, fairer economic policy that
grows jobs and creates wealth for all Americans. We must say it plainly: stop
the new Bush tax cut for those at the top and instead relieve the growing
burden for those in the middle. Stop turning record surpluses into a new river
of deficits. Stop shortchanging education, health care, and even national
security to satisfy the demands of special interests at the expense of both
prosperity and social progress.
I want a whole set of choices too long deferred put back on our national
agenda. We can build housing and renew community. We can have smaller class
sizes and after-school safety for children. We can keep our promise to veterans
and break the gridlock on our highways. We can clean up our lakes and rivers
and escape the stranglehold of foreign oil by inventing our way to energy
independence. But we cannot do any of these things unless we stand up and end
forever the charade that you can do them and still afford new tax cuts for
those who need them least, at the expense of those who need them most.
We can safeguard Social Security for the next generation and keep Medicare out
of bankruptcy. But to do it, we must end the deception and special-interest
agenda that wastes billions in giveaways to companies like Enron, WorldCom, and
the biggest corporations. It violates fundamental fairness. It violates common
sense. It violates basic economics -- and it cheats the next generation by
borrowing from our children.
We must repel an assault on 50 years of struggle and progress by protecting
civil rights -- resisting the heavy hand -- and rejecting the narrow vision of
John Ashcroft! But we must also offer a new vision of tolerance and
inclusiveness that respects the rights of all Americans, asks more of each of
us, and helps empower the next generation of women and minority
entrepreneurs.
And it is time to demand a different, better foreign policy -- one that enlists
our allies instead of alienating them and that relies on the strength of our
ideals as well as our arms -- a foreign policy that honors vigorous and honest
debate instead of discrediting it. I am prepared to go to war if we must -- I
have gone to war before -- but America should never go to war because it wants
to: it should go to war only because we have to. And without an imminent
threat, I will fight this president trying to do so unilaterally,
pre-emptively, and precipitously. Yes, we must strive to disarm weapons of mass
destruction; but we must also seek to end the threat of mass starvation and
disease, to stay the course of democracy and human rights, to be tough on
terrorism, and equally tough on the causes of terrorism and instability. We
must do this not just because it is right but because it's essential to our
national security. There is nothing smart or strong or patriotic about a new
unilateralism that scorns our responsibility to the global environment. This is
the only environment we have -- the only world we have -- and we have an
obligation to protect it.
But to do any of these things in the world, Democrats must be willing to stand
for something. We must resist a new, at least attempted orthodoxy in our party
that does a disservice to more than 75 years of our history -- a new
conventional wisdom of consultants and pollsters and strategists who argue as a
matter of political strategy that Democrats should be the party of domestic
issues only. I don't believe that. I don't believe we can offer real leadership
to our country if that is to be true. I believe we need to talk about all the
things that strengthen and protect America, and that we need a vision that
extends to the world around us. Remember that the presidency has three key job
descriptions: chief executive of the fiscal and domestic policies of the United
States; head of state and therefore the nation's chief diplomat; and commander
in chief of the nation's military forces. We dare not say we offer leadership
and then avoid discussing two-thirds of the job.
We need to remember that this vision is not recent -- it is as old as our party
itself. Woodrow Wilson was elected during peace, but he led during war.
Franklin Roosevelt was elected to tackle the Great Depression, create Social
Security, and put America back to work. But shame on anyone -- Republican or
Democrat -- who conveniently forgets that he did those things stubbornly,
consciously, even as he responded to Pearl Harbor and marshaled the nation's
troops from Normandy to Iwo Jima. And Jack Kennedy didn't try to change the
topic when President Eisenhower's vice-president, Richard Nixon, raised in a
debate the subject of foreign policy. He challenged America globally, and
insisted that we can and should do more -- not because these things were easy
but because they were hard.
That is the standard of leadership and engagement and vision that defines our
party, and it must be our standard and our vision if we are to lead this nation
once again.
In short, Democrats need to be ready to fight -- not for the sake of fighting,
but to fight for better choices that must define our party. America deserves
better choices -- real choices. Last Tuesday proved that we may be divided in
this country in the votes that were cast, but we aren't divided in our
priorities or purpose. We Democrats can provide leadership -- and America will
win.
US Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts was just re-elected to serve a fourth
term.
Issue Date: November 15 - 21, 2002
