The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

<unk> in an al gore help change the debate more than twenty years ago al gore call for serious campaign finance reform you know i was only four years old when my dad first ran for congress and won you had very much money when he was running the first time so i cut its very first radio and i said to the people of the ninth district of tennessee but if you want a congressman i believe in better jobs better housing and war could keep prices go to the polls and vote for my bed at

the tigers he won an election but what i learned then as i know now that political advertising costs then as it does now while recognizing for the political advertising i feel passionate the people of this great nation and certainly my generation in order to get us more data we have to reform our campaign finance laws so some may pose for reform and follow up but how horrible sinai campaign finance reform bill has forced an opportunist democratic congress saying that so and as america and democratic delegates the choice before it's a choice that in many ways he weighs heavier all my generation than any other

is not what kind of america we head to the next four years but what town of america will we have inmates forty all the amazing advances in science and medicine of tomorrow the fenced off for the few all the beatles for all of us to build better lives way at this critical time america needs a leader with the intellect understand the complexities we face only an hour with experience of undress the challenges of our moral at this critical time democrats republicans independents alike america needs now more and joe lieberman thank you i remember the fear many of my college classmates and pennsylvania face some eight years ago

when we graduated from college and was searching for jobs for many of us find a good job with upsets as well eight years later in twenty two million jobs later the future of america the back where it ought to be on the up for young people in pennsylvania and tennessee and all across this great nation action any other party what have us go back back to a path toward prosperity only charges the well off and well connected back to a path where children learn from outdated textbooks and parents can scrape together enough money to send them to college back to a pass where polluters where environmental laws that's of pastor politicians one of the norm is deficits when factories out of business and one the economy and so the ground well america our vision is far different than there is abhorrent all women believe the future is for everyone imagine if you

will poor mom my dad free economy is strong enough that every american can share in the american dream a mat in a health care system where every american american receive the medicine years she made it where no seniors forces stay up late night deciding whether to buy votes or fill a prescription a magnet for saudi a mammoth audience three thing is what the respect and they needed security and medicare mostly the not only with four children and our grandchildren amalgamation of clean clothes lines and safe drinking water pristine parks and hair that our kids can parade of they play in the backyard and even those parts we are recognized as democrats into americans that no issue is more critical to our nation's continued success and how and where we educate our children if we can find the well and resources to build for is then

after president after president then surely we can find a well and resources but bill you need a plan and the plan a first class education well america it is time to start imagining tonight i call on all of my reform minded republican an independent friends to join us and our crews say to join us in making this bold imagination a reality you know when i first decided to run for congress four years ago in nineteen ninety six i like most candidates and i met so many sits bang over the past few days was holding an excited about all the invitations that i might receive as they

did various events was so excited and i was waiting by the phone for those invitations but as you young candidate a new candidate certainly find that isn't always the case but that was one form and one place where i was often welcome i was walking with a great smile why was able to gain the flooding of the candidate and about my momentum of a candidate and that was a kindergarten graduation i just hope it more kindergarten graduation to anyone in my district ever knew existed the matter of fact the very first school i visited ms velma lois jones is here for my grades they behead about sage's association she invited me but i spoke to those graduation is that i continue to do so i was struck by the pride in the eyes of those five year olds in the eyes of their

families in many ways it was magical i couldn't help but think about the hard to hear about kids with a drop joining dave in bringing guns to school for when they're five and six they're still hours for those children and their families america we must continue working for a better life and a better world as we turn our attention to that so as that and let us remember those children in kindergarten if there's an all across this nation and remember in the end what this election is really all about them yes there'll be talking about this campaign about budgets are pluses tax cuts reform on a whole array of fronts but in the end it's really just call about them is that when those

five year olds in mind our cars that and encouraging their dreams and are leasing their imaginations it by wiping al gore the next president the united states may not get you there but everyone thank you oh harold ford jr memphis tennessee and this will be a moment to believe those will receive that his father told us that over thirty two here's the father wrongfully to al gore won by thirteen ward named gerald ford jr to be the keynote speaker vice president called him a rising star of the democratic party to take

and that we have a very closing tonight on this second night of the democratic national convention here at the staples center in los angeles will get some closing words and thoughts now from mark shields and boldly go means johnson doris kearns goodwin michael beschloss and richard norton smith all first up an overview of the night was the party helped i don't know joe this certainly was your father's democratic party and this was not a party of the year this is not the new democrats this was the party of the liberal ambitions it was the party of constituency groups and the problems of the government's solution for every problem with signature as speeches i thought were jesse jackson ted kennedy says they spoke to that i spoke to half the liberal base they were trying to avoid but a cast of liberal lost are still fire up the democrats and that it took a gamble

and the gamble was that you could bring these people out it would energize the party and natural swing voters matter of the people you openly believe the independence the undecideds you need to win a majority when you think about mark of the reasons this team they had the democrats were seen at the beginning of this decade is being honest that will hopefully an ideological a lot less so today partly a marketing perfectly is the absolute prosperity americans don't want war talked a lot less fearful of affirmative action not the divisive issue it was in terms of jobs and i think that that's part of it but i thought there are a couple of things about it that ray suarez is our interview with stage and cliburn congressional black caucus he said this is about galvanizing the base just as paul simon is very candid he's grateful but it all most of the liberal senator from minnesota said with what's at stake here

and it just struck me that that was the message over and over again that this is an important election i don't know if it was delivered but i'll say this i'd like philadelphia the democrats bought all of their supporting cast opened fire on monday to philadelphia you had no idea philadelphia was a one man show john mccain basically a form whole but here and he had labor get that the abortion rights probe i mean there was just everybody that was part of our inborn ray suarez from your vantage point of your house does receive it i would measure as a way to major office where well it was funny to watch a lot of like an economics of humans face real estate for first with fifteen feet down on the floor for placement so well or shrink like a balloon depending on the marquee name that was on the podium here feel so forth and filled the

aisles for bill bradley's or teddy kennedy caroline kennedy but less so for a fee like harold ford who may in fact be the future of the party and a rising star is out with a hefty certainly not someone who's written this place of the late jesse jackson thing but people were picking their spots and yes there have been moments of a tremendous enthusiasm and it's ridiculous actually a floor speech like the reverend jackson fit then the energy and the ground subsides heads the religious accommodation other's if somebody was sitting there in my not be that that strong say on gay rights or abortion rights or maybe a businessperson rather labor peripherally reporter own little person that they had accepted kind of what it meant to be a democrat and that means all these people who've not always agree with me we're polite receptions for the year groups that mark mentioned just a few moments ago these constituent interest groups of the party like a

human rights campaign which is a gay rights or the gay civil rights organization may rile the national organization that defense of the right to abortion was warmly received perhaps not by everybody but there were no boos into applause as polite applause for those people for whom that's an important issue i think you're a source of what your thoughts this evening know what interested me was just listening to the range of different kinds of speeches that were given nothing could be more different in some ways than jesse jackson's round oratory and passionate delivery and caroline kennedy's much more quiet tone and yet each worked because it fit the person which i think is probably the key to giving a good speech it has to be authentic something about the shyness at caroline's deliveries smiling after every word really underscored why that people felt a sense of going along with her jesse jackson of course had that ability the thing that was different about jesse speech this time then another time is the event in eighty eight when he was so successful in the

primaries there was that sense of almost having reached the presidency which gave it a moment that the speech tonight just did not have an order teddy kennedy speech tonight have the event behind it that in nineteen eighty when he had just lost that race in that with all these people in the audience loved him so were there to cheer him on i suppose attacker can hit it patrick henry henry went to the chamber of commerce and say give me liberty or give me death it wouldn't have that moment so and i think bradley interestingly show that he was a decent educational man tonight at the lucky he spoke well and softly body it's hardest things i mean i like the idea that they it's only poor people were in one place it would be new york city i mean that's what the best speakers do is to make you think differently and i think if he'd been able to keep that tone during the campaign it might've been a very different thing so i just found myself intrigued and then at the end i suspect that what harold ford was doing their summers in this is the teasing think that those of us who love sports no city looks like derek jeter the yankee shortstop so imagine that some people turned in and saw oh my god i'm watching their peers think mr billy haines about your way what

were your thoughts yes it was it was it was either do what i wrote down when caroline kennedy spoke here a box with the word authentic about what is still missing from american participants will that's what people want to know if this was one of those moments where you had friends and in the normal political you reacted to it was quiet and when she said talked about a prosperity kind ison decency with a caption a voice i thought that when it was a theme that the democrats are trying to get across and she did it effectively the whole theme of the night is this other side of prosperity that's what they're trying to do and to make it his mark said this is an election that is consequential and there are things that we can do we can afford to do if we have the will to do and those are going to be the test for the election that was not and i definitely remember except for a few of those moments like caroline kennedy richard what would you say the message of the scene was i would only one small way a man wearing a set is when the other side of prosperity but it's also the other side to watch out for the

other side an effort to rout the evening to raise the stakes to galvanize dramatize to abortion allies the danger of not voted reverend jackson gave a dollar a voter registration speech in many ways i was deeply impressed with the bill bradley speech i think he takes home the adelaide stevenson awards for a perhaps futile nobility now this evening you know there's a wonderful line in that speech he said when the founders of our republic said that life liberty and the pursuit of happiness with the un a winnable rights of all americans they didn't say anything about taking turns and it seems to me in that one sentence he came closer than anyone else tonight entering the question we've been asking who are the democrats michael did that is that the answer one of the dancers and you know when i was listening to this parade of speakers getting the answers you know you hear about health education environment social security these are the issues that people are interested in these and these days in the year two thousand is a traditionally democratic issues about this great economy the united states is the superpower astride

the world and you sort of wonder why is al gore not doing better than he is and this helped him because you had two things to buy one was you know doris and i'm hans i think richard also complain about the fact that there's never an art history at these conventions you have it tonight this is like a small history of the recent democratic party ted kennedy of the sixties and seventies jesse jackson of the eighties bill bradley of the nineties all them basically saying that al gore is the natural successor to people like roosevelt and truman kennedy johnson harder and the other thing that they were essentially saying is where liberals were willing to underwrite the choice of you voters to vote for al gore if you vote for him we can promise you will not be betrayed and that's something that we will need to save its effect of this full it could have a lot to do with whether al gore is the president next january or not but doris is there is there but politics and this year is they're successful

politics this year and in the politics of nostalgia about the old democratic party i think they can't simply look back they obviously have to go forward and to be more serious about the importance of harold ford at the end it was that he represents that younger generation i think he was making a deliberate appeal to younger people to become involved with social life come in public public life etcetera but i think hopefully what they were able to do tonight and i agree with michael here is the democratic party does have a tradition that goes deeper than the last eight years and i think they needed to call on that to get that liberal base to go along with them and that's what they sell tortillas as we've said over and over again so yes i think they look back tonight but tomorrow out war in the day after that al gore and his spokesman hingle future and that's ok richard is there of that point the ball made earlier which europe which are answered the question whether or not they'd the risks something by putting our life but in every candidate democrat there was out there on that stage tonight that they risk anything in alienating some independence well i i'm sure they did but you know way they mean it

clearly understand it's a risk they have to say oh they have to energize the base they have to define the enemy as it were ah but but sure we don't know who's watching this first of all we don't know whether there's a disproportionate audience of loyal democrats we don't know others do deal democrats were worried about social security we don't know whether it's suburban swing voters clearly there are people who are watching i heard an auburn in grand rapids michigan who wasn't a reverend jackson and reach for my wallet and every great compassion when bowden well yes richard siphoning off the well thats rather than simply re distributed if you needed another word old school liberal politics is what you're saying yeah i mean it was it was interesting because al gore has talked about this being a campaign about our democratic new guard against republican old guard tonight

we affect saw both the new guard and the old guard and it made for a somewhat he was a little boy was a strident i mean i think what would turn people off and what would be risky as if there was a strident see in the way they talk about the issues but they didn't it was much more than that these are serious issues is also health care and the figures forty four million people going from the campaign finance reform that would have some of the reform agenda without being recipe and charging demagogic it was quiet it was calm and yet these are real things as michael said these issues that affect people's lives but the fact is in the end this night is testimony to the fact that al gore as late as this convention has not closed the sale with democrats if he had done that he probably wouldn't have liberal side because just as we were setting are a lot of you probably will not be attracted by this parade of liberal sign that al gore is one of the house republicans did not have

to have the conservatives night they have the travel would've been if on tuesday night in philadelphia they have had to put on tom delay and its army and a lot of conservatives who were not very popular in congress with independents so i think what war is still doing in this is something that's going to be a problem for him is that he's walking this very slippery slope the time to be a centrist of the same time polling on those liberals were double whammy that well it went great white teddy kennedy mentioned how was a twenty i'm still not quite there before we go baltimore on it it's a huge joe lieberman nine and then of course a thirty nine is our night with that they have to do now what the what do they have to come off it a night and do what they have to pivot off of tonight and begin to appeal to the broader electorate in particular with al gore he has to define himself much better in the public mind he has to answer the

bush taught if you will i am not running and borrow close to many us to tell the country were closed to use in fact running for it is one thing i couldn't help but i think as i listen to the speech tonight and heard the historians two years ago george bush sr said we have more will and wallace bill bradley tonight said america's more wallet well i there were rich and prosperous nation and i thought i thought the formulation is printed on a natural disaster and how americans respond to lessen flooding earthquake and their debt we would not have been starving child was born next to joe lieberman and outdoor know i have to say to repeat a staunchly the messages of them i cannot go after all they have they get to they what we heard tonight is where the democrats a benefit best of what they stood for and democrats ideas what lieberman and

four have to say is we're where they would take us and they are in the lead and was sober through all four has to define who he is and how he's different oh jesus exactly what they do thank you all very much and that does and our coverage of the second night of the democratic national convention here in los angeles we'll be back tomorrow night first that are regular news our time and then again here on most pbs stations at eight pm eastern time for our complete coverage of the convention itself will see you then and online on jim lehrer thank you and goodnight imagine the system this is

solomon this program was also made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to pbs stations from viewers like you thank you so who is it is any man the