to know at the dlc. there are u.s. senators, there are congressmen, there are governors, there are a number of members of the cab net. i got to know kathleen sebelius and janet napolitano and tom vilsack through the dlc. and al and his team created this unbelievable community. and so here we are, you know, decades later, so many of us recognizing that what al said, that politics is supposed tonight -- tonight -- to be about ideas. and so much of the focus is about personality rather than the ideas. and we all have continuing work to do to put the focus where it ought to be, which is on the ideas. you know, at the beginning of al's book, chapter one begins by him saying that he threw away party on election night of 1980, ask nobody showed up -- and nobody showed up. he went to work. for the next 25 or 30 years. and here we are tonight to celebrate the book that chronicles the rise of of the nw democrat movement, the movement that brought our party back a. and, al, tonight you threw a party, and a whole lo

[laughter] in any event, melissa brought elegance and style to the dlc. that lasted, really an important contribution. i just want to thank so many people, not going to name everybody, but a few people deserve special thanks. first is ginger, and when i wrote the book, i -- i thank her for not only putting up with me when i wrote the book, it was seven days a week, not talking to anybody for about four months, but when i wrote the book and pulled out all the old schedules, and i just can't imagine that anybody could have withstood all that, and, i mean, you take off on a sunday night, and you go to four or five state, and on friday night, if you're lucky, but often saturday morning, you come home, and if you couldn't get -- in those days, we didn't have public transportation like air force 1. we had to fly on small planes or wherever we could get a flight. [laughter] you come home on saturday morning when you're lucky and sometimes you wouldn't get back until late saturday because you couldn't get a flight, and you were out on the road again sunday night,

it was really the dlc's vision for governing. called "the mandate for change" which clinton really did govern by. one of the big ideas was welfare reform which eventually became law under clinton. they have very effective the beginning. will marshall ran ppi. was in the clinton white house for eight years. they grew to 80. they believe if you read out the 96 new book that election really validated their entire idea about why it was important to move the party to the center. if you look at the senate for american progress -- center for american progress, it is the same set of backers. you had a crisis based on a loss. it was 2003 and the kerry loss. they had a committed set of billionaires. george soros, sandler, peter lewis who recently passed away. they were the big seed money some thed continue at major donors today. they did not pick a particular fight inside their own party. he built it was the bill communications operations first. they were very aggressive. they have a core of very good bloggers. they are willing to take on

what the dlc is about. people need to seize the opportunity. >> you know, governor dean, you talk universal prek, something president obama talked about wanting to see on the national level. just as bill de blasio's agenda has to go through albany, legislative bran. in new york. on a national level you have a legislative branch. one half. house republicans are dead set against investments in the e skn -- economy. looking for cuts and deficit reduction. how resonant is a message like inequality, a message flattening the income divide on a national scale when you get outside of a city like new york obviously a more liberal city? >> when you look at. i agree with david. i don't use, dlc is long gone. there is a penchant. not an old generation, a new generation. they do want fiscal responsibility. they talked about that yesterday. we do have to balance the books. one thing the young generation. more conservative than the old left wing of the democratic party. not about social issues. a fight we are well on our

al from the dlc is no longer, is that correct? >> guest: is actually dormant. it's now part of the clinton foundation. >> host: it was cast in you tell me if this was fair and you write about this in your book but it was cast as kind of a conservative democrat. is that a fair description? >> guest: i don't really think it's a fair description. what i really think we did was turn the party to the first principles. in a sense progressive government was in deep jeopardy not only in the united states but all over the world. all over the world conservative parties were dominant and what we tried to do is modernize liberalism in a way that people would support it again. because we supported ideas like welfare reform people said oh you are conservative but to me the idea of moving people out of poverty from welfare welfare tos a liberal idea. we changed the incentives of the welfare to work system. we took on the crime problem with an idea called community policing, putting police back in the neighborhood. i actually picked that up from an african-american jewish poli

do you -- did you consider what you did with the dlc?lf a liberal and where do you assess liberalism now? >> first of all, i came out of the war on poverty. i consider myself a liberal. what i think we did is really saved the liberalism. you got to remember where we were in the 1980s. democrats suffered the three worst elections in the history of any party in the history of our country. we won a lower percentage of electoral votes this three consecutive election than any party has ever won since the advent of modern parties in 1828. liberalism was about ready to go the way of the whigs. we tried to modernize it, reconnect it with the main values of the democratic party. opportunity for all. make it a party of upward mobility again. that's why we grew the economy, created 22.5 million new jobs. moved more people out of poverty than any decade but one. restoring john kennedy's civic responsibility, the idea you have to give something back to the country, national service was a big part of it, moving people from welfare to work, but also mo

so what you see coming to a head at this point is the naacp, as dlc, the urban league, all sort of vying for influence during the early part of the 1960's it becomes the dominant organization in terms of fund-raising. that's a consequence of even this sort of radical shift of course. and even as the o.c. skynyrd the point is anti-war. so for people who are on the upside looking to fund the civil rights movement, the naacp becomes really the most viable option. and there's this record level of fund-raising that occurs during that time. part of this is a consequence of outside support coalescing around this sort of conservative moderate naacp model. casting off or pushing to the edge of the more radical organizations one of the things that is important to to think about in terms of the transition , who are the groups the new mainstream black movement those entities proceeding aren't the new black political plans the new black political class looks at the traditional arms. he start to see this policy separation. because very hard to stand up and say that black people have this right to arms

come on, bill clinton brought in welfare reform and you know, he was the dlc are democrat, the democratic leadership council. he was the conservative democrat, the southern democrat. and much to the chagrin of some liberals. let's face it. but john avlon, do you think that that is enough to sort of assuage some of the concerns of some liberals out there who are going to be looking to bill deblasio as sort of the beacon of liberalism, someone who's going to bring it back and make it in vogue again? >> there's no question that's how he sees himself and his supporters see him. there is this rising elizabeth warren left weng of the democratic party that is increasingly insurgent and critical of centrist democrats. bill clinton recentered the democratic party very effective to return it to power. nationally after three consecutive elections in which they lost 40 states. so is there politics involved? sure. keep in mind, this is all in the family, folks. andrew cuomo was hud secretary under clinton. bill deblasio ran hngt hillary clinton's campaign in 2000. these folks are all tight and in many

ron, this is the man you covered, you know so well, conservative dlc democrat, enraged liberals bringing conservative democrats in, by triangulating. now he is endorsing progressive ideas? hillary, 2016? >> he raised taxes without a single republican vote, and his mantra was opportunity, responsibility, and community. and that was the way he brought that, the argument was essentially democratic ideas. there's no question the tone of de blasio campaign, the overt populism was something that clinton shied away from. the biggest argument, one of the biggest arguments might be from the left, and argument she is not conducive or receptive to that line of argument, what fueled talk about elizabeth warren. >> absolutely. hunter, how much do you think you understand this relationship that isn't new, the reason bill clinton was there, bill de blasio was such part of hillary clinton's campaigns going to days running for senate. how much will that factor in, this relationship on the national stage? >> as you pointed out, bill de blasio was hillary clinton's campaign manager in 2000. also worked in