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Warren Beatty Speech You could say it was the cost of that war that causes most present day liberal politicians to identify themselves as progressives. But my faith in the basic aspirations of the domestic programs of Lyndon Johnson, and before him Kennedy, Stevenson, Truman and Roosevelt, just won't permit me to accept your Eleanor Roosevelt Award as anything other than an old time, unrepentant, unreconstructed, tax-and-spend, bleeding heart, die-hard liberal Democrat. I believe in the value of social programs, a safety net, regulation, and an active government. I have no problem professing this because I love my day job -- making movies. I want to keep making them. I have the great luxury of not having a career as a politician and I can still say what I want to say. As an old friend of mine once said to me, "The greatest gift God can give a man is to enjoy the sound of his own voice. And the second greatest gift is to get somebody to listen to it." And for that tonight I humbly thank you. So my happily calling myself a liberal and dissenting from the centrist approach of the current candidates for the Democratic nomination for President requires no particular bravery. I have so much less to lose. I have no campaign consultant. No pollsters. I have no reason to placate the DLC (sometimes called the Democratic Leisure Class, sometimes the Defense Lobby Corporation) or the DNC or any source of campaign money that so dominates the lives of career public servants today. I happen to be married to the most breathtaking woman on the planet, have three kids and a fourth on the way, and I can continue what one right wing columnist suggested: "The improbable pursuit of acting in movies with leading ladies half my age." Speaking of improbability, six weeks ago, several of the grand mentioners of the media began to mention me as what most people of sound mind would call a "highly improbable candidate for the Democratic nomination for President." I responded only that "that seemed extremely unlikely. It's not that I don't have things to say, but there must be somebody better than me." Having said nothing publicly since (I've been on a listening tour of my house for those six weeks), tonight seems not a moment too soon to speak up. The present Administration deserves a lot of sympathy for having to cope with ruthless Republican Congresses. But in what Paul Wellstone calls the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party, when we hear the record of the political bargains of the past 7 years cosmeticized and spun back to the public as "progress", we have to object. After Theodore Roosevelt, progress in this century has always been made by Democrats -- but by Democrats who were fighting to the end for what they believed in, not settling for what they could get. By changing public opinion polls, not following them. By spending popularity, not hoarding it. The big advances -- Social Security, the welfare safety net, the minimum wage, the Marshall Plan, Civil Rights, voting rights, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, federal aid to education, the war on poverty, Head Start, job training -- have all been made by Democrats who wouldn't give up the fight. Surely, the admirable, honest, centrist Vice President knows that if the objective in the present Administration has been to honor the historic mission of his party, it hasn't been really fought for let alone achieved. But he is a loyal friend. Clearly, there are very few people of such high character or loyalty as the Vice President. Having a Gore Administration would give him the opportunity to show that loyalty to the more than 100 million Americans left behind in the economic expansion. |
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© Janette Rainwater 1997-2004 All rights reserved.
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