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Evan Bayh
Chairman, Democratic Leadership Council; U.S. Senator (D-IN)
Answers to Written Questions from the Floor:
Q. I think Vice President Gore ran a very divisive campaign, alienating the top one percent of taxpayers and offering only targeted tax cuts. Would you care to comment on his strategy?
I'm reading you this question in the context of many questions that ask about the strategy and whether there was a hard enough hitting campaign on the part of the Democrats in this last election.
A. The poor vice president can't win. Well, it's always easy to be a Monday morning quarterback or to second-guess a campaign that you're not a part of. My assessment is that there was some overreaction on the part of the Democratic strategists to the Ralph Nader challenge, and that perhaps the populism served to drive off some of the independent swing voters needed to win on Election Day.
The history of most Independent challenges is that they fade in the stretch. I think a lot of the Nader voters would have come home to the Democrats in the end anyway, and so I think perhaps the tone of some of the rhetoric did serve to drive off some of those in the middle we sought to proceed.
Conversely—and I know this criticism is made also—one of the reasons that President Bush is that he was successful in blurring the distinctions between the two parties.
Now, that doesn't mean you need to engage in class warfare or divisive rhetoric, but it does mean is that you need to make a compelling case that there are fundamental differences of principle and policy between the two parties. We had some difficulty doing that in the last election, but given the—as I mentioned in my remarks—the highly ideological approach he's taken in the first hundred days, if that continues, he will have gone a long way to making the case for us in the next campaign.
So I would say that yes, perhaps some of the rhetoric we employed did serve to alienate some of the middle swing voters, and at the same time, we were not as successful as we might have been in drawing clear distinctions. But having said all that, I really hate being a Monday morning quarterback, although I'm happy to respond to the questions as they're asked.
Q. What is your stand on the environment? The funding is being cut, yet the popular consensus in the country is for its preservation. And also on the budget—and this also affects the environment—the cuts to R&D for renewable energy sources is upsetting a lot of people.
A. Well, as it should. I think this is a real public policy blunder and if continued, will be a political blunder on the part of the president. My speech today was about economic growth, given the climate in the country, and I'm afraid that the economy may be softer for a more protracted period than many of us had hoped as recently as a few months ago.
But there is a strong consensus in our country to adopt policies that promote economic growth but that are also environmentally responsible. And you can do that. I don't believe you have to choose one or the other. There is a middle ground that can be adopted, and I don't know how the administration will explain to the American people that there is an acceptable level of arsenic in the water supply, or how drilling in the Alaska wildlife refuge—for what the Department of Interior indicated that the most likely result would be a six-month oil supply—how that policy makes sense at a time when they're cutting back on renewables.
You can make an argument that we need to increase supply and production, but not at the same time that you're cutting back on research and other things necessary to concern. It needs to be a balanced approach. And the administration, if you take their ANWAR decision, the arsenic in the water decision, the CO2, Kyoto, some of these other decisions together, they're I think at risk of being seen as environmentally out of the mainstream when the American people really want a consensus approach – economic growth in an environmentally sensitive way. And I think it's going to be, as I said, a real public policy problem which could turn into a political problem for the president if they persist in this path.
Q. Do you feel that the New Democrats' centrist agenda leaves a political gap in the left for movements such as Ralph Nader's Green Party? And there have been questions about your feelings as to the future of the Green Party.
A. Good question. First, let me answer the second question. One of the underlying tenets of Mr. Nader's campaign in the last election—and you know, he's done a lot of good over the years in the causes of the environment and consumer protection and that kind of thing, so I don't say this to disparage Ralph Nader, although I think his candidacy last year was clearly a mistake. I'm again speaking in hindsight, but one of the central tenets of his campaign was that there is no fundamental difference between the two political parties.
I don't see how you can look at the actions of the new administration in terms of the environment that I was just asked about and compare them to what a Gore presidency would have pursued and say there is no fundamental difference.
I don't see how you can look at the actions on a woman's right to choose on the part of this administration and a Gore presidency and say that there is no fundamental difference. Workers' rights, educational investment, support for Social Security and Medicare – you can go down the list in one vital issue after another, and there will be stark fundamental differences in both principle and practice on compelling issues.
So I think the Greens will have a very hard time saying that they're just all alike because there will be clear differences, and President Bush will have helped to point them out.
Now, the first question was do the New Democrats, the moderate Democrats leave an opening on the left for the Greens?" I think that was the question. Well, let me speak for a moment about New Democrat philosophy. I view it—and I'm glad my father spoke here in 1970, and maybe I can personalize this a little bit. I share my father's values. I share my father's aspirations for a better country: a more decent, more compassionate country with more opportunity, particularly for those who are less fortunate.
But it would be highly unusual if the answers that were right for the 1970s or that were right in 1932 when FDR spoke at this Club were also the right solutions for the 21st century. So our values, our principles are the same.
The historic values of the Democratic Party—the individual freedom for Thomas Jefferson, the opportunity for all and special privilege for none of Andrew Jackson, the restless optimism and experimentation of FDR, the call of public service of John Kennedy—all these things New Democrats embrace.
But we look for new, more successful ways of implementing those values and principles within the context and the circumstances of our time. And I think that's important: to constantly refresh and update the progressive political movement because if we get stale and out of date, we do nothing but play into the hands of those on the far right who would really undo much of the good that we have accomplished and would frustrate our abilities to try and accomplish even more.
So my answer is that I think if we articulate our views well, in fact we're offering a compelling progressive agenda within the context of our times, and therefore would not leave an opening to the Greens.
Q. You covered a lot of questions in there. How good a job, in your view, does the American media do in informing the public of the issues and the positions of the day?
A. Any reporters in the room today? You do a great job, if you're here. Well, just as it's easy to second-guess political campaigns, the media is a favorite whipping boy. On the whole, I think they do a pretty good job. If you really look out there for information on the Internet and a variety of places, you can find what you're interested in. But I do think that there's a challenge out there that we ought to pay some attention to, and what the answer to it is I just don't know.
All the major media entities are publicly held. The era of the old family-owned newspaper has gone by the way. And with the emphasis on markets these days—profitability, earnings, that sort of the thing—the bottom line tends to drive a lot of the decisions that are made. So if you look—and I think that particularly about some of the cable channels—if you look at the viewership on MSNBC or some of these other things when there are scandals being covered and sort of salacious programs out there, well the viewership goes up.
And when they have more thoughtful public policy programming, the viewership goes down. Well, if you have fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders to maximize profits, what do you do? You put on the programming that attracts the viewers, that attracts the advertising dollars that increases your bottom line that maximizes your profit and increases you share price. That's what you do.
And so that really runs a risk to some of the more thoughtful public policy programming, more in depth reporting and analysis of substantive issues that we used to get more than we do in the mainstream media today. What to do about that, frankly I don't know. But it's something we ought to be concerned about. I think frankly that a lot of journalists are concerned about it, but they're all caught up in the emphasis on the bottom line too, I think occasionally to their frustration.
So the media along with the rest of us, myself included, aren't perfect, but I think they're doing the best they can for the most part. And it's this drive toward profits that I think has undercut some of the more thoughtful programming, and it's something that we probably ought to give some serious consideration to, moving forward. By the way, if my statement sounded a little non-controversial, what's the old saying? Never pick a fight with someone who uses ink by the barrel and paper by the ton?
Q. It seems that economics, money and trade are primary determinants of U.S. foreign policy with China, especially given what the Bush administration is doing or not doing in dealing with the Chinese regarding the recent plane incident. Do you agree, and what should be done to get the crew home?
A. It would be inappropriate for me, and in fact I don't have information at my disposal to criticize what the Bush administration is doing in terms of trying to get our crewmen and women back. I'm sure that they're doing everything that they can. And as I mentioned in my remarks, I think it's important for all of us to try and support the administration in that regard.
But I do think there are some broader questions with regard to China policy and the general tone of our diplomatic relations that ought to be aired, particularly with regard to the missile defense. If taxcuts are sort of the guiding star, the answer to every domestic problem, missile defense seems to be the answer to almost every national security problem.
The president of South Korea, a Nobel Prize Laureate came to Washington, and the president and the administration more or less dismissed his sunshine opening out of hand at a time when we ought to be doing everything we can to restrain and reign in the North Korean nuclear and missile program.
Why were they dismissive of that? Well, because it undercuts their rationale for the missile defense. And you know, the jury is still out, I think, on whether the thing is going to work. The tests have been very inconclusive. We could spend tens and tens of billions of dollars for something that doesn't work. If you're the Chinese, what do you do? You see us putting out a couple hundred interceptors.
They've only got, not that many missiles today. The Chinese will then go on a substantial expansion of their nuclear program with many more missiles to give them a deterrent against our interceptors. Well, what will the Indians, who have had a historic relationship of enmity with the Chinese, what will they do? Will they sit idly by while the Chinese substantially expand their nuclear program? I doubt it. What will the Pakistanis do when they see the Indians substantially beefing up their nuclear arsenal? Will they sit idly by? I don't think so. So this is some dangerous ground.
So I have no criticism whatsoever and I offer my wholehearted support of the administration's efforts to get our crew back. I do think that the belligerent tone that we've adopted with the Chinese, particularly with regard to the missile defense, could make relations on a whole host of matters, this one included, much more difficult. Now, we need to be realistic and hardnosed when it comes to negotiating economic trade agreements and insisting that they live up to them. And if they are behaving belligerently toward their neighbors, we need to take that very seriously. But to go back to the Cold War mentality, I think, runs the risk of undermining America's security. That's the important point.
So I think that's the greatest area of concern with regard to the Bush administration's relations with regard to China.
Q. Could you comment on how the president's budget proposal for education—and I believe he increased the budge a bit on education—how that affects your Three R's Act (The Public Education Reinvestment, Reinvention, and Responsibility Act), and maybe you want to tell us about your Three R's Act.
A. Well, thank you. I didn't realize you allowed members of my staff to submit questions, but it's very kind of you. Well, the jury is still out on the amount that the administration is willing to invest in education.
And here's a classic example, as I alluded to in my remarks, of the problems that the magnitude of the taxcut is creating for everything else. It takes up all of the non-Social Security and Medicare surplus and, in reality, then some. So there's not much for anything else, even something as important as our nation's schools and our children's education.
We have come a long way. And I've been very proud of…Here's an example of where New Democrats have worked with traditional Democrats, we've had a bipartisan dialogue with Republicans in Congress, the president's people have come to the table, and we've really hammered out a very substantive, good education reform agenda – the most sweeping since the 1960s. The only issue remaining is whether we're going to put the investment in our schools that will allow them to achieve at the higher level that we're now going to demand of them. Many of us feel that it has to be a two-way street. We ought to have higher standards and hold them accountable for achieving those standards, but give them the ability to get there. And the administration has said that they are willing to put more in, but to date it's been somewhat tepid. And we're going to take this subject up in two weeks when Congress reconvenes, and then we're going to find out. We're going to find out whether he really is willing to sacrifice everything else for the cause of this taxcut, or whether he'll trim it back even just a little to do right by our children and by our schools.
And I should say on behalf of all of us who are negotiating—Joe Lieberman and myself are at the table hammering this out, along with several other senators—we're going to work as hard as we can and insist that we make the investments in public education necessary to give our children the opportunity they deserve. So the jury's still out. We'll get the answer in a couple of weeks.
The Three R's bill, just very briefly, combines greater investment in our nation's public schools, particularly targeted at disadvantaged schools because one thing we've learned since the 1960s when this effort first got started all the way forward, that the dream of a better education for every child, is a cruel reality for too many poor kids across our country: So greater resources for particularly disadvantaged schools, but holding everybody accountable for better results.
We can't just define success in terms of how much we spend. It has to be in terms of how much our children learn. More flexibility to local schools in terms of how they use the money and fewer strings from Washington, but again demanding results; using market forces, competition, within the context of public schools to encourage innovation, creative learning programs, things of that nature: Those essentially are the heart, the nuts and bolts of the effort.
And again, the president adopted most of it in the campaign. We've made a lot of progress. I was telling somebody the other day, this is the Jerry MaGuire "Show me the money." That's the point that we've come to, and I hope we can get this worked out.
It's going to be a real test for the president as to whether he's going to just keep adhering to the ideological agenda he's set to date, or whether he is truly willing to move to the middle, be the uniter not the divider he pledged to be. I can't think of a better issue on which to do that than education.
Q. You touched on a defense situation. Here's a questions about ratifying the Test Ban Treaty: "In October of 1999, the Senate did not ratify the comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and you were one to vote for ratification. What are your plans to get the treaty resubmitted by the president and ratified?"
A. Resubmitted by this president? What's the Army Corps of Engineer's motto or saying: "The difficult, we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer." This is going to take a little longer, I'm afraid. That's going to take an election.
You know, I don't think that this president is probably of a mind to resubmit that treaty. I think it was a historic mistake that really removed…You know, I mentioned North Korea. You know, at a when we should be doing everything we can to stop nuclear proliferation, testing of which is certainly a part, this really took away the United States' moral authority to speak to other nations, rogue nations about their development program, their testing, when we were unwilling to sign this international agreement.
And it was an example, frankly, of politics at its worst. This followed closely on the heels of the impeachment trial, and there was a great deal of frustration on the part of those on the other side of the isle that the president had not been removed from office. And I heard, with my own ears, some say that they were just out to embarrass the president on this issue. And they brought it down.
And it was the first time in a long, long time—I think maybe since the League of Nations—that a treaty of this magnitude has been voted down, and it was largely to embarrass the president. In fact what it did was to undercut the United States' moral standing to combat nuclear proliferation and in so doing, harmed our own national security. It was really not one of the better moments for the United States Senate. But in terms of convincing this president, with the current leadership in Congress, to resubmit the treaty, I wouldn't hold out much hope for that. As I said, that's what elections are all about.
Q. The U.S. is the third most populated country behind China and India. Our infrastructure and environment are too heavily impacted. Will the Democratic Party address world and U.S. population planning or control?
A. Well, I'm sorry to see our time has run out. Well, of course that needs to be a part of our agenda, particularly in parts of the world—at least enabling people to make their own decisions, governments to pursue their own policies—where they really do have crushing humanitarian problems, economic challenges. Significant population is a part of the challenge that they face.
The answer again is, with this administration, probably not. But I think at least where other nations request our assistance, it's an intelligent part of the strategy to try to manage some of the global-economic problems that we face and something we should do. But with the current group setting international policy, I wouldn't count on it.
Q. What is your stand on your father's words in tonight's taped speech, in which he questioned the role of the Electoral College? I know you haven't heard the speech recently, but what do you think of the Electoral College process. Let's restate it that way.
A. I didn't get to here the speech tonight, but I have a general understanding of his point of view. Well, maybe this is an example where, well, for starters, just the political reality of it is that we're not going to change the Electoral College, even in the aftermath of the election we just had.
It's not going to happen. There are enough states and their senators in particular—because each state, no matter how small or sparsely populated, gets two United States senators—who feel that that would reduce the clout that their state has within the presidential selection process if you did away with the Electoral College. So it's just not going to happen.
I think, speaking for myself, you can make a pretty compelling case that times have changed over the last couple hundred years, and where before we were interested in insuring that every state was adequately represented, now we are a country of people, not just of political subsidiaries. And you can make a compelling case for the direct popular election of the president.
Frankly, I'm surprised that there hasn't been more public consternation about the notion that 600,000 more people voted for the candidate who was not sworn in as president in last year's election than the candidate who was sworn in. But I don't think that we're going to change the system. I personally feel that we've moved to the point where we ought to have people choosing the president, not just political subsidiaries.
But as a practical matter, I don't see it changing any more today than it did in my father's time. And if it's not going to be changed after the results of this last election, I think that indicates that there's just not a very good chance.
Q. It is my understanding that the people own the broadcast airways, and they are licensed for use by the government. Why does the government not require as a condition for an airways license that there be a certain amount of free media time for political candidates? Would this significantly reduce the need for vast amounts of campaign dollars? And who is opposing the idea, do you know?
A. Well, the answer to the first question is yes. And the answer to the second question is the folks who would be giving up the free time. So we did, in the context of campaign finance reform, address this issue in part a few weeks ago. You know, the McCain-Feingold bill was the first piece of legislation I cosponsored after going into the United States Senate. And I'm really pleased that we're making some progress on this issue.
I think it's a part, a part, of regaining the public's confidence in our system of democracy. The vote that we had, under current law, stations are required to sell to candidates their time at the lowest available cost. But that has really fallen out of practice because commercial advertisers now came in.
What they'll do is everybody wants to advertise around the news when most voters are watching. Well, most companies and businesses want to advertise then, too.
So what the stations will do is they'll say, "We'll sell you your advertisement at the lowest unit cost, but we can't give it to you at six o'clock around the news. We're going to run it at 3am. If you want to run it around the news when the voters are watching, well, gee, you've got to pay us the going rate, which is the same as IBM and General Motors or anybody else."
And so it's hard to compete with that because the cost of commercial advertising is tax deductible and therefore indirectly subsidized by the taxpayers.
So in some races last year, as many as 90 percent of the ads were going to be what they call "bumped" to the wee hours of the morning, forcing the candidates to pay much higher prices.
So we had a fairly overwhelming vote—I think it was 70 to 30 or something like that in the Senate—to require that ads not be bumped, to require, as was the intent of the current law, that the time be sold at the lowest unit cost. And that will go a significant way to reducing the cost of the advertising, even if it doesn't require that the time be given up for free.
Q. Your home state of Indiana has long been known for men's basketball. With the Notre Dame and Purdue women's teams playing for the national championship last week, are we seeing a new dawn for Indiana basketball?
A. Well, no, not a new day. I'd say we're being true to our roots. Actually, that's a wonderful, wonderful question. I was very proud to have both Purdue and Notre Dame in the final championship game. You know, if you ask my father, he was in the Senate for 18 years, and of all the things—he amended the Constitution a couple of times, authored laws on juvenile justice, civil rights, a variety of things—if you had to ask him what his proudest moment is looking back, he would probably say being the author of Title 9, that gives to our daughters the same rights that we have for our sons.
And so I think it's a wonderful thing that we now look to our daughters just as to our sons to participate in athletics, and they can reach that pinnacle and we can be just as proud of all of them. So there's a certain family element there, too. And again, I want to thank you for your hospitality and for your questions.
Marwan Muasher
Arianna Huffington
Ben Stein