Remarks By DNC Chairman Terence R. McAuliffe/DNC Winter Meeting General Session

Thank you, Rhine, for that kind introduction. And congratulations on your historic victory in Dayton. The DNC was proud to help you, and we look forward to working with you in the coming years.

I want to thank the woman who both tolerates and encourages my commitment to this Party. Her unfailing love and support keep me going and keep our family thriving. My wife -- Dorothy McAuliffe.

I'm going to ask all of you to work hard this year to bring more people into the Democratic Party. But I wouldn't ask any of you to do something I wouldn't gladly do myself. I want you to know that Dorothy and I have done our part...five times now. We're expecting a son in May. That's another activist, another volunteer for Democratic candidates, because we're going to put him to work right away.

I want to thank "Sistah Joy" for that moving tribute to Dr. King. Nearly 34 years after his death, we are still trying to realize his vision of a nation where each of us is judged by the content of our character. And it's because of the courage and conviction of people in the Democratic Party that the quest for racial justice continues. The nation has recognized Dr. King's birthday for several years now, but never before has his moral example meant quite so much. It's difficult to imagine a greater violation of Dr. King's teachings than the September 11th attacks on our nation.

My friends, there is no doubt about where the Democratic Party stands during this most challenging time for our nation. We stand side-by-side with President Bush and our armed forces in their effort to root out terrorism and make the world safe for all freedom-loving people.

We've been saying that since the morning of September 11th. Unfortunately, in a startling departure from the President's call for bipartisanship, White House Aide Karl Rove yesterday, at the RNC meeting, encouraged Republicans to make the war a political issue in the 2002 elections.

This is an affront to every man and woman who serves in our military. Let me tell you something, Karl: when the nation is attacked and our values are threatened, Americans don't divide as partisans ... Americans unite as patriots.

We Democrats stand with the working men and women of this nation, as they struggle to make ends meet ... as they strive to make the most of their God- given abilities ... as they dream of raising their children in safe communities and educating them in quality schools.

It's because of those values ... because we are the champions of American working families ... that Democrats enjoyed the overwhelming support of voters who went to the polls in 2001. Folks, our candidates virtually ran the table last year. Governor Mark Warner earned an historic win in Virginia. Governor Jim McGreevey is here to tell us about is landslide victory and about his vision for New Jersey. And we also won 39 out of 42 targeted mayoral races across the country.

Why did we win in 2001? First and foremost, we had strong candidates who knew their communities and how to lead them ... candidates who delivered a compelling Democratic message based on the kitchen-table, quality-of-life issues that matter to American families.

But I'm also proud to say that the DNC played an instrumental role, with unprecedented off-year investments in 2001 campaigns. You see, the DNC has sharpened its focus on its core mission -- winning elections at all levels. Instead of simply being a presidential campaign committee, we are now a full-time, full-service, one-stop campaign shop, providing the tools and services that allow Democrats to win races up and down the ballot.

To better communicate with our voters in the coming years, we are completely overhauling our party infrastructure. With our new Technology Project, we're getting ourselves out of the horse-and-buggy era. We're helping state parties modernize their voter files. We're launching a new, more interactive website. And this spring, we'll break ground on a new, state-of-the-art Democratic Party headquarters.

Technology will change everything we do, from canvassing neighborhoods to recruiting volunteers to distributing talking points. This morning, I make this pledge to you: by the end of 2002, our new technology will help us sign up an additional 1 million DNC activists cross the nation to help us win elections.

Technology also has the potential to revolutionize our fundraising. I can't tell you how proud I am that more than half the money we raised last year came in small, direct-mail, hard-money contributions from 600,000 Americans. As we maximize the fundraising power of the Internet, I believe we can make the low-dollar donor the heart and soul of our finance efforts.

This is more important than ever, because I believe and hope that campaign finance reform will become the law of the land this year. This is an opportunity for some good to come out of the Enron mess. But it'll take more leadership from Congressional Republicans than they've shown so far, and it'll take a change of heart in the Oval Office.

This week, the RNC officially installed new leadership. Their previous chair lobbied heavily against McCain-Feingold. I hope that my new counterpart will join me in lobbying to get this reform passed. I hope he'll join me in signing a letter to the president and the Congressional leadership in support of his bill. We need to reassure the American people that their government is accountable to ordinary citizens and not to extraordinary wealth.

This will be good for our political system, and it will be good for our party. It will level the playing field. It will return power to the grass roots, and when politics returns to the grassroots ... everyone wins.

Folks, the DNC has new technology, new programs, a new strategy and a new energy. In every possible way, it is a new day at the Democratic National Committee.

However, what's not new are the values we stand for. Values like fairness, tolerance and inclusion. Values like diversity, equality and community. Values like entrepreneurship, free markets and fiscal discipline. Values like educating our children, protecting our environment and strengthening our communities.

These values were the fuel that powered the Clinton-Gore agenda. They were the guiding light of an era of unprecedented American prosperity and stability.

And my friends, our values are as relevant today as ever before. At a time when the nation is waging a war to defend the American way of life, it's imperative that we Democrats champion these values as vocally and as forcefully as ever.

Ten days from now, President Bush will address a joint session of Congress to report on the state of the union. No doubt, he will tell us that the state of the union is strong. And, of course, it is. Only the strongest possible nation could respond to the nightmare of September 11th with unity and resolve. When the President salutes our military and speaks to the nation about our fight to defeat terror, we will rise and applaud as one.

But on almost every other issue, we are looking for answers out of this State of the Union. Answers to important questions...questions about this Administration's stewardship of the economy ... questions about the raiding of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds ... questions about an overall domestic policy that seems to be for sale to the highest bidder.

President Bush has to explain what he plans to do to reignite this economy. The Republican plan as nothing more than a bloated corporate welfare bill, designed not to jumpstart the economy but to pad the wallets of the special interests. And what happened when Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle stood up in principled opposition? Did the Republicans engage us in a substantive debate on the merits?

No. Instead they unleashed their attack dogs on Senator Daschle, even questioning his intelligence and patriotism. So much for the post-September 11th bipartisan spirit. Seems the folks who promised to change the one in Washington sadly have just changed their tune.

I think I speak for everyone in this room when I say I couldn't be prouder of the record and the integrity of our Senate Majority Leader. It was unconscionable for conservative groups to run ads in South Dakota comparing him to Saddam Hussein. And I was gravely disappointed when the Vice President of the United States refused to disavow them on national television. Especially considering that Senator Daschle himself was the focus of terrorist attacks, there is no place for these appalling personal attacks.

Let's be clear about one thing. No Democrat, not Tom Daschle nor anyone else, is proposing a tax increase. And no Democrat has proposed anything more than what Jeb Bush and several other Republican governors are doing in the face of their budget squeezes.

We Democrats are for tax cuts. More than three-quarters of our economic stimulus plan involved tax cuts. But they were stimulative tax cuts ... responsible tax cuts ... tax cuts that we could afford...tax cuts that would create jobs immediately ... not tax breaks for well-connected special interests. That's the truth, folks, and Republicans will get away with these distortions over our dead bodies.

We Democrats know how to create wealth. During the Clinton years, more millionaires were created than at any other time in our nation's history. And we also lifted millions out of poverty. That's the difference -- our rising tide lifted all boats.

In the State of the Union, President Bush must explain how he will stop spending the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds and put us back on a fiscally responsible path toward a balanced budget. Just when we thought we had cleared the nation's red-ink stain, it turns out deficits are back. It's true that the war has created a public expense that we didn't anticipate. But don't be fooled. It's also true that the White House returned to deficit spending in August, well before September 11th.

You know, it didn't have to be this way. Remember one thing: budgets aren't just about numbers; they're also about values and priorities. Last year, Democrats looked at the surplus and said we need to protect older Americans by saving Social Security first. Republicans looked at the surplus and decided we should dole out corporate welfare first ... even at the expense of Social Security.

You know, it's not like we made it hard on this Administration. We did hand them the strongest economy in the nation's history and the first federal budget surpluses in a generation. Democrats painstakingly built this record over eight years ... and the Republicans managed to squander it in just eight months.

President Bush must answer still more questions in his State of the Union. For example, what happened to the Medicare prescription drug benefit he promised? What's he going to do about the looming health care crisis? And is the President going to trust the advice of his own Commission and pursue a plan that will cut Social Security benefits and turn the program into Social Insecurity? Just ask the employees of Enron how reliable private retirement accounts are.

And how does the President justify his approach to energy and the environment? It's no wonder they crafted their energy plan behind closed doors. If I had come up with this plan, I'd want to keep it a secret too.

Since last January, it's been one assault after another on our air, streams, land and trees. Arsenic in our water...drilling in ANWR...cutting down our national forests ... and now they're talking about cutting the heart out of the Clean Air Act.

Speaking of clearing the air, how about that Enron story, folks? It's simply outrageous, and my heart goes out to the employees and shareholders who were victimized by a web of greed and deceit. I do want to be fair though -- there's no evidence yet that anyone in the Bush Administration did anything improper in this case. But there are some interesting parallels between Enron and the Administration it so generously supported.

Think about it -- risky investments ... mountains of debt ... accounting shenanigans ... a little fuzzy math ... then the folks at the top cash in while innocent working people are left holding the bag. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it? The Bush Administration seems to be running fiscal policy the way the folks at Enron ran their company.

Hopefully, our system of justice will help right the wrongs of the Enron disgrace. In politics, we have our own way of holding leaders accountable -- they're called elections. And because of the way this Administration has mismanaged the economy, we are well positioned to win big when Americans go to the polls nine and a half months from now.

We will widen our margin in the Senate. We will seize a majority of the nation's governorships. We will win on the municipal and county level. And one year from now, it will give me great pride to present to the DNC ... my friend ... Speaker of the House Richard Gephardt.

It's true that the President's approval ratings are high. That's to be expected at a time like this. But the President's current standing in the polls in no way suggests a national embrace of Republican ideas, which we know only divide and weaken the nation.

We learned in 2001 that President Bush's personal popularity does not translate into votes for other Republicans. We learned that when we Democrats stand up for working families ... stay true to our values ... and fight the special interests ... we win elections.

September 11th was an act of unspeakable brutality that must be avenged. On that point, we all agree. The question is: How can we emerge from this crisis an even stronger nation? How do we harness the renewed sense of national solidarity and good feeling and weave it into a governing vision?

I don't think we can do it with the Republican approach. When they think about the war's impact on domestic policy, they see political capital to be exploited...an opportunity to railroad through the same old partisan, special- interest agenda as before. We must and we will win this war, but it will be a lesser victory if 40 million Americans are without health insurance ... if we've dismantled Social Security as we know it ... and if we've desecrated our ecological treasures.

We Democrats, with our belief in community and compassion, know that our nation deserves better. We know that we must do more to promote at home the values we are so successfully defending abroad. We know the imperative of military triumph. But we also know that the flag we're fighting for must not symbolize a nation paralyzed by debt and smothered by joblessness ... a nation that fails to protect its elderly or safeguard its natural resources.

That's why we're Democrats. That's why last year's elections were so important and this year's even more so. With your help, 2002 is going to be a Democratic year to remember. But it's going to take even more time, even more sweat, even more energy. Let's get back to work!

The front man for the late and unlamented regime of the "Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001" wants to build up the fortunes of the Democrat party. However, at the same time, he actively discourages any examination of the past failures of that organization, and in fact, terms those failures as successes. The party is bereft of ANY positive initiatives, and would dearly love to roll back all the political and economic gains made so far by the Bush Administration. If they cannot stop the actual implementation of these changes in how the country is governed, they can keep up the constant drumming that what you see is not really happening, that isn't what we really meant, the real legacy is being dismantled, and what Bush has proposed would never work anyway.

If y'all will bear with me, some comments:

We're expecting a son in May. That's another activist, another volunteer for Democratic candidates, because we're going to put him to work right away.

Headline: DNC chairman convicted of violating child labor laws.

And what happened when Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle stood up in principled opposition?

He did??? I STILL can't see him. Get a phone book Tom.

That's the truth, folks, and Republicans will get away with these distortions over our dead bodies.

Uh, sorry Terry, my buddy Dubya already staked out "dead body" territory. And I gotta tell ya, he makes a hell of a lot more sense than you ever will.

When the President salutes our military and speaks to the nation about our fight to defeat terror, we will rise and applaud as one.

Well, except maybe for The Hildebeaste. I understand she's been spending a lot of time sitting in front of a mirror practicing rolling her eyes. She's getting real good at it too.

Whenever reading or hearing anything about Terry McAuliffe, keep in mind that while working at the White House he took a kickback from an insurance company concerning its lease for government-owned office space. As I recall, the amount of the kickback was $265,000. The Department of Obstruction of Justice, under Janet ("the Just") Reno, prosecuted the insurance company, got a guilty plea, and hit them with a fat fine.
But what happened to Terry McAuliffe, who received the money? He was never investigated, never charged, and got to keep the money. If the receiver of the money had been convicted, like the payor of the money, he would have been jailed, and disbarred.
And this is not the only criminal activity for which McAuliffe skated. He was right in the middle of the DNC-Teamsters money racket under former Teamster's President Carey. Others went to jail for that. Terry got promoted to head of the DNC.
Clinton (him) may be gone from power, but Clinton thinking is still triumphant in the Democratic Party. Its flag is two hands grasping for money in dollars, in yen, in deutschmarks, in every currency known in the world. And the General of the Army of crooks dares to speak of the future of America?

Congressman Billybob

Cllick & bookmark for Phil and Billybob in the mornings.

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