THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SEVENTY YEARS AFTER FDR AND NATE PECHIN
Remarks by County Chairman Cliff Wilson at Annual Nathan Pechin Award Breakfast
Saturday, October 4, 2003
Seventy years ago Franklin Delano Roosevelt was our nation’s leader and Nate Pechin was about to be elected the Democratic Sheriff of Delaware County. Today we’ve got George W Bush and Joe McGinn - one appointed by the Delaware County Council and one by the United States Supreme Court. Just forty years ago two-thirds of the American people voted for LBJ - the analysts said it was ratification of the New Deal -- that society had now adopted the Democratic Platform and the right wing was consigned to the dustbin of history. Barry Goldwater said to his Young Americans for Freedom "keep fighting". Now right-wing Republicans control the Presidency, a majority of the House of Representatives, a majority of the Senate, a majority of our state Governors and our state legislatures; and here in Pennsylvania a majority of our county governments, both houses of our state legislature, all three of our state wide courts and they are threatening to take control of our largest city.
How did we get to this point. We have become a party whose leaders and candidates too often temporize and compromise and vacillate and hesitate when it comes to professing our positions. We spend our time apologetically defending the domestic policies of the New Deal and the Great Society and foreign policies of seven solid Democratic presidencies of the twentieth century. Republicans are assertive and affirmative in preaching their right-wing ideas. We are too often politically correct in our language; deferential to interest groups whose support we have enjoyed and catering to those among our opponents we call moderate and believe we can sway them by appearing moderate. Instead we appear to be bereft of ideas and unsure of ourselves.
If to defeat Republicans and replace Republicans in Delaware County we have to think and talk like Republicans -- IT AIN’T WORTH IT. The voters are not going to throw the old boys out for carbon copies.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY MUST SPEAK OUT AND LEAD ON ISSUES - without regard to electoral popularity. We must be willing to risk bringing up controversial issues - if we temporize in the elusive belief that by not rocking boats nor challenging people to think we won’t win and if in governing we merely copy the Republicans we offer no underlying rationale to the voters to support us.
We have a county party platform but we have limited that to county issues. And while we have been outspoken in our advocacy of a county health department, a county legislature and open spaces we have held back on some issues that would be highly controversial. The inefficiency and waste of forty-nine municipal governments with 49 police forces and 49 code enforcements and 49 refuse collection systems with the resultant heavier than necessary municipal taxation - all regressive property taxation -- doesn’t make sense in the twenty first century and wouldn’t’ be designed today by William Penn if he were founding the colony now. Municipal boundaries based on creeks and rivers and large land holdings over one hundred years ago are an anachronism in our day and age. It’s time we spoke up and got people to listen to the benefits of the consolidation of services. We can reduce taxes; improve service delivery and shrink the size of the Republican army of patronage job holders.
The money and the power in this county may well be in the communities north of Baltimore Pike but we Democrats must campaign for and secure a solid government effort to forestall the physical collapse of the housing and the infrastructure of that part of this county south of the Pike - the first Philadelphia suburbs where the problems that are associated with absentee home ownership; a declining tax base; and changing community makeup are in fact threatening the future of Delaware County from Yeadon to Chester City and all places in between.
We need to enunciate clearly and concisely what it is we stand for and we need to repeat with conviction the rightness of our positions in all our campaigns from the White House to Borough Hall. We need to make Americans understand that when "compassionate" is linked with "conservative" that’s what’s known as an oxymoron (it took one to couple the two words). "Compassionate" is synonymous with "Liberal." We Liberals never needed to use the word as an adjective because we wore it like the badge of honor it always was.
Unless we stand for something we will count for nothing. I have been a delegate to three national conventions, and a public and party official in two states over the past thirty years. I am now in my tenth year as the highest ranking Democratic party official in the fourth largest county in the fourth largest state in the nation. I believe I know what the Democratic Party stands for.
WE ARE A PARTY that believes in the protection and defense of the civil liberties of our people.
WE ARE A PARTY that stands for equal rights for all Americans regardless of their gender.
WE ARE PRO-CHOICE.
WE SUPPORT EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK AND WE SUPPORT AN EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION AND WE SHOULD KEEP FIGHTING FOR IT UNTIL WE ADOPT IT.
WE ARE A PARTY THAT FIGHTS for equal rights for all Americans regardless of their race or ethnic origin -- which means we support affirmative action.
WE ARE A PARTY THAT SUPPORTS GAY RIGHTS INCLUDING EQUAL PARTNER RIGHTS.
WE ARE A PARTY THAT IS PRO WORKER - WE FOUGHT FOR BENEFITS FOR THE FACTORY WORKERS OF THE THRITIES AND NOW WE WILL FIGHT FOR THE factory workers of THE NEW CENTURY - the Walmart and K-Mart "associates".
WE ARE A PARTY THAT BELIEVES IN PUBLIC EDUCATION AVAILABLE TO ALL AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS THEY CAN REACH - LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND DOESN’T ONLY MEAN REOPEN THE SCHOOLS IN BAGHDAD AND KABUL IT MEANS IMPROVE THEM HERE IN AMERICA.
WE ARE A PARTY THAT HAS SUPPORTED NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE, SINCE HARRY TRUMAN AND WE SHOULD JUST KEEP SAYING SO AND FIGHTING FOR IT.
WE ARE A PARTY THAT SUPPORTS THE UNITED NATIONS - WE DEMOCRATS CREATED IT AND WE CAN’T LET SOME REPUBLICAN COWBOYS FROM TEXAS AND WYOMING DESTROY IT.
America can lead the world by the strength of our Ideas and not the Might of our Arms.
We can nominate all the candidates we want, we can fill all the committee vacancies in Pennsylvania, we can recruit all the inspectors and clerks we need, we can maintain websites. But unless we vigorously and consistently and openly and assertively proclaim what it is we stand for we will remain a Minority Party. And our candidates must understand to deserve the support of this party they must support this party and the ideas it stands for.
We have to stand up - PROUD TO BE DEMOCRATS - and proclaim at every opportunity we can find that the ------
THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION
THE CLAYTON ANTI-TRUST ACT
THE WOMAN’S SUFFRAGE AMENDMENT
THE CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS
THE WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION
THE PUBLIC WORKS ADMINISTRATION
THE NATIONAL RECOVERY ACT
THE AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ACT
THE PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE REGULATION
THE FEDERAL DRUG ADMINISTRATION
THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
THE FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE
THE GI BILL OF RIGHTS
THE UNITED NATIONS
THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION
THE MARSHALL PLAN
THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT OF JUSTICE
THE PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS LAW
THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT
ROE V. WADE
BROWN V. THE BOARD OF EDUCATION
THE PEACE CORPS
AMERI CORPS
HEAD START
THE FEDERAL HOUSING AUTHORITY
PELL GRANTS
PERKINS LOANS
SOCIAL SECURITY
MEDICARE
MEDICAID
THE ENTIRE PANOPLY OF LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PROGRAMS THAT MADE AMERICA BY THE LAST DECADE OF THE 20TH CENTURY THE GREATEST SOCIETY ON EARTH.
AND WE MUST FIGHT FOR THAT LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC TRADITION UNTIL ALL OUR PEOPLE (and that includes the 34.5 million who still today live in poverty in this country and the 43.6 million who are without health insurance) are able to realize the dream that is America. For only in an America committed to liberal Democratic ideals will that Dream become reality.