and water and much more will be at risk. >> frankly, i cannot think of anybody who is more qualified to serve as the next associate justice of the supreme court. >> follow the confirmation process on c-span. through congress as judge kavanaugh meets with key senators. the senate confirmation hearings, and the vote. watch live on c-span, or listen with the free c-span radio app. a forum with current and former strategists leading up to the 2018 and 2020 elections. former agriculture secretary tom vilsack, new orleans mayor mitch landrieu and several house lawmakers share their views. new democracy hosted this event.

well form, everybody, my name is will marshall, i'm with new democracy, a director along with lindsay lewis, over here. and welcome to today's symposium on building new democratic majorities, big ideas for a big tent party. very glad you've come. we're off to a typically late washington start if a hostile power ever decided to invade washington again, they should come early in the morning. but i'm glad we filled in and we're all here. this is the washington debut of new democracy, a new organization formed in the aftermath of the 2016 debacle. sit mission to provide a platform for the pragmatic wing of the democratic party. problem solvers, people who have shown this they can win elections in tough places in

america. that is highly competitive places out there in the red and purple zones. we find particularly here in washington, d.c., the voice of the pragmatic democrats is often muffled. there's a lot of infrastructure to amplify our friends. a lot of structure, organizations and money. and sometimes a voice of the governing wing of the party gets drowned out by passionate and ardent partisans. one of the key functions of new democracy is to provide a platform for projection. for for pragmatic democrats, a home base and support network, not only for elected democratic leaders, but also for democratic candidates. new democracy's mission is to expand the party, to expand the party so we can compete and win everywhere in america.

excuse me. i can't find it right now, but on your program today is a map. the post-election map. thank you very much. is this map, which i hope never to see again in my life. to wake up after another big national election and find this red-splashed map pocked here and there with blue. it doesn't have to be this way. this party has been really competitive all over the country. we've been a national party and we have to be that again. so that's the simplest way to understand our mission is to abolish this map so we never have to look at it again. new democracy spent all last year barnstorming around the country. mostly in the red and purple states, we stayed out of washington, we were listening to democratic leaders and candidates, we were in orlando and denver and des moines. we thought the financial party has a lot to learn from the democrats out there fighting and winning office and governing in

competitive places, from the army of well-paid consultants that we have so many of here in washington. what we heard from these folks is a really deep hunger for new leaders, new direction, fresh thinking about the party's agenda. people are looking for an alternative to what they hear coming from the washington establishment. that is an alternative to an agenda that speaks mostly to grievances and victimhood, not to people's economic hopes and aspirations. one that always talks in terms of centralizing even more power in washington, which today is the least-trusted level of government. and a message that frames narrow appeals to interests and identity groups that leave too many americans feeling excluded. so with a crucial mid-term election ahead of us this fall, new democracy has come to washington with a simple message -- time for democrats to think strategically and not ideologically. we're out of power in washington, we're out of power in most of the states. we can't afford to indulge in

sectarian debates about who is and who isn't a true progressive. what the party needs now to take advantage of this tremendous mid-term electoral opportunity is a big tent strategy that reaches to moderates, independents, rural and working-class voters and yes, a pretty significant chunk of disaffected republican voters. so we ought to spend our time and pour our energy in building new majorities, recruiting strong candidates and winning more elections. that's the only way to stop the trump republican wrecking crew. the only way to stop them packing the supreme court with more right-wing activists, and stripping more working people of health care coverage. waging foolish trade wars that could tank our economy. fracturing our society along lines of race, class, and place. and alienating america's closest allies, we've seen this vividly just this week. while you know, dalying with

dictators at vanity summits. but opposition to the trump and republicans obviously isn't enough. we can't build durable majorities just through resistance. we've got to give voters something to say yes to. a big ideas vision that inspires public confidence are the democrats' ability to create a new and inclusive prosperity. and we've done that in our platform document planks for a new democratic platform. which you've all got i hope. which 16 big ideas for change that we think define a radically pragmatic alternative to the right-wing populism and end to the strange new fashion or vote for democratic socialism. i can say a lot more about that, but we don't have time. so let me close with this. these are dark times in american politics. unusually pessimistic pall hangs over our country. and new democracy believes that the voters are hungry and ready

for an optimistic forward-looking blueprint for building a new american prosperity in the digital economy. not trying to resurrect the old factory economy. our country has unmatched assets, abundant energy and natural resources, talented, diverse and industrialous people, a huge scientific and technological base. and a culture of entrepreneurial risk-taking and with pragmatic leadership we can parlay these strengths and a revival of america's can-do spirit and orientation of the future. we can parlay these strengths to american preeminence in this century. just as we enjoyed it in the last. so that's the new democracy mission and that's why we're here. before turning the program over to governor jack markle from delaware. i want to say two things. one is that you've got to, about the program, it's a conversation, we hate

politburo-style speech-making. we'll try to get our audience involved as much as we can. given time constraints. and because of the time constraints, we ask everybody to practice introductory minimalism. we have bios on the table. so a lot of our illustrious guests are not going to get the lavish introductions they quite deserve today in the interest of keeping things brisk. i do want to just say how profoundly grateful i am to our elected friends and former elected friends who are new democracy leaders, who are new democratic leaders in the congress. and blue dog leaders and mod squad leaders in the senate. they really stepped up to the plate and we're going to see them a great selection of our rising leadership in the party. our best talent today. and hear them. and so first, my great gratitude to you all for coming out to help new democracy. and secondly, thanks to you for coming and we hope you will stay involved in this effort. because it needs, you know we need to be build a real network if we're going to revive the

pragmatic center. let me turn it over to my good friend, jack mark l in practicing the principles of introductory minimalism. i won't say a lot about him. except to say he's one of the founders of the new democracy. without his help, encouragement, guidance, we wouldn't be here. so jack, thanks for everything and it's over to you. >> good morning, everybody. >> i'm thrilled to see senator coons walk into the room because my job, i'm going to have to introduce him in a few minutes. but will told me i'm going to have to fill the time until he gets here and it's been a year and a half since i served as governor. which means i don't do this much any more. you know when you're out in the country, outside of washington, speeches aren't as long. and so i'm glad and you should be glad that i don't have to fill out the time. i want to thank will, he has been like a dog with a bone.

when it comes to promoting the kind of problem-solving politics that the people in the country are so hungry for. and i had the opportunity to attend the kick-off event in orlando as well as the one in denver. and i can tell you that the level of energy out in the country, and the level of talent for mayors, state legislators, members of congress, governors and others, is just incredible. we have so much strength out across the country, that you know, it's really something important and something valuable for us to build on. and i think that's important, because i think for very understandable reasons, people are unbelievably anxious and desperate about this coming election and it sort of sounds like hyperbole every election that this is the most important election in our lives. but this one, people really feel like it is. people are so desperate in 2018

to take back a chamber or hopefully two, to win back governors seats in state legislatures all across the country. and even as we acknowledge, the different campaigns are going to look different across the country. all you have to do is think about connor lamb and alexandria ocasio-cortez, i believe that the conversation taking place today is as important as any conversation taking place in our party or in our country across the country. and that's because while it is true that hard-core democrats are sufficiently engaged to vote out of animosity toward the presidents and toward his republican enablers, there just aren't enough of them for us to win these big elections. what we really have to do, the cold, hard facts is that we do have to mobilize our base. we also have to convince a lot of independents and even some republicans that we have a more

inspiring vision for the country and that our leadership can make that vision real. i think that, and if we're thoughtful about it, that is absolutely what plays to our strengths. new democracy and ppi have long been leaders in promoting the kinds of ideas that will lead to real and sustainable economic growth and will insure that the bountys of that growth are shared more broadly. that's a winning platform. it's good not only for an election cycle. but it's also good for the country. and that's what today is all about, that's what new democracy is all about. we really do believe that when we help the country, we also help our party. so we show examples of how massive investments in skill, education and skill development are helping our constituents transform their lives, that helps our country and that helps our people. the same is true when we show how enlightened leadership, working with the private sector,

the academic sector, the not for profit sector could lead to new start-up activity across our states that also helps the party, it helps the country. the list goes on. so we are joined today by a number of very talented and effective elected officials. you're going to be hearing from them and we're very grateful to you for your service and for all that you're doing. and i have an opportunity now to introduce one of them. chris coons, senator coons and i met in 1988, we worked on a campaign for the u.s. senate that was one of the least successful campaigns ever, anywhere. in fact a friend of mine -- i had taken a leave of absence from a very good job at mckinsey and company to work on this campaign. and the partner in charge told me he was watching the results that night and he said, your race was the first one called out of the entire country. and i'm sure much of that had to do with the help that senator coons and i provided.

he is beloved in delaware. for good reason. he is brilliant. and there's no question about it. he's just -- you know when you hear it and people across the country have seen that he's incredibly real. this is a guy who, are you the only chemist in the senate? probably. chemistry degree from amherst, a law degree and a divinity degree from yale. went to south africa to work for bishop tutu. came back to work for the coalition of the homeless in new york. not in the office, but on the streets. you know, he has, he has learned not just in the classroom, but he has learned so much by doing and so much by listening to people. and by getting to know how the things that happen here in washington, affect the lives of people back home. that's what he cares about every

single day. sees a great father. three wonderful kids, the oldest of whom are twins that will be going off to college next year. his wife annie is a wonderful, wonderful person. he's also just been unbelievable -- i talked about will being a dog with a bone. so is senator coons been a dog with a bone when it comes to some of the important issues particularly around manufacturing. particularly around some of the things that don't get a lot of spotlight. things like patent reform. a lot of issues that a lot of people don't really want to engage in, he's more than willing to raindrop up his sleeves. but we have seen the difference in delaware as a result of his leadership on manufacturing. very clearly, he started something called the manufacturing jobs for america initiative. it's about modernizing our manufacturing sector. it led to a research and development tax credit that he put into place. easier access to credit for

smart start-up and small businesses. he led an effort to create what's called manufacturing usa. the institutes. it's a number of institutes across the country, they bring together and he's always believed that the government can't do it by itself. it's about bringing together the public sector, the private sector, the academic sector, the the not for profit sector. you're starting to sees they institutes popping up across the country. including newark, delaware, right next to the university of delaware, a new institute around bio-manufacturing. really exciting. i will close with this -- this particular new institute is rising right now. woe broke ground eight or nine months ago. but it is rising on the site of a former chrysler plant. where for 50 years, the kids that we grew up with, in newark, their folks worked at chrysler, this was one of the great places

in delaware for people without a college degree to earn a middle-class job. and in 2008, december of 2008, chrysler closed that plant. now you're seeing a new science technology and advanced research campus, at the university of delaware rise, including this new several hundred thousand square foot institute focused on biomanufacturing. it wouldn't have happened without chris coons and similar stories can be told across the country. it has been a delight to watch him take washington by storm. and to see the respect he's earned in such a short period of time and i know how fortunate we are that you're here today. chris. where are we going? when i watch tv in the morning.

when i just turn on my phone, look at my latest news alert or am speaking to a room and half the heads are down because there's something shocking or striking that our president has just said or done. i ask myself, is this our america? and where are we going? we're gathered today to have same pell, but important conversation about that. about our direction. i'll open about what i think is our common-shared view that if we as a democratic party are going to move from a minority at every level, that is dedicated to resistance, to a majority, that is capable of governance, we've got to move from grievance to optimism. we've got to abandon a politics offing of anxiety that is characterized by wild-eyed proposals, and instead deliver ideas and practical solutions that respect and meet the needs of millions of americans who voted for

someone who they thought was going to shake it up. and are now left shaken and wondering who is going to help move us forward. it is exactly for that reason that we're gathered here this morning, because of his remarkable record of leadership and success if our state that i'm so grateful to jack. jack and karla were a wonderful talented governor and first lady of delaware. as he said, i've known jack since 1988. what it was about that campaign that made the two of us decide to do anything in politics, puzzles us. we left that failed campaign and both went into the private sector. jack into telecom and me of a a few years of education, into manufacturing. it was decade later that we came back to delaware and ran for office and served our state. that manufacturing institute that i get to see literally every morning and every night as i take amtrak down and back to washington, really is an inspiring and enduring both challenge and source of optimism

for me. we grew up in and around newark, delaware. those high-paying jobs at the chrysler plant were the anchor of entire neighborhoods. and it was torn down a decade ago, it was heartbreaking, we lost our chrysler plant, gm plant and style mill. jack as governor refused to engage in the politics of division and grievance and got our oil refinery reopened. and got the foundation for this new research institute and this whole new campus associated with the university, going. nad the investments and the hard choices to make it possible for a new fuel cell centered clean energy manufacturing business to be on that site. it's not just r&d, it's actual manufacturing happening on the site and it's not just that site. it's across our state. he led our state rebuild and sustain our aaa bond ratings. was a pragmatic leader who got us out of the great recession, reduced unemployment and put us

on a great footing. in an inclusive way, he championed the employment of people with disabilities, and ended up as the chair of the nga being one of those practical, capable, state and local leaders who i think inspires our whole country. thank you, jack, to what you've done and thank you for being so active and engaged today. and thank you for being a part of this important discussion which i view as the beginning of a very important debate about the future path of the democratic party. going into 2018 and 2020. we're here at a critical moment. less than four months from an election that will have a lasting impact on our party and our country moving forward. you only have to look at our president's supreme court pick or his tariff trade war with some of our closest allies or his truly disconcerting at the nato summit and in advance of his upcoming meeting with putin. to recognize how big the stakes are. not just for us as a party. but for all of us as citizens and for our country. we've heard some predictions of a blue wave and congresswoman

sharon wistos and i were looking at a list of compelling candidates, it seems to me there's far too many in our party sitting on their hands, waiting for it to watch over us or engage in a relentless race to the left to make more and more outrageous proposals, rather than showing if we get the keys, we are serious and capable of governing again. this moment demands leadership, it demands vision from folks in this room and i think that starts by having an honest conversation about where the democratic party is. because the reality is after the 2016 election, we spent far too much time shocked and acting and pretending as though our party is not in the weakest place it's been electorally since the 1920s. and if we're not honest with ourselves about how we got there, then we will not have a clear-eyed vision for how to stop donald trump, regain our majorities and put the country on a better path. many of us find the president's conduct alarming, or

disconcerting or reprehensible and know his policies are doing lasting damage to working families, more than 40% of voters across the country on average and a working majority in some of those key midwestern states we need to learn how to win back, whether it's michigan or wisconsin, ohio, or pennsylvania, approve of what he's doing. so we've got to take a step back. face the fact that democrats are at historic low in representations in state houses and here in congress and in local governments all across the country. recognize those local leaders, those mayors, county executives, i have to mention county executives, those governors, those folks who are successfully leading innovative and effective government. and then ask how we can start winning again. i would argue one of the biggest reasons we're at this low point has nothing to do with policy. because frankly if you just talk about what has been long established mainstream democratic policy on health care, taxes, energy, the

environment, the general public agrees with us. but we're not breaking through. because they're not hearing us. whether we like it or not, millions of americans, including those we are most trying to win over to trust us again view our party as condescending. detached. they see us as dismissive of the lives, affections and traditions of middle america, including their faith traditions, i've heard from far too many that they see the democratic party as literally soulless and judgmental. so lou to we remake our party? in a way that builds on policies we know, we believe will make the country stronger and improve americans' lives, but also communicate that we're not just offering a few cooked up in washington, although very compelling policy papers. we're actually going to listen to them. going to hear what they care about, enginely concerns them and we're going to fight for them and offer real solutions. how we do that involves remaking

the image of our party. i think that shows some of the fault line between folks who have run and are running again for president. folks on the left end of our party who want to take us in a different direction and folks who are in this room. that's why this conversation, which is beginning here and will continue and must continue through the fall is so important. because we are in the middle of a very serious debate. about what it is that the democratic party is going to stand for. not just this fall, but in 2020, and going forward. so first of all, even if we may disagree with them, some of us, let's give the far left of our party real credit for doing something we're not doing. for reaching out and truly tapping into the deep, motivating passions and political energy in this country. passionate moderate is not a sensible phrase. and one of our challenges is folks who represent a more centrist and moderate position in our party is to recognize that all energy and passion isn't on the left, but that's where most of the engagement is currently happening if you look

at our policy platform and ideas, the things we fought for in our lives, we're also committed to creating a more equal, more just, more inclusive, more progressive if i might, america where everyone can succeed. pu there's a big difference in tone. we're in a country today where millions of people are angry or upset. they feel like washington has no sense of their lives, they're looking for bold and unconventional leaders willing to tell them something different, new, something, at least in 2016, anything that shake up the status quo and might have some chance of improving their lives. look back on some of the things that president trump successfully ran on. more jobs, better jobs. how? just because he said so. cheaper better health care for everyone. how? really just because he said so. our country somehow without criminals or crime because -- all we really need is a wall. and mexico is going to pay for it. mine, these were wild-eyed proposals. a brand of populism that was a

mix of reassurance, nativism and grievance, a disjointed wish list from imposing tariffs which somehow he claimed would solve trade imbalances, to enacting a muslim ban which he said would make us safer. we've seen that all of this isn't true and most of it is undeliverable. that these ideas are actually harming our competitiveness, our country, our standing in the world and ultimate america's families in the long run. but trump was willing to be bold and to tap in to real fears and concerns and succeed in convincing millions of americans that he had an answer for them. that spoke to where they were and that they understood that makes it all the more important that our party roots its policies and messages in facts, in long-held principles that we actually believe in and we can fight for and that we know to be true. the democratic party has to offer up bold ideas that will work. and that we can deliver on.

and will you've done an amazing job at gipping that process, of laying out a menu that is substantive, that is thoughtful and that is bold. some members are easy. proposing ideas that sound great in a tweet. free college, free health care. why? just because we say so. if that's not enough. guaranteed jobs from the federal government for everyone. because we say so. that doesn't feel like the democratic party. that has stood up and fought for, and provided real solutions to working families for decades. does it appeal to the people we need to join using? does it convince anyone? especially those deeply skeptical of us that we can be the responsible governing party? i would argue it does exactly the opposite. if as i said we want to move from a party in the minority, committed to resistance, to a party that regains the majority and is capable of governance, we

have to act like it. i understand the strategy of racing farther and farther left in a 24/7 talking heads social media chaos, controversial, combative world, pie in the sky policies and extreme rhetoric. stand out. they stick. they get you more followers and likes and tweets. that doesn't make this responsible. it doesn't make that rhetoric a good thing for our country or our party. i'm going to give you a quick look back at the end of the 2016 election just to make the point. what was our strategy in the last closing six weeks of the 2016 campaign? the democratic message as best as i could discern was essentially, look at this guy. he's crazy. he's unfit. he's unstable. look at how crazy he is. but running against trump and adopting his tone and his style, simply won't win. i have a little experience with this. back in 2010, as many of you

remember, i got into the race to run against state and stable, responsible and centrist former governor congressman mike castle. and spent six months in an uphill race against a very well-known, well-funded, respected candidate. in a shocker in mid september. he lost to a fringe unknown candidate named christine o'donnell. lucky me. a fringe tea party candidate who almost no one saw coming. two weeks later after the prifl i was on a naturally televised debate. unexpectedly and in the run up to that debate. lots of folks advised me, all you have to do to win is just point out how nuts she is. but my mother and the former vice president both gave me the same advice. she said respect your voighters. an election is a job interview

and no one ever got hired by spending their entire job interview by saying look at how crazy she is. look how inkpedant and imbalanced he is. you only get hired by saying why you deserve the job and what you're going to do if hired. trust that your voters know who's competent. at the end of the day, we're going to have to face the fact that simply running against someone, or offering impractical pie in the sky solutions won't work. we need to stand for something that americans can believe in, can hold on to, and will get them to come out and engage and vote. the next two years is just a race to offer increasingly unrealistic proposals to rally just those who are already with us, our strongest supporters. it will be difficult for us to make a credible case, we should be allowed to govern again and easier and easier to mock and marginalize us as ungrounded. if we want to win in red states, we have to show up, listen to people, make the case for a

democratic party that's about more than resistance and racing to the left. that involves better policies, which is why new democracy's work is so important. we have to offer bold proposals to real challenges. like college affordability. like prescription drug costs, like individual savings and wealth building. health insurance rates. we have to be pro worker and provide employee, we have to show there's a difference between being radical and being bold. we can be bold, by saying we can make health care affordable. without having to say we'll make it free. we can be bold by saying we will fix our disastrous immigration policies without saying we're going to abolish i.c.e., we can be bold by saying we can protect our environment without attacking the very energy industries millions of american families rely on for a paycheck and manufacturing relies on for lower-cost inputs. and guess what, we can be bold by also saying we are willing to work with responsible

republicans to get all of that done. i've worked even in this divided senate, across the aisle with bipartisan republicans to get bills passed, to strengthen our economy as governor markell mentioned. to strengthen manufacturing and r&d and strengthen intellectual property and strengthen our competitiveness. i'm not suggesting anyone run on strengthening patents, i do think in a knowing what we're talking about and having a proposal for how to bring back manufacturing in those empty and vacant sites, to those thousands of folks whose families lives were jarred and disjointed by the closure of the chrysler plant is a key piece of our having a credible path forward. that's how we're going to make real progress and that's why it's so important that new democracy has laid out this compelling platform. the planks that were released yesterday. a great starting point for focusing on policy ideas that really matter. from harnessing american prosperity to keeping markets open and economy growing to

encouraging a new wave of manufacturing start-ups around the country, even in rural communities and modernizing our immigration laws. one of the key planks is also to stop insulting our closest allies and recommit ourselves to that global, liberal, rules-based order in organizations like nato. i hope the message you'll take from today is that we don't have to be radical to be inspiring. the american people want to support and be part of a party that welcomes them that hears them. where no one judges them. where they are respected but where they are also inspired about i our optimism. by our belief in the solutions we can put forward. this is the time to listen. to lead to put real ideas forward that are rooted in principles and facts, and that show the american people at a time of anxiety that we are optimists and that we are up to the task. thank you and thanks for a chance to be with you.

spin i thank you very much senator. >> thank you very much, senator coons. i can't imagine a crisper and more inspiring statement of what we're about here at new democracy and to marching orders that was just terrific. i'm glad you read the planks. thank you very much. that does set the table for our discussions today. in a very vivid way. we are running a little behind. so we're moving right along. thanks again, to governor markell. delaware is destiny. if we do our job, every state in the country will be like delaware with democratic senators and legislature. so now we're going to turn before we get into the planks and into the ideas in a deep way, we want to talk about the political challenge. which is very much a geographical challenge. when you look at the map it comes through. in the last 0 years we've seen

our party lose ground in the midwest. in the last 10 years and as a result lose control of congress, lose the white house and lose control of those state legislatures. it's essential for us to think how we reverse that slide in the critical battleground region. we have several folks, wonderful group to talk about that. with congresswoman sherry bustos. with former secretary of agriculture, tom vilsack. with my friend harrison hick, my great democratic strategist and pollster and our colleague, paul bledsoe, we're going to talk about aspects of this challenge. without further ado, i want to say one other thing -- about congresswoman bustos, a rising star in the house she represents the illinois 17th, which is one of the 11 districts that trump won in 2016. held by democrats, right on ground zero. but you know, the parties asked her to look into the attitudes

of democrats and voters in general in the midwest and she orchestrated this wonderful report "from the heartland." it's a focus of elected democrats out there. who were struggling to win in competitive terrain and are succeeding and they have a lot to teach the party. so with that, congresswoman bustos, over to you. >> are we sitting at our place here? are you good with that, everybody? just one correction, will, the party didn't ask me to put that report together, i put that report together and i'll tell you why. let me tell you a little about who who's sitting here if front of you. you represent a district in downstate illinois. and with that means is i am not from chicago. in the state of illinois, we have 102 counties and only one of them is cook. and we have 18 members of our dell compensation, 11 of whom are democrats. all of those democratic members

of congress are from chicagoland. except for me. all right so if you can picture the state of illinois it's pretty big. and it's just the entire northwest corner which i represent. the rest of it, i'm surrounded by republican members of congress. i represent 7,000 square miles, 14 counties, most of them are rural and some cases, donald trump for instance in henderson county, illinois, which is on the mississippi river, across from burlington, iowa. i he think you know a little bit about burlington, secretary vilsack. the entire population of just that county is only 6,000 people. and what we had seen happen, is that democrats were writing off places like that. in fact, in henderson county, donald trump won it by almost 30 points. but i still won it i won all 14 of the counties, this last election cycle. we saw an 18-point swing from

what president obama won in 2012, to what president trump won by in 2016. and 18-point swing. i ended up winning our entire congressional district by about 20 points. one in five voters who went to the polls went for donald trump and voted for me. what ended up happening is is some of my colleagues turned to mow and said how in the heck, you're one of a dozen democrats as will said serving who were elected in a district that donald trump won. what, how did you do this? i think as a result of that my colleagues elected me to be one of the co-chairs of policy and communications among the democratic caucus. the only reason i bring that up in this setting is that when you look at the leadership table, the democratic caucus and the u.s. house of representatives, there is one midwesterner. everybody else is coastal. there's one midwesterner.

there's one person who comes from a rural district. almost entirely rural district. and there is, one person who comes from a district that donald trump won. and what i so appreciate about the democratic caucus is that we value diversity of every sort. except for the kind of diversity i just mentioned. this geographic diversity. this approach to politics that it's ol okay to work across the aisle. it's okay to make sure that we're focusing every single day, relentlessly on these bread and butter issues that people back home talk about. when donald trump made that statement toward the end of the campaign and it was actually directed toward an african-american audience. when you remember it, he said what have you got to lose? people in a district like mine -- i can tell you that resonated with them. because just like chris coons

was talking about, just like the governor was talking about, we've had more than our fair share of plants like maytag, send every last one of its jobs out of the its galesberg, illinois plant to mexico. a company like sensatda, bought out by bayne capital send their companies to china. and companies that make dishwasher parts send their jobs to mexico. the average family income for a family of four in the congressional district i serve is $45,000. what do we do as democrats? well first of all, i think actually if you listen to senator coons, it's really, i think he nailed it you show up. you use these two things and this proportionately and i think it's something that a lot of politicians have a hard time doing. for me, i can tell you it's much more natural to listen more than

i talk. and it's because for most of my career i was a newspaper reporter. that's what i did for 17 years. and you know -- i don't know if we have next i guess we have reporters in the room, but y'all know, any good reporter, you ask questions, you ask good follow-up questions and then you listen. the reason i did this report "hope from the heartland." if you google that, google "hope from the heartland." it's a 52-page report. if you don't want to read the whole thing. read the executive summary and we have break-outs of all eight mst midwestern states and the seats that we've lost throughout the country, most are in the midwest. when you add up the governors' seats, the state legislatures and congressional seats, we've lost 1,000 seats.

so i wanted to find out who was doing it right. so we talked to 72 democrats from these eight states. more of the local level, schaeff sheriffs, county office holders, i call them survivors, people who have been able to navigate this in tough, swing districts, just ask what did they do to be successful? so the secrets to their success, which are really no secrets at all. are spelled out in this report. we narrowed it down to four and i'm going to give you the essence of those. our democratic brand, i think will you talked about this in your introduction, we've got a brand issue. and we can all play a part in improving that. it's difficult. that is something that we work on together. to prove the brand of our democratic party.

focus relentlessly on jobs and the economy. and that means there are so many issues that divide us in our country. you know what they are. i don't ever go to a room and start with the issues that would divide. and you know, if somebody asks you the question about some of the, these divisive issues, as a member of congress, i answer them honestly and try to get back to the topic that people i know care about. senator coons spoke about reconnecting with voters, showing up, listening and it's then using what we learn from people to help guide our policies and making sure that they do reflect on what people back home want us to focus on. it think secretary vilsack can talk about this. probably belter than almost anybody i know. when he ran for governor, he ran the most unique campaign in the state of iowa. my neighboring state.

but it is adapting our campaigns in some cases in a district like mine to a rural area. in the case of secretary vilsack, to a rural state. and basically, when you go out door-knocking in your field organization if you're in a republican household and you've got your little packet when you're door-knocking they will notice if you walk right past their house. and you know, these are sometimes they are gettable voters and we can't just act like if it's in a rural county or if they have voted republican in the past, that you just forget these people. and so it is adapting these campaigns. it might be doing rural radio. it might be doing small newspaper ads, i can tell you as a congressional candidate most people don't do rural radio. most people don't do newspaper ads any more. and it's even considering some things like that.

in closing, before i turn it over. i think secretary vilsack is speak next, but we have a wonderful opportunity this november. it is the best crop of candidates in these tough swing districts, that i have ever seen in my political career. we've got people who fit their districts like a glove. and that is the secret, candidates do matter. how they -- run their campaigns obviously matter. they're showing up and listening matters. but the caliber of candidates really do matter. secretary vilsack and i were talking earlier. we've got a candidate who is running in eastern iowa. right across the mississippi river from my congressional district. come from a blue collar family. she is 28 years old and until the race in new york just a couple of weeks ago, she would be the youngest woman ever elected to the u.s. house of

representatives, she's 28 years old. and just a remarkable candidate. i'm very, very excited about her. another person i want to call out that i think is one, running one of the most unique campaigns, a woman named melissa slotkin. she's running in michigan, a former c.i.a. officer, served three tours in iraq. never has run for anything in her life. and she made this decision because she was so motivated by the direction that our country is going. she decided to run. last winter, michigan winters aren't exactly mild. she's already got her field operation up and running last winter. she's got her people out knocking on the door she calls it snow boots on the ground. uniquely, instead of knocking

doors, getting literature and handing it to whoever answers, her people were asking those answering the doors what's on your mind? what do you want from your congresswoman? or your congressman? what do you want to see happen in washington. down to a precinct level, alyssa slotkin's campaign knows what those people care about and can adjust what she's talking about. she realized that pot holes in the state of michigan, in her congressional district are big deal. when i went up to campaign for her, just a few weeks ago, she has one of those go-pros in the window of the, of her car and she's driving and i'm in her passenger seat, and where she's talking about how bad the roads are in michigan. and she starts naming these potholes, because they are so brutal. and she named one alcatraz, because you could get in, but you couldn't get out. but she is running this hyperlocal campaign. as a congressional candidate.

and that is my advice to people running. you know the old tip o'neill saying all politics is local. we've got to remember that and run it like that again. so people like abby thinknauer and melissa slotkin and cindy axeny out of central iowa. these tremendous candidates, there are 70 swing districts in this country. democrats have to pick up 23 to win back the majority. we have 72 open house seats. so that will give you an idea right there. when a seat is open it will give you a better opportunity. among the folks running, 15 veteran who is are, in many cases just these some of the most phenomenal people. watch the amy mcgraph video. if you haven't already. she's out of kentucky or the richard ojetta video, out of west virginia. just amazing, you probably have

heard about mj hager, she's gotten a lot of publicity over her launch video. amazing, amazing veterans and human beings. they're among the 15 and then we have a record number of women, which i'm very, very proud to say, 27 women right now are the nominees in their party. we've got every opportunity to win back the house if we win it back and i think we can, how far are we going to let the pendulum swing? because right now it's in a bad place and if we let it go this way, to the point, will, that you made earlier, hanging on, because i don't want to win back the majority for one cycle. if we're going to make some real, lasting, meaningful big change in this country it's going to have to last more than two years. we're going to have to elect these people. we'll get some good things done. yesterday in the "new york times," this is the headline -- "the center is sexier than you

think." so let's offer the center being sexier than we think and on to victory. thank you very much. >> thanks very much. that was terrific. secretary vilsack, yes, you need to speak. >> that's good enough. >> for the angle, for our c-span audience. take it away. >> thank you. >> i got up this morning, didn't have breakfast so i'm a little bit irritable this morning. i'm going to get to the point. jack, were a great governor, congresswoman, you are a terrific representative for our party. i hope that you have the opportunity to be in leadership for a long time. and i hope you're in the majority. i'll get to my point. hey, you can't affect change unless you govern. you can't govern unless you win. and you can't win unless you

talk to rural voters. think about the four democratic presidents we've-h in the last 50 years. lyndon johnson. jimmy carter, raised in a small town. bill clinton, raised in a small town. barack obama, raised by a mom from a small town. >> they all understood and had in their dna a connection to rural america. so as a party we operated at our peril if we decide to ignore the 15% of america that lives in rural communities, 15% is the equivalent of our hispanic population, roughly equivalent to our african-american population. we would never, ever, or should we ever consider ignoring those populations. why do we ignore our rural populations? if you want to be president, if you want to be a kilborn, if you want to be a senator. if you want to be a state ledge slighter or a member of

congress, you've got to speak to rural folks. i've got four things i want to share with you this morning. one, to reinforce the show-up message. you can't just give lip service, you physically have to be there. you got to go to rural communities and spend some time there. barack obama spent days in iowa. you got to talk about rural folks. not talk down to them. our party has a tendency to talk down to folks. who are thesepeople? these people are the people that provide most of the food that we consume, every single person in this audience today is allowed to be someone who doesn't have to produce their own food. because you've delegated the responsibility of raising that food to several hundred thousand incredibly dedicated hard-working families. they're the people that control a good deal of the water we consume. most of the feedstock for the power that we all use.

comes from rural america. it's the place where folks from cities want to, when they want to get away from it all, where do they go? it'ses also a place that disproportionately sends their sons and daughters to the military. raise these kids with a value of service. and an importance of service. so talk them up. don't talk down. build them up. understand the emotion that occurs in small-town america. in my lifetime people who live in small town america, what have they seen? they've seen the manufacturing plant leave. they've seen the impact on their central business district as as it begins to get boarded up. they see the merger of their school system with the arch rival down the road. because they can't afford two small schools. they see the closinger the eor

elimination of health care services because they can't afford to take care of a doctor and his or her family. and then most of all, they see their sons and their daughters and their grandkids leave. understand the hollowing out that they've felt. and speak to it. speak to it. understand that our party is the party of hope, you know, whenever we talk about hope, we're always talking about the people that are at the bottom of the ladder, and encouraging them with our help and assistance to rise up that ladder. understand that many of the people in small towns have been at the top of the ladder. they've lost something, it's not about giving them home and opportunity for things they've never had before. which is a much easier sell sell than basically saying we're going to restore you.

when was trump's statement in we're going to make america great again. that's basically saying to the folks who have come down the ladder, we're going to put you back on top. how do we do that? well we have to have a plan. not a program, but a plan. and a plan that essentially says to all of those folks in rural america, we intend to be your partner. not that we have the solution, not that we have the answer, not that we're going to impose a government program in your home town. but we want to work with you, to rebuild this economy. we want to support production agriculture and understand the importance of exports, as democrats we talk more nuanced about trade. not all trade is bad. if you're a farmer, you depend on trade so when our party speaks of trade as if it were all bad, farmers who interpret that as they don't get my life. let's figure out a more nuanced way of talking about trade. recognizing some of the benefits

of trade. guaranteed with all the tariffs going on now we've got an interesting receptive audience if we develop that nuanced conversation. talk about local and regional food systems so you hold out the opportunity for the small producer to be able to develop their own market that isn't based on a commodity, isn't based on a global pricing system. that discourages smallness, that encourages bigness in technology. give those folks an opportunity to be entrepreneurial. and bring entrepreneurship back in small communities. talk about conservation, not just conservation in terms of better soil and cleaner water. all of which is great, but about the recreational opportunity that comes with better soil and cleaner water. and the opportunity to attract capital into those communities. into the construction companies that do the conservation through the development of ecosystem markets. the ability of companies and individuals to invest in conservation that satisfies the regulatory responsibility they

have or fulfill as social responsibility they believe they should have. and bring manufacturing back. bring it back in terms of plant-based, bio-based manufacturing. it is today a $39 0 billion industry. it employs four million people. most of those folks ought to be employed in small manufacturing facilities communities. develop programs and policies that encourage that type of economy. understand that we as, as democrats like to talk about innovation, we like to talk about new ideas and that's great. but what about the impact that those new ideas and innovations have on people who are now going to lose their job? we ought to have a strategy for a transition economy. that insures that when we have driverless cars, that the cap drivers and the ups drivers and the truck drivers are transitioned in a way that doesn't leave them frustrated and angry.

and finally, we need to understand that part of the frustration, part of the anxiety that's occurring today is that the pace of change is so rapid it has accelerated beyond our institutional our governments are too slow. it takes too long to do things. and we are now in a competition with our friends in china who are actually going suggest that is they have an alternative way of governing. if we don't reform our government systems, if we don't understand the need for quicker decision making, more streamlined processing we could lose that competition so i hope our party understands the importance of speaking to and about rural communities. i'm convinced if we do we can

have electoral success win state legislative races which allows us to reapportion congressional districts in a inclusive way, we can have a cadre of individuals primed to be the next governor of a state like jack or the next congresswoman like sherry or the next senator like chris. and then we would have a terrific opportunity to take back the white house with someone who can speak not just to a group of siloed populations but to all of america. i leave you with this -- as bad as the situation appears to be today, make no mistake about it. you can't beat something with nothing. and donald trump is something. you can't beat something with nothing and our party better understand the necessity of having a universal message. that's my message to all of you

today. [ applause ] >> thanks very much, tom vils k vilsack. what you heard was a pithy version of a tour deforce speech he gave at the heartland retreat with all the iowa democrats last october and with that kind of guidance we can reach these voters so thank you very much. i now want to bring in harrison hickman. as i mentioned, harrisson is one of the deans of the political strategy and polling fraternity in washington. he's also somebody who specializes in electing democrats in the red and has worked out in tough terrain. harrison and i worked together on the jim hunt campaign back in 1984 trying to get jesse helms out of the senate and now he'd be somewhere in the middle, a

moderate in today's republican party, at the time he was the dark prince of conservatism. harrison, take it away. >> thank you. i want to endorse almost everything i've heard this morning. i grew up in a small town like the secretary mentioned, in fact, it was so small we had drivers education and sex education in the same car. when you get to these grand candidates who i've worked for for almost 30 or 40 years, you have to get rid of the stereotype people have of their party or their type, whether it's a woman or banker or teacher or african-american or most importantly a democrat. you have to get through that stereotype before people can analyze who you are and what your qualities are. that one of the big challenges

we have today is there is a huge gap between the reality of democratic voters and the impression people have of democrats and i wanted to talk about that just a little bit. the confusion is between activists and voters on the one hand and among the activists and leaders there is the confusion between the people who are the most representative and the ones who are the loudest. and who in this case who are the most outrageous or most anti-trump. there's an assumption that that's what democrats are. there are a lot of reasons for this. it's not just because of fox news. i will say we do it a lot to ourselves but we've done some recent polling that i wanted to share with you and just randomly pick two states, iowa and new hampshire. and looked at people who will

participate in the nominating process in the iowa caucuses and in new hampshire and ask them some questions about the democratic party. we're talking about the people to democrats and we asked them would you like for the democratic party to be more liberal, to pursue -- to sort of take the traditional approaches of the democratic party or would you rather the democratic party focus on new ideas? among iowa caucuses voters and new hampshire primary voters about 30% think the party should either be more liberal or take the traditional democratic approaches and a majority in both states, 60% think the democratic party should focus on

new ideas and innovation regardless of ideology. it's a huge misunderstanding that democrats want the party to be more liberal. that's not true. or the go backwards. secondly we asked when you're looking for -- in terms of what you want in the next presidential candidate do you want somebody who will be a fighter for progressive ideas or someone who works in a bipartisan manner? it's almost 2-1 democratic nomination participants in these first two states want somebody who will work in a bipartisan manner to get things done as opposed to simply advance progressive causes. and also same thing -- type of thing, would you prefer a candidate for president who energizes liberal voters or somebody who appeals to middle-of-the-road voters. again, it's about 35 to 60, 60

prefer somebody who appeals to the middle-of-the-road voters. and so in a number of very fundamental ways i think people have a misimpression of the democratic party and a lot of that is -- we blame ourselves. on trade we gave people three choices not two choices. we asked them do you think trade has been harmful, foreign trade deals like nafta and so forth have been harm to feel the country, have been beneficial to the country or have been beneficial but not enough has been done to people who've been hurt? and overwhelmingly more than half the voters in both states think trade has been beneficial but we haven't done enough to

help people who have been hurt and i think the pbipolarity of the arguments we have within our party and the republicans hurt us because many times it's that but that makes a difference. people ask me what it is i do for a living, i tell them i'm a pollster. that doesn't mean refinishing chairs and sofas and i explain there's no regulation in this business, it's one any fool can get into and a lot have and i hope i've proved in these few minutes that i'm not one of those. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, those are fascinating data points and they illuminate a perception gap that is enormous in washington between -- when it comes to defining the base of the democratic party. in washington you get the sense

that it's progressive activist groups and interest groups in the party and the supposition is that they're driving hard to the left but you've described a rank-and-file that have different views. i want to bring in paul blitz. paul is the author of this really important report for new democracy, how democrats make energy and climate change winning campaign issues. it's argued we fumble the politics for a long time but there is abopportunity to stop doing that if we can get this right so, paul, over to you. >> in the spirit of senator coons and senator martell i want

to have an honest conversation and ask a question. how did america elect a president who denies climate change science and thinks coal is the future? how did that happen? i think it happened because the democratic party does not have a serious brand around the inkr l incredible advanced energy boom that's been the brightest spot in the american economy in ten years. i don't know why our nominee, secretary clinton, did not, for example, embrace shale gas in those midwestern swing states and contrast that incredibly positive economic and environmental story that has helped us reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12% under president obama with donald trump's coal dust memories we have to recognize for most emergencies energy season s an economic

issue whether it is those who produce shale oil and gas in rural districts around the country or those who benefit from the lower prices that these commodities have given us. under president obama oil production in the united states grew 74%. the largest growth in our history. that was incredibly important for our economy. it lowered the price of oil globally by half. it also reduced our imports of oil from 60% to 30%. what a bright spot. what an incredible success. i didn't hear that during the campaign. let's look at shale gas. under president obama shale gas growth was 34%. again, an incredible benefit to rate payers, to businesses lowering the cost of electricity throughout the united states.

didn't really seem to come up during the campaign. i think we have to embrace this incredible energy revolution, shale oil and gas are part of it but a lot has to do with oh things that democrats have been in the lead on. this includes renewable energy but also energy efficiency, energy storage, carbon capture. a range of technologies that are transforming america into i believe the world's superpower on energy. in fact, it is democratic policies largely through research and development in our national laboratory which is we have championed for decades which has led to all these advances yet we don't seem to embrace it. i worked on climate change for 25 years. i deeply care about climate change. i think it's one of the most important issues facing a country in the world. but until we start talking about

energy in economic terms first and in security terms second we don't get a hearing on climate change third. let me tell you, climate change is going to cost us a bundle, it already is. the storms and other related natural disasters that were exacerbated by climate change in 2017 alone cost federal taxpayers $130 billion. the total costs are over $300 billion and almost 400 lives lost and that does not include the puerto rico lives lost which our harvard study estimated at almost 5,000 people. these really life-and-death issues but so is the provision of affordable energy to people who are living paycheck to

payche paycheck. we are the party that has solutions on energy and climate change. we can have energy abundance and climate protection together. we know how to do this. under barack obama we had four million new energy-related jobs in the united states while we reduced greenhouse gas emissions 12%. we know how to do this, we have the technology. in fact, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% i would say mid-century i believe we have the technologies right now to do that. that vision would include keeping our nuclear fleet, which is more than 60% of zero emissions, electricity today. it would involve using natural gas but capturing the carbon and using it to create brand new products. it will involve storing electricity where new technologies are allowing to do this and it would involve growing our incredible solar and

wind resources. by the way the cost have gone down 70% in the last decade. we have the technology to be a global leader but we have to talk about it in the way most americans understand it if we want to exand in now we have to become the party of economics for average people and energy, i think, is one of the points of the sphere exin this process. thank you. >> thanks very much, paul. that's a tremendously important message. in the great primary battle of 2016 we almost had a democratic platform that banned fracking, reflecting this kind of demand coming from certain parts of the environmental world that we keep this amazing shale resource in

the ground. a demand that might make sense if we thought that this was in some way aggravating our climate challenge but it -- as paul points outs it's the opposite. it helps create an emergency mix that gets our carbon emissions do down. this is a jobs issue. this is a middle-class production jobs of the kind everybody wants. we've got just a few minutes left here. i want to throw things open to the wider panel here and to our audience, folks who may have a question or comment that that they would like to add. and that includes you, governor, if you want to jump into this but i want to get off to harrison hickman. your polling of the voters that matter in the early days is so

fascinating what is the top issue? what's top of mind for the voters in iowa and new hampshire when you talk to them. >> the big thing democrats want to do is stop the damage that trump is causing. it's sort of job one is stopping trump. the second thing that they are interested in is how to build a meaningful community. people think very much in terms of -- people are not nearly as selfish as either national party acts like they are. people tend to think in sociotropic tomorrows. they tend to think about the broader community and they want to build a better education system, a better health care

system and a better economy. one thing that unifies the democrats is the sense we're falling behind in terms of the ability to provide for our families and our communities. >> i have a tough question for folks, including tom vilsack, but he's gone. you know, we've talked a lot about economics and people falling down the economic ladder and those who have suffered downward mobility. that's an important challenge for all of us, particularly those of us who want a more aspirational and optimistic economic message. but to what extent is -- you know, is the heartland reaction against democrats doing to cultural concerns and to what

extent is it driven by economic concerns is a huge question her here. >> i think the big challenge is people don't really hear what we're proposing in a lot of these areas because they get turned off by the national image of democrats it's hard for democratic candidates to be heard. we worked on the independent expenditure campaign that that helped doug jones in alabama. i can tell you i have no doubt democrats will defeat every sexual predator we run against. it's hard to get heard as a democrat in alabama, for people to take your ideas seriously.

there's such a negative stereotype so bob squire who many of you probably remember told me the best thing you can have in politics is a fool for an opponent. we have the biggest one ever this time so it's how democrats can offer an alternative that will matter most. people will have a thousand reasons to be against donald trump. the question will be do they think the democrat can provide a positive alternative. >> in response i was listening to paul's comments on energy and i thought that was fascinating and since i was an economist, i'm at s&p global, the u.s.

chief economist and as an economist we write about that a lot and one of the things that it's interesting to weigh what paul talked about and also the other congress folks here was that thinking about the party of economics for the average person including energy so what we have looked at in terms of the economic aspects of energy was that one is that for a dollar increase in a gallon of gas the hit to consumer spending and the economy would be severe. it would shave 25 basis points off of growth if it lasted for a year. we have to look at it a different way and i think it ties to when we think about the geographic -- geography of the maps in the u.s.

it will hurt at the gas pump but we have to recognize the u.s. is the largest energy producer in the world. we've surpassed saudi arabia i believe. it also creates jobs in middle americ america. >> thank you, i wanted to make two quick comments. efficiency standards have improved the pocketbooks of americans without them realizing it. so the fuel economy that you're dealing with is triple because they are likely to rise almost trump again. >> even though the auto

companies don't want them to, that amounts to a tax on the american people. we need to begin to talk about these issues in economic terms. rolling back fuel economy standards will make gasoline cost more. rolling back other efficiency standards is going to make electricity cost more. so before talking about climate we need to talk about it in terms of pocketbook kitchen table economics. >> this could be a great conversation, but my job is to be the mussolini of new democracy and make the trains run ron time so we've hit the end of the session. we have mayor landrieu and we want to hear from him next by way of brief intro dooux. we don't do big introduction because we have a lot of folks

but we're pleased and proud to have mayor landrieu join us and mayor james came in so it's a good time for me to advertise one of the planks in the planks for our new democratic platform which calls for democrats t s s local. think not about how to decentralize power in washington but how to move more power and resources to mayors. the mayors are the stars of our federal system these days. they are the ones turning in a record of innovation, rebuilding our economy, reviewing our social fabric from the ground up. we went to new orleans to talk about the remarkable change in the economic picture there and accelerated pace of recovery from katrina and the big school story which we'll talk about at noon but both of these mayors are the forefront of that revolution but i want to say by way of a short introduction to mayor landrieu, he left office,

two fabulous terms in new orleans and toward the end gave a marvelous speech which you've probably heard has gone viral about the confederate monument controversy down there and that is the topic of his new book "in the shadow of statues, a white southerner looks at history." it's quite eloquent. >> i'm niche louisiana, we know a lot about swamps so i feel very comfortable. my big sister is in the back senator mary landrieu. say hey. mayor, nice to see you, thank

y'all seating me next to him, another good looking ball headed man. we're working hard to take our rightful place in america and we haven't been given our due yet but we'll get there. i don't know why y'all asked me to come talk to you. for eight years i've been trying to find ways not to cut the grass or walk the dog. i was able to talk to you about some of the issues facing the country. i don't pretend to speak for the national democratic party or the state democratic party, i'm only standing here to give you some maybe sense and perspective on how for the last eight years and six years before that as lieutenant governor we were able to get some things done in the state and in the city sometimes with the help of washington, d.c. and in most times without the help of washington, d.c. and to the issue that will spoke about earlier about how to

really find best examples and david this is your phrase, laboratories of democracy and change in cities as well. i want to begin by making what ought to be simply understood by people. you can't govern if you can't win elections. because you don't have the power to do it and you can't win elections if one extreme is responding to the other extreme. and if you did win the election and you are able to govern or you had the power to you wouldn't be able to get anything done if you couldn't find common sense solutions to problems. that's why the people of america are ticked off because nothing seems to be working or seems to be moving. now i'm not an expert in congress. i don't think many people are, quite frankly. but i would venture to say the public doesn't understand how congress does not work i would bet you that if on monday

speaker ryan put an immigration bill on the floor of the house and suspended the hastert rule and let 435 duly elected members have an all out debate with everybody offering amendments, by the end of the week the will of the american people would be done and we would have comprehensive immigration reform. i think if he did the next week infrastructure we'd come up with an infrastructure package, too. right now because of institutional rules the american people don't get what they're entitled to which is a full, open debate amongst their legislators. now cities don't work that way. and states don't work that way. james can tell you that we don't have the luxury of actually talking about things for too long and there's a specific reason for it. the incentive is to talk less and do more and the reason that incentive is real is because we live in the communities where we work and the decisions that we

make as mayors in partnerships with our city council and state legislators hit the ground right away and if we didn't get our jobs done, the lights wouldn't go on, the water wouldn't run, the police wouldn't show up and you would get thrown out of office in a heart beat so the incentives that exist in washington, d.c. right now seem to be upside down and that's why washington, d.c. is really frustrating the rest of the country. that's message part one. message part two is we live in different worlds. if the reflection on cnn and fox and msnbc are accurate about the way washington thinks about itself and how divided everybody seems to be into red and blue and urban and rural then we live in different worlds because in the cities that we govern, that's not our experience. that's not our experience that people are running to the edges

and not talking to each other. going into restaurants, this group is sitting over here, this group is sitting over there. in the world we live in, there are people who are seeking and finding common ground. one can't get anything done without the other. without being too simplistic about this, you know this to be true. you will find what you seek if you seek common ground, if you want a solution to the problem, if the incentive is to make something work as opposed to when or be the leader or do whatever folks do that is what will happen. right now i happen to believe the president is taking the country in the wrong direction. he's not the cause of this although he's exacerbating it but he's a symptom of this notion that if we stay divided we'll be better.

if you win i have to lose. that's not our experience. if everybody is at the table we all win and the reason is simple. none of us have everything we need to get anything done and you actually have to reach out to other people and so as a mayor when i listen to the washington, d.c. theory of life you have to be antibusiness if you're a democrat or you have to be anti-energy and then i listen to the other side to say when he will you want to win you have to be all for it. in new orleans that doesn't make sense to us because the thing that helped us rebuild new orleans besides the gratitude of the people of this country and federal investments was making sure everybody was at the table talking about ways that that i

can take responsibility but realize opportunity. and the second was there is no ideological bent to what we're going to do although we want to be informed by good values and common sense. the order of the day was find an answer to that problem. in new orleans we had to find a new way to educate our children and the debate wasn't about should we be pro-union or anti-union the answer was what is the best model so kids can learn and what is the answer that surrounds that given the circumstances we're in. in new orleans dealing with the criminal justice system, the issue wasn't soft or hard on crime, it was how to keep the

community safe and can you be tough and smart at the same time? isn't it wise to make sure people in jail for minor offenses that are costing you $30,000 a year, wouldn't it be better if you found a pathway back into the city and had a retraining? how do you break down the barriers to make that happen? if mayors were left to deal with immigration reform. mayor, you can contradict this if you want but if you gave us the job of coming up with a package of immigration reform that 60%, 65% out of the country would support based on the polling data i think we could put republican mayors and democrats in a room and within a fairly short period of time come up with a solution that if poll tested 65% of the people people would support.

you have to be tough and smart at the same time. in the city of new orleans -- and this is true in the mayor's city and los angeles and chicago and okc, it's true in mesa, arizona that there are leaders being creative and innovative trying to find new ways to solve old problems. if you view the world through that prism and you think about the things that matter, yeah safety and security matter, education matters. we're dealing with technology. we're dealing with automation and how we have to redesign our cities to be able to receive what's coming our way in terms of vehicles that won't have drivers in them and so those are the things we're thinking about as we go forward and the only way we can be successful is to reach out to people who think

differently from us and ask them to be involved in it. and because we don't have enough resources to make sure everybody is putting into the pot. you can't beat somebody with nobody and you can't bet a message with no message at all and i'm here to testify to what i have seen as the secret sauce for success across america in the cities and that is strong leaders not only in the government sector but the not for profit sector bifing everybody room, big tent, everybody has a place at the table, nobody gets excommunicated because they're not pure on ideology. everybody is invited in and figure out what the problem is and lock the doors because we're not leaving until we figure out what the answer is. no more going on vacation and

getting paid if the lights aren't coming on. i'm seeing my wonderful friend david who worked with me when i was lieutenant governor and as mayors thinking about new ways to innovate in government. even for those of us that believe in government -- and i do. i believe government has an important active role to play and all things being considered, mayors would prefer the federal government to be involved in their lives appropriately. if the federal government isn't going to show up we need them to get out of the way so we can do our work but we prowled prefer for there to be a robust relationship with horse alt and vertical integration to solve problems that need to be solved and that's true whether you're talking about agriculture or housing or whatever. but we want them to move on the side so you can get stuff done. government has to work well. it has to be efficient and

effective. you have to cut out waste and fraud and abuse. you have to reduce regulations that don't make any sense and this are obsolete and make sure you keep the ones that protect the health and safety of the country. no major would ever say that i people against reducing regulation without thinking really hard about what that means. when i became mayor of the city of new orleans i inhearded a city on the verge of bankruptcy. i could have taken the city into bankruptcy. i was advised not to. it was great advice. they said it's easy to get in and hard to get out. that resonated with me. i cut 22% hard dollars, bone and mull and marrow out of our government. think about that number on the federal level. i'm not sure there's ever been a cut that approximate add real

cut and people said you're a democrat you believe in government and i said but i also believe in balanced budgets i also had a big fights with unions about our firefighters pension fund that was going to bankrupt the city of new orleans after we got out of this particular thing. people would say you're a democratic mayor, why are you fighting with the union, i said i'm the chief executive that represents everybody and i have to have the best interest of the city and if the city isn't financially sound the next mayor or city council won't have the opportunity to make choices between good options and better option options. i think democrats have lost the reputation of people that think about the public's pocketbooks. people want to feel safe like they have an opportunity for prosperity. they want to make sure that they're not going to get hurt and at the same time they are

way open to the issues that the democratic push -- democratic party pushes on social issues. they know intuitively that a country that discriminates against people based on race, creed, color, sexual orientation and country of origin is not who we are. not all of the people that follow donald trump go into the category of being racist. the people in the middle want to know that not withstanding the fact that they don't like that that also we understand pocketbook issues and that we see them. they don't think we see them. and in some instances some candidates actually don't go to see them. m mary landrieu won four terms in the united states senate. she went to every parish in the state even ones we knew were going to show up 70% one way,

30% one way. i went to every perish and the calculation is not to don't go there because you're going to lose the parish, the calculation is if you go there you might get 35%. if you don't, you'll get 20%. that 15% differential across the entire state is the difference between 50% plus one and losing 49% plus a little bit. i think we forget from time to time in the politics of it that there are people that live all over the place, all are different, all have an opinion and a view and they want to be seen and heard and one of the lessons of the last election and many, many years before which i'm not sure we understand so we should be humble about it is that people not withstanding the fact that we are military secure and in a better place that we've been in a long time although we have contagions across the world, even though the stock market is as high as it's been and unemployment is as low as it

is people are feeling alienated from each other and there are grievances that exist and the african-american community and white community and everywhere in between. and our challenge is to make people feel included. . you have to recognize that irrespective of their educational attainment they are really smart. there are good folks that never went to high school that have great common sense that will outjudge those of us in this room that went to ivy league schools and that sense of entitlement permeates them to the ground so without trying to give a dissertation about how to get elected, i can tell you i think president clinton was correct. addition is better than subtraction and multiplication is better than division. if you don't ask them, they'll tell you know. we also have to win by not being

extreme. i would resist the urge for the democratic party to hilt heavily to the left. i think this is a center country, sometimes it's center right, sometimes it's center left, sometimes we lose our mind and have a moment which is what i think we're having now and i think that we have to recognize that we're in a dangerous and dark place and rise that president trump while he may be contributing mightily to this is a symptom as much as he is a cause and we have to ask ourselves how we got into a place where we made the decision we made and people made that because they were hurting and they never had another way out. whether they make the same choice again is up in the air at this particular point in time. i can only tell you that his view of america is dystopian and dark and not correct. it's not the one that i experience everyday as mayor of the city of new orleans and lieutenant governor. the people of louisiana are wonderful. they show up at fourth of july

ceremonies together. they go to church together. when we have festivals in the city of new orleans, sometimes 500,000 people strong, there are white people, black people, straight people, the lgbt community is there and everybody is enjoying themselves and when the fireworks go off everybody is hugging and kissing so you know americans are brought around common ground. they're given an opportunity to be noble, the better angels among us will ascend. that's what will happen but you have to invite them in and recognize they're there and remind them that on the ground great things are getting done that will prove the educational students for the kids, give them greater economic prosperity. fix the run-of-the-mill problems that plague their lives everyday and make them feel safe and security and at the end of the day if they feel like they have an investment to make an opportunity and you ask them to assume some responsibility, more often than not they show up as

has always been done in the history of the country so i agree with you, will, that you will find an answer to a lot of the nation's problems in the cities and towns run by strong leaders who know how to bring people together and find common ground and that's the prescription for our future. thank you for having me. good luck to you. [ applause ] >> thanks very much, mayor landrieu, that was terrific. we'll move along to our -- start drilling down on the economic question. how can this party really command the heights of the bread and butter issues and speak to people in the midwest and elsewhere in the red and purple places. we can't think of a better foreign kick off this conversation than congressman tim ryan from youngstown, northeastern, ohio, the ground

center in the story of industrial job loss and in the story of working class voters shifting from voting from democratic to this president and i think he's really thinking hard and trying to get our party to think harder about how to be the party of jobs and progress and aspiration and hope again and not just the party of class resentment and telling people that there is nothing they can do because the economy is rigged against them so without further ado, congressman ryan, over to you, thanks for doing this. >> thank you so much. thanks so much and i know the mayor left but i wanted to thank him for his comments and thank him for his leader shship in particular on the issue of race and gave one of the best speeches in the last few years on that issue so i wanted to thank him for that.

we can't solve any of these problems unless we fully understand where we were, where we are and where we want to go. as will said, i represent a district in northeast ohio that includes youngstown and i grew up just outside and we have a day that we remember in our community, september 19, 1977. we refer to that monday as black monday. that was the day u.s. sheet and tube immediately closed down their operations, 5,000 jobs immediately went away, over the course of the next few years it was 40,000 manufacturing jobs, $400 million in economic investment that went away and it hollowed out our community. and we remember these stories

and when i talk to my mother-in-law about this story and about this particular day i remember bringing it up to her and she said, you know, i'll never forget that day. i'll never forget bobby -- her husband, my foernl -- coming home dirty, busty, lunch pail in hand, they had just borrowed $4,000 from my father-in-law's parents to get a new house. they had two little girls. and he kept saying to himself and to his wife. >> i have no idea what we're going to do. and the issue that we're talking about today is that what happened on that day was 40 years ago. and that has happened over and over and over again in communities all across the

united states and we have yet to solve this problem. and that's why this conference is so important and this conversation about what we are going to do to solve these major economic problems that we have in the country. and the context today that i think we have to talk about as democrats is what is the global landscape like? and we have two, as was stated in the latest national defense strategy, we have two peer competitors now. we have russia and china. and russia has a weaker hand but they play it well. they're messing with us all the time and we hear about it everyday. we have then china, a more direct economic petter and what we are seeing from china is a

coordinated effort on how to overtake the economy and the politics of the united states. it's whole of government. they are building bases in the south china sea, they said they wouldn't militarize them and they are. they are building bases in africa, they have one in djibouti, ready to build another one. they're looking in long term raw material contracts in offer africa, getting poor countries on the hook and controlling those countries so that thick supply their industrial machine back at home. they have a strategy called one belt one road where they're going to make a very aggressive and have making a very aggressive pitch throughout asia.

they have a make it made in china 2025 program in which they are continuing to bid out the manufacturing base in china and they have a five-year plan, they have a 15-year plan, they have a 30-year plan, a 50-year plan, and a 100-year plan. and the united states is operating in a 24-hour news cycle. . 24 hour plan. day to day, tactical, tactical, tactical. no big strategy. and meanwhile from what happened to bob zets at u.s. sheet and tube and a lot of people 40 years ago, our systems have continued to erode, to collapse. the systems are broken. they're not serving the people anymore. and just quickly we can go through them. an economic system that has gross inequality.

a criminal justice system that is racist. we have a health care system that spends 2.5 times the money as every other industrialized country and we get the worst results. we have an agricultural system that puts algae blooms in the great lakes, dead zones at the mouth of the mississippi river and we have warnings that come from state epas that say you can only eat one or two fish a month out of the streams and rivers and i'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but if you're telling me not to eat more than one or two fish out of a river, i'm not sure why i want any fish out of that river. we have a food system that is broken and we have half the country now has either die biets -- diabetes or pre-diabetes.

these systems are all broken. obviously the immigration system is broken so we have an obligation here today to put an agenda together that will rebuild the united states and i think we've got to get out of this who's left, who's right, who's center. the global economy and technology has blown away any preconceived glabls that we think we have and i think that's part of the reason we can't solve some of these problems because we're trying to put them in boxes that don't exist anymore. we need all hands on deck. we need a strong, robust, efficient, nimble government that is willing to make the bold investments that need to be made and we need an efficient compassionate smart private sector that will work with these

public/private partnerships that as the mayor said and as we see in youngstown and akron, ohio, every deal we make where we're locating a business or growing a business. it's the port authority. it's using new market tax credits. it's local government investment, state government investment,s federal government investment. it's work force training, it's the community college. the local university, coming together to make this happen. we can do it but we have to create the next iteration of the american economy. i tell you one quick story. we did a tour, we called it the comeback cities tour a few months back. we got 13 venture capitalists on a bus on sill von cali.

they flew. and we took them to five towns. we took them to youngstown, ohio, akron, ohio, and 80% of venture capital goes to three states, we know what they are, california, massachusetts, and new york. 9% goes to women and only 1% goes to african-americans so we wanted to close this device. and nobody on the bus was saying who's a democrat, who's a republican, who's a libertarian? because they got some libertarians in sill von cali, i learned. it was about connecting capital to communities. they need broadband and roads and bridges and schools but they also need private investment in

youngtown, ohio. private companies who are going to hire our people. i want to tell one last quick story. periodically as senator landrieu knows and the mayors know and congressman boyle knows, we'll just do random visits in our congressional district and a few weeks ago i was in youngtown so i had a local councilman take me around and i just drive through the neighborhood, see what's going on. and he took me to a woman's house in the worse neighborhood in youngstown. her name was mrs. duke and mrs. duke didn't know we were coming but she comes around the back of the house and she has a spray

bottle in her hand. she was spraying for ants in her home. now we're in the worst neighborhood in youngtown and there are dilapidated homes, crimes, opiate problems. mrs. duke is spraying for aunts. her house is meticulous. her son comes from around the corn corner, he was painting the door, he had white paint on his arm so we sit there in in the middle of the summer, it was hot but the house was impeccable on the inside and we talked about she was talking about how she was trying to get the neighborhood fixed up and wasn't having the kind of success she wanted so she thought about

moving and had her son look for her to sell her house. you know how much she could get for her house? $4,000 all the mart smart people say well you need to move where the jobs are. they're going to go to silicon valley with $4,000 in her pocket. we can have the philosophical discussions and the rests we have here in washington. if we don't figure out a way how to help the mrs. dukes of the world and her son to have opportunity and jobs and investment and economic security and health care this country is not going anywhere.

and that is our job to figure that out and to put the notions of the past behind us. let's elevate the conversation. let's find some common ground so we can get to some higher gro d ground. we need to join hands, recognize it will be capitalisim in a strong progressive government that will make this happen and we can do it but we have to be together but we're not getting up the mountain and i have been using this lately because i think it makes me feel good. someone said the mohamhom muham "champ, i saw the fight where you got knocked down." and muhammad ali said "i've never been knocked down. never once.

i'm either up or i'm getting up." and america is getting up. thank you so much. [ applause ] >> not we want to drill down on the challenges we said before. how will we drive new job creation, new investment to the places that are distressed, the places left behind by today's prosperity to people who are trapped so without further ado i want to turn it over to the governor to steer a conversation with some people who have great insights on that question. >> well thank you congressman ryan. my experience is that the mrs. dukes of the world, they just want a little bit of help. they just want a little bit of help and some of the most inspiring visits i ever made while i was governor was to our community college, not just to the young people who were there

but the folks who were almost all employed but they felt like they were underemployed. they were raising a family, had full-time jobs but they knew they could do better and to see folks ranging in folks ranging age from 25 to 60 going back and studying and taking algebra 2, that seemed to be the big separator. they knew they could do better but they needed somebody to give them a bit of a hand. we have to figure out way. it's not just the government. the government is working with the academic sector. thank you for starting us off. we have a great panel and what we're going to do, we're going to go around. i think right on the order. i think we'll start with you representative boyle. if you could keep your comments relatively brief. we're trying to create something of a conversation here. the general topic, a positive

democratic vision for jobs and prosperity. congressman, great to see you again. >> thank you. it's great to be here. appreciate the vision that will has shown and great to be here with my colleague, tim. i'm a congressman from the city of philadelphia and also some of the philadelphia suburbs in montgomery county. it's the best of times. it's the worth of time. speaking nationally, we have unemployment rate remarkably low. almost at a record low. what some believe is at full employment.

clearly an 8th or 9th year of expansion. by all of those traditional measures people should be happy. things are going well. for other pockets of my city and state, things were better 30 years ago, 50 years. the question for democrats and center left parties worldwide, what do we do in this new economy that is creating this yawning gap. those of us who have a higher education and certain skill -- oo i'm a member of congress so i don't have too many skills. for those of us with some

skills, there's more opportunity today and for higher pay. for those like my parents, high school education, didn't go to college, there are fewer job opportunities for less pay in parts of philadelphia, parts of youngstown, ohio and parts of this country. that to me is the key challenge for uss a country and especially for democratic party because and i know i'm supposed to keep it brief so i'll end it with this. if we as democrats don't come up with positive solutions, there will be other voices as we saw in 2016 that come up with other explanations. of people to blame for solving these complicated questions. blame the immigrant or blame the other. i believe that we cannot cede this ground. we must lead the way in solving this problem and making sure those who live in areas that are

been left behind are able to full by participate in our new economy. thank you. >> what is the single best idea you hear being discussed in congress or our caucus? >> i feel like this is the low hanging fruit that i'm still surprised the trump administration hasn't pursued and that's a real infrastructure plan. if you were to take democrats and more mainstream suburban republicans and things that president trump has said and come together on a real infrastructure plan, a, we need it. according to both the american and international council of

engineers. we're riated between a c minus and a d. it's needed and would put a number of people back to work. in terms of longer term and this is why i form the blue collar caucus. i've been talking to folks at amazon and some other silicon valley companies about the ways in which the jobs they are creating today actually do create blue collar work and how we can bring that to those pockets that have been left behind. that's a little bit longer term but i think is interesting. >> thank you.

>> we do look on infrastructure. i think we're a d plus. at least we're passing, i suppose. any way, you also pointed out a couple of -- i want to keep it short. you pointed out a few things in terms of where i wanted to start off too since i cover the u.s. economy. the good news is the economy is doing a bit better. we're seeing job gains holding up. i want to take a step back and put that into perspective where we are right now. first, it's still a slow growth recovery. when we talk about 3% growth rate that's helped by the fiscal stoma stimulus and the tax package. that is still rather low when you think about the year after a

recession would end, you would see something closer to 5%. it's still rather low. we're not sure why we do expect to see a fiscal boost from that fiscal spending, not sure how much in terms of long legs it has. we're worried will we see the productivity generation of growth that we would hope to see or would it be inflation instead. what are the reasons why? one big factor is the labor participation rate is near or at a 40-year low. that is in part a big factor is tied to retirees.

probably about three quarters of that is retirees leaving the work force and the baby boomers are still just starting at this. that will last for another ten years or so and they're not coming back. that will be a long process. there's other factors that i'll get into. you mentioned unemployment rate of 3.8%. that hides the fact there's so many people leaving the work force. not just retirees but people who gave up looking. we actually see it. we think that even at 3.8% unemployment rate, we still that hides the slack in the market. we expect to see the unemployment rate could drop lower because we're seeing so many people leaving the work force. one other worry we have and a big worry for this group as we

talk about this is basically people of prime age that are no longer working. we look at men between the ages of 25 and 54. they've dropped out. we're seeing a few of them come back because the economy is getting stronger. loss in trade. lost because of globalization, automation. the question of technological change. making their skills redundant. we're seeing it with women in prime age. women were entering the work force at a pretty rapid pace since the '70s through the '90s. we're seeing them leave as well.

what are the concerns. child care constraints, time off penalties because they still do the lion's share of family. what's happening with business job formation. business start ups are new firms which bring employment. they are key to job creation. what we have seen here -- so far some of the government data that i've most recently looked at is we haven't seen business formation recover. what we have seen is new business formation fell. it was cut in half from a high in 2005, 2004 to its low in 2009. it was cut in half.

by 2017, it's only recovered. are these young entrepreneurs being squeezed by student loans. is the question that bigger firms have a much more competitive edge and bigger firms are getting bigger and bigger. is that something that's a choke hold on the economic activity going forward. these are the questions i would have. i'll stop there. >> we're talking about big economy. my background is political. i'm a researcher, strategist. that's my perspective. not to confuse me with a policy expert. i think when we're talking about the economy there's a big

overlap between the right path for us and what's the right path for the country. what's the problem we're trying to solve? there's still a lot of anxiety. we know there's a lot of good things taking place in the economy. there's still a lot of anxiety. if you scratch the service you'll find out no american feel like they have security pension for instance. you have an administration that's putting the health care system under assault. that's creating a great deal of anxiety. that one is really been one of the most impressive accomplishments of the trump administration is that the obama administration was not able to sell the public on aca. you couldn't get majority to support aca until the trump administration sent a clear message that they intended to

take it away. support for aca finally flipped. it's more in favor than opposed. it's been durable. that goes to how a lot of people make decisions which is people will weigh what they might lose more than they might gain in a lot of cases. aca, in terms of pure politics and how people feel about the economy, the consequences of threatening people's health care is really front and center. pensions are one. i always liken to ask people to talk about planning for their own funeral. everyone knows they'll have to deal with it but nobody wants to talk about it. one question is what's our goal. i don't think we win a debate

with this president and this party over who can create more anxiety and a scarier picture of the future. i think we want to alleviate anxiety. how do we do that? congressman ryan started talking about black monday. it was a black day because corporations left the community. jobs had left. one thing that should be easy to do is recognize that picture is a negative picture which means the opposite is where kaens a mo -- companies is moving into your community. they say success looks like having big employers in our community. why is that? it's not just because people want the income. we're one of the only countries in the world where we say tell me about yourself, is they will tell you what they do. we have a system where if you

work hard you'll see benefits to working hard. that's been under assault. if you look at the polling, confidence has come down. it's about 61%. if you work hard you can get ahead. it's seen as a central component of our economy. in many communities you have people sitting on the sidelines who used to be able to do things with your skills. i'm still a skilled person but yet i don't have an opportunity to do it. we all know we struggle with this idea that we don't have a message and the republicans have a message. if i asked, what's the republican message, everybody

would tell me the same thing. get out of the way and we're going to be successful. the last part which is just get out of the way. they are tapping into something real there. if you ask people what makes our economy successful, they will say if you get out of the way we have a system that emphasizes freedom. there's been dozens of examples of people starting something in their garage and turning it into something great. republicans have low taxes and they say get out of the way and let businesses do their thing. democrats have a better argument. we refuse to articulate and i don't understand why. our better argument is the economic argument and the

political argument. the real key to our economy is our people. it's our skilled work force. if you make sure you want to go to college, you have the ability to do that too. those are two different things. i'm saying this on how it ends up. ultimately politics is a choice. if you offer people that choice, we have a better hand. for whatever reason don't usually articulate it. we'll throw training in a speech or education like it's an afterthought. it's not an afterthought. when it comes to the economy, the core idea is that our people are the key strength to this economy. if we have that debate, we're

going to alleviate people's anxiety and gives democrats a really strong position. >> great. thank you. >> the collapse of manufacturing is still a bleeding wound in most of the country. if you look at the data, people complain about the fall of labor share income. it turns out most of the fall of labor share of income is because of the collapse that manufacturing jobs and wages. the number of large efficient factories that have closed since 2000, 35% of them are not there anymore.

ne these are a visible symbol of neglect and pain that people see every day. we believe it's a key component of our prosperity. we're not talking about resurrecting the old factory economy. this is on page 3. what we believe is digitalization is not way of destroying jobs but creating jobs. including jobs for people without a college education. this is not doing the old stuff but it's creating but it's

making custom clothing, custom furniture that doesn't have to be shipped 10,000 miles. there's no reason why we should be doing this except we haven't invested in the next wave of advanced manufacturing. we're talking about a program of investments. sort of like the tech platforms we have today that provide services to small manufacturing start-ups across the country that addresses your question. we're talking about rnd. not just in tech and bio sciences but also in material sciences creating new materials that would help bolster our manufacturing. we're talking lowering the entry fee.

trump has started a trade war that no one wants. it will create a whole new wave of manufacturing start ups that can driver us into the 21st century and create jobs around the country. thanks. >> we have someone who is out in the world building these businesses and employing people. chad. >> thanks. we are an extension or an example of the kind of entrepreneurship that pete talked about a few moments ago. my garage was a dorm room in new

haven, connecticut. i focused mostly on education and technology businesses. in those 16 years we have helped 350,000 students go from high school to college or from college to graduate school. we've helped another 20,000 in the last three years learn software engineering. we've also in kansas, missouri helped, i don't know. we have a thousands preschoolers in my preschools now. it was much smaller when we started. we helped thousands of kids get the kind of head start that will help them throughout their entire educational path. as proud as i am of our accomplishments. it's only a small part of the solution that you need to come up. in many ways we're helping those that have some privilege or already on the good side of the

educational or economic spectrum continue to improve their lives. of my employees, more than half of them make six figures a year. that's fantastic. that does not address the problems we have in rural missouri where my mom is from, where my cousins live. even some of the folks in the distressed parts of our urban areas where i grew up in the kansas city, missouri school district. as i say, proud but that is not going to get us there for some of these other solutions. i hope we'll talk about today are things that can be escapable to those people left behind. i will very quickly echo what we've heard. since i was born there's triple the number of working aged men of all races who are not working. in 2011, i had chance to spend a few moments with former president clinton. he said something that at the

time didn't seem extraordinary. it felt so natural and right but we're still here top grappling with it. he said do you know the only demographic group in this country that doesn't believe its fump wi future will be its present. he said it's white males without a college degree. that kid from hope, arkansas and me from kansas city, missouri. he said i don't think these folks, and he nodded over to them appreciate that the way you and i do. i'm not certain that his wife, secretary clinton appreciated it as much as she should have as well if i'm being frank. we still haven't totally addressed it. i think infrastructure is pathway there. i don't know that we can transition truck drivers into coding jobs as much as i would

love that as we move to a world of autonomous driving. doin as we dig into it, i've got three or four ideas that could help create scaleable job creation for those that don't have the higher levels of education of the folks we help today. >> list them real quick. >> i think geographic job creation programs have proven to work. target those poor areas. one, continue to pour money into health care. the opioid problem and some of the problems we have with the people that are out of work, the high suicide rates in the midwest, the south where my family is from lead the part of the mental health crisis we're facing. that's also an opportunity to create jobs for mental health professionals. we mentioned infrastructure earlier. we didn't mention how it helps a broad swath. there will be a few developers

who do pretty well on an infrastructure program. there will be tens of thousands of construction workers who have real jobs. finally, i would say that education incentives also work. the kind of training programs really do work to help people get the kind of education that allows new jobs. they have to do these broad expensive searches to get the people they need to fill all those jobs. that seems like an easy fix.

thanks. >> great. thank you. we have six minutes and i want to open this up. i promised, i'm committed to 11:40 to turn this over to representative laney. >> i'm a labor economist. two-thirds of americans, including young americans don't get four year college degrees. we need a sub ba skill creation system for them. at the same time we need to focus energy on employers and jobs and the quality of the jobs. we can't pretend all employers are creating good jobs and looking for skilled workers. a lot of them are going low road, which is minimizing costs whatever it takes. some firms can't compete high

road. the community colleges are the institutions that do some of both. they create hladders into four years but they need to be responsive to the job market. they are not rewarded for creating the training that chad talked about. i have proposed a race to the top for our community colleges where you would provide more resources but strengthen the incentives of these institutions to respond to the labor market. create more sector partnerships with growing sectors like health care, i.t. and parts of the service sector. to help people get more

credentials. the employer side where you see this drift towards low road employment, i think there i've argued for a high road jobs fund where you work with employers to and reward them for investing in career ladders, creating apprenticeships. engaging in profit sharing with employees. some of this involves financial incentives, tax credits, rewards employers who do that. some involves technical assistance. i think democratic party mayors and governors and our representatives in congress need to embrace good paying jobs and high road employment and how do we go there. i think there's a lot of ways to do that. we need to talk really talk seriously about lifelong learning.

lowering the barriers a lot of people have. we're the only country in the world that doesn't help people with paid family leave. there's a long agenda of labor market solutions. some involving employers and workers. i'd like to see our party go there more. >> thank you. can i add real quick for 25 seconds. >> 25 seconds and we're going to close out. >> we need to talk about all of this in the context of the competition and strengthening our economy. instead of sometimes we get into this itemized list. we talk about it as an itemized list. whatever we come up with, this is all feeding into the worker. this is all feeding into the work force.

we need to talk about this in the context of growing the economy and competing with china. everyone needs to come together instead of a checklist. >> bill, uyou want to close us out. >> i want to close out with a question if we have time for an answer. i can't tell you how many times i've heard a version of the story that chad told at the end of his remarks about the employer who would love to hire locally but the high schools and the local community colleges aren't producing what they want. why aren't they talking to those institutions and working with them? what's wrong here? >> in places with good governors they are. it's a very serious question. literally, we would have to -- i can give you a bunch of examples. one of them around -- delaware

is not known as an aircraft state but we have probably about a thousands job people repairing airframe maintenance and the like. i heard the same stories from those employers and sat down with the employers, with the community college and local schools to say what's it going to take. the state put up a little money. the community college invested. we still need to do more but that conversation has to take place between all parties. what's the threat, what's the opportunity of artificial intelligence as it penetrates into the economy. it's a huge issue.

i think that employers are really saying the need for that and i also see a lot of american families say it did you want make sense to pay 60,000 there are a year for a college education that doesn't lead to anything. i really do believe there's a lot of employer movement now moving hiring away from being based on degree to being based on skill. with that, thank you very much to all our panelists. >> thanks a lot. >> i'm hopeful, if that's the case that we will see employers turning to hiring people based on skill rather than college degrees. i haven't seen it in the numbers just yet. that is one concern that we have is that, for example, basically certificates or other kinds of skills that people can get are

not being rewarded in the business sector. i really do hope that you're right on that. >> thank you. one last thing here. >> i hope you might be able to answer part of this. this has been fascinating. in order to govern you have to get elected. one thing i haven't heard about today is turn out. i'm curious if you're aware of overall turn out among those subgroups. men who may have dropped out of work force. women who may be gaining a larnllarn larger share in the work force.

>> i don't have any immediate stats to give you. i think what showing up, being there and providing a narrative to get people out and maybe some of the ideas are here. i'll give you a quick stat that i heard about african-americans in columbus, ohio. this was after the election. african-americans vote 90 plus percent with democrats. in this survey, 50% of the african-americans in columbus, ohio didn't think there was a difference between the democratic president or the republican president. they voted for us but we are not communicating to our constituencies that we have a realistic plan that will make a difference in their life. that led to diminished turn out among african-americans.

another example losing others. we have got a realistic agenda together with some of the elements here and go and communicated. politicians need to show up in places like youngstown, ohio. we better be ready and care a lot about these people left behind. these white men. black families who get caught up in the criminal justice system that have a much more negative experience there than a white family would. they need to know we care about them. we only have 330 million people

in the united states. 1.4 billion in china. they can lose hundreds of millions of potential workers and entrepreneurs. we can't afford to lose anybody. we got to get this right. at 8:00 on lectures in history, san diego state university professor on the vietnam war from the military escalation in 1965 to the fall of saigon ten years later. sunday at 11:00 a.m. patrick o'donnell and his book the unknowns and world war i most decorated heroes who brought him home. at 4:30 p.m. eastern on real america as part of our alaska

weekend, four films about alaska. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. tonight, it's my honor and privilege to announce that i will nominate judge brett cavanaugh to the united states supreme court. >> mr. president, i'm grateful to you and i'm humbled by your confidence in me. thank you. >> brett cavanaugh of the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit is president trump's nominee for the supreme court. >> i'm pleased with the nominee the president has chosen. after talking with him yesterday morning, i look forward to supporting his nomination and doing whatever i can to ensure

his bipartisan confirmation. >> if judge cavanaugh is confirmed, women's freedom to make decisions about their bodies, reforms to our health care system, the quality of our air and water and much more will be at risk. >> frankly, i cannot think of anybody who is more qualified to serve. >> follow the confirmation process on c-span. watch live on c-span. more now from this forum on how the democratic party can advance its agenda leading up to the 2018 and 2020 elections. this is about economic issues including training