New Democrats convene in Indy

INDIANAPOLIS -- A Democratic centrist group concluded a three-day boot camp for local and statewide candidates across the country Tuesday. The Democratic Leadership Council, now chaired by Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, preached a gospel of moderate social policy.\nMore than 650 Democrats -- including about 250 elected officials -- descended on the Westin Hotel in downtown Indianapolis to discuss centrist policy initiatives. The general consensus was that the party will have to reposition itself with the cultural mainstream if it hopes to win another national election.\nFounded in 1985 by South Bend native Al From, the "New Democrat" council made its mark on the oldest political party in the world by staking out conservative fiscal positions, such as support for free trade. It's now the largest coalition group in both chambers of the U.S. Congress. \nSeveral Democratic leaders, such as Bayh and Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, made the case Monday that liberal views on issues such as gun control and abortion have alienated many voters, particularly white males.\nInstead of gun control, From said Democrats should talk about "sensible gun safety" and try to assuage widespread fears of an imminent governmental seizure of firearms. But he insisted the party's lackluster performance in the last election goes beyond any one issue -- he said it's a matter of cultural distance from rural and suburban voters.\nLieberman, who lost his vice presidential bid last year, sided with From in chastising the liberal wing of the party for turning a deaf ear to religion.\n"Just as we regained the public's confidence in the 1990s on questions of fiscal responsibility and economic growth, so too must we earn back the people's trust on matters of values and culture and faith," he said at an early Monday morning press conference. "We have too often dismissed and disparaged the importance of faith in American life and made the faithful feel unwelcome in our party.\n"Too often do we seem judgmental, and we have not made faith a priority. We have to reestablish that we're the party of mainstream values and new ideas."\nKnown for his strongly held Jewish Orthodox faith, Lieberman caught flak from fellow Democrats last fall when he openly discussed his religious convictions on the campaign trail.\n"Some of those Hosannas turned to 'How dare he's,'" he said. "It wasn't long before I was caricatured as 'Holy Joe,' which I frankly did not appreciate. But my mother certainly did."\nSenate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota extended an open hand to the centrist wing of the party. Cracking a joke about his recent rise to power, he told the party faithful that he had to keep his remarks short because he "had to go mow (Vermont Sen.) Jim Jeffords's lawn."\n"We showed a cynical nation that there is still a role for government in our lives today," he said. "For a long time, we had separate, competing entities -- labor vs. capital, the individual vs. the family, U.S. vs. the world. \n"It must be comfortable in that either/or world."\nDaschle, who along with Lieberman is considered a possible presidential candidate in 2004, said Democrats could capitalize off of President George W. Bush's alleged failure to live up to his campaign slogan of "compassionate conservatism."\n"There's a difference between centrist rhetoric and centrist policy," he said. "There's a difference between governing from the right and the right policy."\nNew York Sen. Hillary Clinton also made the pilgrimage to the nation's heartland to pay her dues to the centrists.\n"Ideas matter," she said. "And some of the best ideas to be found are here. I'm wonkish about policies, but I can sum the New Democrat movement up by saying that it's about making this country richer, safer, smarter and stronger."\nBut few in attendance were as optimistic as Daschle and Clinton. Bayh lamented over the fact that 70 percent of church-going voters and 60 percent of married couples turned away from the Democratic party in the last election.\n"We have to show that we're not just the party of the Coasts," he said. "We have to show the voters that we're the party of mainstream American -- the South, the Heartland and the Plains States."\nBayh argued that Democrats have found themselves on the wrong side of a cultural divide in the country. He urged a change in "tone and rhetoric," citing his responsible fatherhood initiative as a way to reach out to the mainstream.\n"We can't let voters base their decision on what they've been led to believe about us," he said. "And if we're not clear on our values, they'll believe the worst. We need to speak with a loud and clear voice about the moral fabric of the country"