I led the fight for the Clinton health care plan in 1994. We failed. I learned from that experience. What I learned is you can’t pass a complicated government-run plan.
What we have is two important values in conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. You can’t have both.
Why would we want to keep a tax cut that’s failed? Why would we not want to go back to the Clinton tax code? And why would we not want to help every family more with a health-care plan like mine? Let’s help average people. Let’s be Democrats.
Al Gore is a good man. He is a decent, caring man. He listens to his heart and his head. He loves his family.
The people I’m honored to represent in Missouri and all over the country want leaders to address their kitchen table everyday problems.
I’ve thought a lot about the world and how George Bush sees the world and it ain’t even close.
I think when everything is finally considered, I’ll have a lot of support – strong support – not only from labor unions but from working people.
The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students.
We can see beyond the present shadows of war in the Middle East to a new world order where the strong work together to deter and stop aggression. This was precisely Franklin Roosevelt’s and Winston Churchill’s vision for peace for the post-war period.
Politics is a substitute for violence.
I was raised in a working class family of Baptist faith, and I went to college on a church scholarship where early teachings were reinforced. Abortion was wrong, I was taught.
I think in some cases busing did improve the situation in some areas; in some cases it didn’t. We had busing in St. Louis, and it has been ended and we are using other methods of trying to better integrate the schools.
I think a lot of people think I was born in a blue suit, on the David Brinkley show. And that isn’t me. I am much more that kid who grew up in South St. Louis, in a very modest household, with a simple background with parents who didn’t get through high school.
I have been a long and strong supporter of civil rights in my whole career. I led the fight to get the voting rights act re-enacted. I have been a strong supporter of affirmative action. I believe in it strongly.
I grew up in a household that was a labor household. My dad was a Teamster and a milk truck driver. My mother was a secretary. Neither of them got through high school. But they worked hard and they gave me very, very important opportunities to go to school, get a good education.
I had the honor to meet Nelson Mandela, and I heard him explain his forgiveness of his captors of 27 years by saying hatred and bitterness is destructive – the power is in love and forgiveness.
You know, when you’re in public life, everything you do is out there. But I am proud to stand on my record.
I think it’s time we had a president who carried the same life experiences into the White House as most ordinary Americans.
And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’
I don’t think you can be a good listener unless you’re a good listener. I think it’s something that you really have to do, and if you really do it, then you can do it. If you don’t do it, then you can’t do it.