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Speech to DuPage Democrats
David Wilhelm
February 20, 2005

I’d like first to acknowledge Gayle Ferraro, the dynamic chair of the DuPage County Democrats.

I’d also like to recognize Reverend Jim Wall, who had the audacity to tell me that he would be praying for the speaker tonight.  I thought that was unusual.  Pray for peace, pray for the ill and the weak and the poor, pray for our country, our soldiers in Iraq, OK—but pray for tonight’s speaker?  I thought that betrayed a certain lack of confidence in the speaker.  

I appreciate the sentiment, but it reminds me of the time when I accompanied none other than Jesse Jackson into the Chicago Cubs locker room several years ago. That day’s starting pitcher, a gangly and very young rookie, made a beeline to Rev. Jackson, and asked Rev. Jackson to pray over him.  Now I believe in the power of prayer, but if I had been a betting man I would have immediately left that locker room and put a couple hundred dollars down on the Cubs’ opponent.  That pitcher was shelled and never made it to the third inning.  For that matter—as far as I know—he was never heard from again.

Let me also acknowledge Camille Dowdney, who works for the #2 Democrat in the United State Senate, our very own Sen. Dick Durbin, and who first invited me to speak at this dinner sometime last summer…when the weather was a little different than it is tonight.

(Other acknowledgments are written on the copy used during the speech; now unavailable.)

The fact that you would even have a dinner on the evening of February 20—on a cold and wintry and slushy night like this—only underscores a well-known fact: DuPage Democrats are a hardy bunch, a resilient bunch, a bunch that knows something about the power of perseverance.  It’s easy to be a Democrat where I live, in Chicago’s 44th Ward, where Republicans are quickly identified and escorted out of the ward.  No, here, it’s different and it’s only fitting that you would hold your dinner on a night such as this.

And, let it be said that your hardiness, your spiritual toughness, your perseverance, is paying off, because the setting of one of the best Democratic stories of 2004 anywhere in the nation is right here in DuPage County and the Chicago suburbs. In a year when Democrats across the rest of the nation are licking their wounds, DuPage County can point to the following accomplishments:

1)    More DuPage County voters cast ballots for Barack Obama than for George W. Bush;
2)    Suburban voters led the way in the election of Melissa Bean, a businesswoman and mother, who ousted a long-time incumbent name Philip Crane;
3)    Almost as remarkable, DuPage County voters sent an unmistakable message about their desire for change, giving a candidate named Christine Cegelis, who ran a feisty, if underfunded, campaign, 44% of the vote against one of the powers of the U.S. House of Representatives, Henry Hyde.

Folks, this is indeed remarkable.  It is revolutionary.  And it is so different from what is happening elsewhere around the country.  At a time in which one of the nation’s best-selling political books is titled, What’s The Matter With Kansas? —an equally useful question to ponder might very well be put this way: What’s right with DuPage County? Or what’s right about Illinois? This state has become reliably Democratic, one in which Democrats enjoy a 6 to 7 percentage point edge in party identification and in which Democrats occupy the office of Governor, both U.S. Senate seats, control both houses in the state legislature. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the good old days.

And anyone who takes a look at voting trends in Illinois must come to the inescapable conclusion: That the reason for this Democratic surge has everything to do with changing voting behavior in the collar counties and Cook County suburbs.  Previously hardcore Republicans have become independents; people who used to be independents have become Democrats.

So let us, for the next few minutes, think about what factors, what issues, what values might account for this remarkable turnabout among voters who used to constitute the very core of the Republican Party in this state. What can red states across the country learn from this county, one time the most red of counties, but where very distinct tinges of purple are starting to creep into the picture?

Reasons for growing Democratic Party strength in DuPage and the Chicago suburbs:

1)    Illinois Democrats have been blessed by aggressive, tough-minded candidates.  Candidates who understand that the key to winning is to play offense—and that the key to effective communication is a strong message contrast with your opponent.

Our last two presidential candidates have not understood this fundamental reality so well.  Grassroots Democrats have become increasingly frustrated with Congressional leaders that seem to pull their punches even on matters of great principle.  But no problem with Dick Durbin when it comes to clarity and toughness: he was eminently unambiguous and forthright about his opposition to the war; he has emerged as the deputy minority leader in the U.S. Senate precisely because he is so clear in the defense and promotion of the ideals that we as Democrats hold so dear.  

Rod Blagojevich knows how to play offense: he seems to get into a lot of scraps, but those scraps are always about a matter of principle and consequence.  In the midst of some of the most difficult and challenging budgetary times this state has ever seen, Governor Blagojevich has boosted spending on education, boosted spending on health care, done what you would hope a Democratic governor would do: expand opportunity for all of the state’s residents, including the less well-to do.

Barack Obama…well he has proven to be a pretty effective communicator; poor Alan Keyes never had a chance.  And Melissa Bean showed her toughness day in and day out, carrying the battle to her opponent, never backing down, never giving an inch, forcing Phil Crane to go on the defensive and stay on the defensive from just about Labor Day on.

Look, the quality of candidates and their campaigns matter, and we’ve had great candidates who have run disciplined, effective campaigns.

2)    DuPage County Democrats have been aided and abetted by strong leadership at the local level.  Gayl Ferraro and the township chairs have worked hard to bring us to this place.  They have raised money, recruited strong candidates, and, perhaps most important, demanded—and received—the attention of a local media that has historically been indifferent to the statements and positions of Democratic candidates in this county. Well, that’s no longer the case.  The local media is starting to pick up on the changing political reality we’re discussing here tonight.  They’re starting to cover our candidates, and my point is this: none of this happened by accident.  

Which reminds me of one of former President Bill Clinton’s favorite sayings:  “When you see a turtle on a fencepost, you know it didn’t get there by accident.” When you see the kind of progress that is being made here in this county, the most challenging of all counties, you know it didn’t happen by accident.  It happened because people like Gayl and every one of you, who have come out on a messy, chilly night like this one, care enough to make it happen.

3)    And while we have benefited from strong statewide and Congressional candidates and effective local leadership, I think something even bigger is going on underneath the numbers and that is this: the Democratic Party seems a more natural fit for the policy preferences of present day DuPage and suburban voters than a Republican Party that appears to have lost touch with the mainstream values that drive the voter behavior of swing voters—swing voters like the ones that are increasingly the targets of your efforts.

I think the principle reason for this is that in race after race in this state, Democrats have been on the side of change and renewal and reform, while the Republicans have found themselves trying to defend the indefensible. Melissa Bean was all about change and youth and new energy and new ideas, while Philip Crane was…well, he was about none of those things.

The same words can be applied to Rod Blagojevich and he has worked hard to honor his pledge to change government as we know it in Springfield.  The Jim Ryan campaign seemed to offer little but more of the same, a bad place to be at least in this era of Illinois politics.

Barack Obama and Lisa Madigan appear to represent the best and the brightest of the next generation of leaders in Illinois; the Republicans truly have nobody that rivals them. And our Lieutenant Governor, Pat Quinn, has carved a career and great popularity among suburban voters out of a constant and abiding call for reform.

We should be mindful of this, now more than ever, as the party in power. Moments like these are rare. The voters are watching us carefully to gauge whether we will be true to the mandate they have given us, to be agents of change and reform, to govern effectively and wisely. Let us work to meet that challenge.

4)    And by the way, Republicans—while working hard to defend the indefensible—have pursued an agenda that seems anything but conservative—at least conservative in the way that DuPage County voters understood the meaning of the term say twenty years ago.

It is not conservative to pursue a preemptive strike in Iraq in the absence of ironclad evidence of provocation; it is not conservative to squander America’s moral position in the world by rushing to war without a decent respect—as the writers of the Declaration of Independence put it—for the opinions of mankind

It is not conservative to cut taxes massively, on the rich or anyone else, in the middle of wartime—oh, how different from the course pursued by Abraham Lincoln, who initiated the first income tax in our nation’s history, only on the very well-to-do, to defray the cost of the Civil War.

It is not conservative to permit skyrocketing deficits that threaten our nation’s economic strength.

It is not conservative to wield the Constitution as a weapon to constrain the expression of civil rights or to exploit social divisions for short-term political gain.

It is not conservative to dismantle—or at least fundamentally alter—the basic social contract that lies at the heart of our Social Security System—a guaranteed minimum income in retirement for those who have worked throughout their lifetimes.

The fact is George W. Bush is neither conservative nor compassionate.

This agenda is so far afield from a common sense sort of conservatism that has ready appeal in a place like DuPage County that moderate Democrats have a genuine opportunity to capture the middle-of-the road. In fact, we’re doing it every day.

And since when did the Bush agenda somehow become the preferred agenda of people of faith?  When you think about it—how did the party that promotes a rush to war, tax cuts for the rich, budget cuts for the poor, and less security for the elderly somehow become the party with the edge among people with the greatest dedication to their faiths, at least as measured by church attendance?

Oh, we have an opportunity here to right a wrong.  This outcome is a failure on our side to effectively communicate the first principles of our party, the wellsprings of our positions. People of a progressive mind set actually care about public policy and view government as a possible solution to some of the challenges we, the people, face.  And because of that, we all too often jump to conclusions and promote positions without taking voters through the whole line of reasoning that brings us to that point of view.  We need to fix this and we will.  And when we do, our numbers in places like DuPage County will rise even higher.

Respect for work

I’m not a suburbanite, but I’ve been told I’d make a good one.  And my sense of the challenges people face in their everyday lives goes something like this: these are places where people work hard and play by the rules, where both spouses often work, where it’s hard to find affordable homes, to obtain affordable health care, where it’s hard to drive back and forth to work, where it’s hard to keep up with the bills, where enormous sacrifices are made to enjoy a better quality of life for where the dreams that led to the decision to move to the suburbs in the first place are becoming harder and harder to achieve.

And so, it would seem, a party that respects those who work, that exhibits a real understanding of the stresses of modern day life, should do well in a place like DuPage County.

And isn’t that our competitive edge—the party that cares about rising tuition costs, that has an agenda on health care, that will fight for retirement security, and respects the rights of white collar and pink collar and blue collar workers alike—looks to me like a party that should continue to gain ground.

There’s a reason why women in places like DuPage County have been the first to leave the embrace of the GOP. The issue of choice is part of it, yes, but I think that women in the Chicagoland suburbs have long ago seen through the rhetoric of family values. Talk of family values is meaningless if the party doing the talking cuts overtime pay, freezes the minimum wage, has nothing to say on health care, and pursues a big business agenda that does next to nothing for the many start-up businesses that populate the towns of this area.

Respect for the environment; stewardship of the God-given bounty of nature

Republicans are on the defensive on issues related to the environment—and they know it and they’re worried about it. I’m not talking about the preservation of the snaildarter or even drilling for oil in Alaska.  I’m talking about issues like clean air and clean water, and reduced congestion and healthy foods and open spaces and green spaces—a whole set of issues that go right to the core of the quality of life that people who live in DuPage County seek. A Republican Party that is openly hostile to this broader set of environmental concerns should be an easy target for Democrats in this part of our state and this part of our country.

Respect for individual dignity

Something very interesting happened at the beginning of the general election campaign for Governor in the Spring of 2002.  Jim Ryan tried to run to the right in downstate Illinois—he began a heavy buy of ads on wedge issues like abortion, gay rights, and guns. But something very interesting happened…the strategy went nowhere.

And if you think about it very long, it makes sense why issues like these have so little resonance.  Isn’t one of the motivating factors in living in the suburbs a desire to gain some control over one’s life, over one’s choices, the pursuit of one’s own happiness, in the words of Thomas Jefferson.  Jefferson would applaud the healthy suspicion suburbanites have for the heavy hand of government.

Where would the hand of government play out in a heavier way than in restricting the fundamental choices of people when it comes to reproductive options and choice of life partners?  This kind of wedge politics, gay-bashing politics—a staple in the GOP playbook elsewhere—just doesn’t seem to resonate in large parts of the Chicagoland suburbs, where people enjoy their liberties, their privacy, the pursuit of their own happiness.

We have been blessed by strong statewide candidates

You have been blessed by strong local leaders.

But the real opportunity for DuPage County Democrats lies in the continued pursuit of an agenda that matters to the people who live here and work so hard to make things right for their families. The real opportunity lies in the pursuit of an agenda that fits the values and life experiences of the people of this county.  Fiscal responsibility.  A sane foreign policy consistent with American values. Environmental protection.  Access to higher education. A pro-growth agenda, beginning with a strategy for entrepreneurship.  Controlling health care costs.  A commitment to choice, privacy, and individual dignity.  A respect for work. And a vow to remain on the side of change and reform.

Former Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn has a great quote.  He said: “Any jackass can kick down a barn; it takes a carpenter to build one.”

I can hardly wait for the next campaign season to begin.