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Embracing Idealism
Thursday, January 25, 2007(The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation)
Embracing Idealism
by Richard C. Harwood
Gore issues a call
to action: How will voters respond?
-
msnbc.com, August 17, 2000
Washington,
Aug. 17 - In his acceptance speech in Los
Angeles tonight, Vice President Al Gore
presented himself as the presidential candidate
on the side of the people, not the powerful.
Invoking the names of Martin Luther King, Jr.
and the two slain Kennedy brothers, he and
other Democratic leaders at the convention
reminded voters all week of the partyís roots
and sought to inspire Americans to a higher
calling. This sounds good from the speakerís
podium, but what do they actually mean? Does
Gore have the ideas to match his
idealism?
IN PHILADELPHIA, Texas Gov.
George W. Bush rallied his troops around the
idea of ìcompassionate conservatism.î
Articulating just what that means will be one
of the challenges the Republican nominee must
meet in the coming months in order to bring
Americans to his side. Gore faces a similar
challenge.
A Challenge to Do
Better
The rhetoric this week in Los
Angeles has focused on the idea that Americaís
prosperity raises the very challenge for the
nation to do better. Americans are being called
on to resist the sheer comforts and complacency
that prosperity can bring as much works remains
to be done throughout this land. How the nation
responds, Democratic leaders argue, will tell
us about the strength of our collective
character.
Linking Americaís prosperity
with a call to improve life for all citizens,
Al Gore issues a call to action: Now he must
provide the details.
Democrats are seeking
vigilantly to ground this ìcallingî in their
roots - reminding Americans of the 1960
Democratic National Convention held in Los
Angeles, and the mantle of the New Frontier
that John F. Kennedy would later carry into his
presidency. Kennedy, like King, challenged
individual Americans to take action in their
own lives - to be called to something higher.
They focused less on making promises, more on
seeking to inspire others to act.
A
calling typically stirs someoneís soul. It
prompts people to look at themselves in the
mirror. It challenges them to examine their
assumptions and actions. It inspires people to
reach beyond themselves. People are called upon
to act, to change, to be transformed.
At
the heart of the ìprosperity challengeî now
put forth by the Democrats is the need for
individual citizens to rise up and cross those
new frontiers. But just what do the vice
president and his supporters have in mind when
they sound this call?
Lost
Idealism
Former presidential candidate
Bill Bradley spoke eloquently at the
convention, calling on each of us not to lose
our idealism. He asserted that individual
citizens themselves can make a difference.
Earlier in the week, the Rev. Jesse Jackson
sounded a similar theme, ending his rip-roaring
talk with a litany of examples of where a
single vote made a difference in history -
signaling to every citizen in the land that
they themselves hold such power.
But
thus far there is something missing in the call
to Americans: specifics. Just what is it that
the vice president believes Americans should
do? Toward what end should they summon their
idealism? How should they use their power? What
assumptions and actions must we
change?
Until now, most Democrats have
suggested meeting the prosperity challenge by
enacting new government initiatives such as
reducing class size in our public schools,
providing health care coverage for all
children, ramping up prescription drug coverage
for seniors, and protecting Social Security for
future retirees. All laudable
goals.
Whatís more, the vice president
promises to hold town meetings throughout his
presidency as a way to show that he is on the
side of the people. Such meetings were
enormously helpful to Gore in connecting with
his fellow Tennesseans as a member of Congress
and in the Senate.
Is his call to
Americans simply a hope that people will say
ìyesî to more government programs and
services? Surely, generating the political will
needed to support such efforts would be a
tremendous feat. But he has chosen to echo the
sentiments of years past, asking Americans to
respond to a higher calling.
What Does
This Mean?
As this campaign unfolds, and
the vice president makes his case, perhaps we
should be thinking about these questions: What
is the calling the vice president hears - for
himself and for each American? What is the
challenge before us that gives rise to such a
calling? And what does this calling ask each of
us to do and why?
The vice president has
been saying over the past few weeks that he
believes he owes it to the American people to
be specific in his ideas for how to move the
nation forward. For him, typically that has
meant outlining a series of government
programs. But if he seeks to inspire Americans
to take new and transformative action, that
wonít be enough.