Clinton, Gore speak on health care, energy to Tennessee Democrats

NASHVILLE – Former president Bill Clinton and former vice president Al Gore rallied Tennessee Democrats on Saturday night for health care reform and green energy, saying both are good for the economy, the country and the party.

Clinton said the anger that arose this summer against health care was fueled by fear generated by opponents of reform, which he said is hard to win because health care is complicated, personal and the interests that benefit financially from the current system don’t want to give it up.
“I don’t think all these people are coming to these town meetings raising cain with your congressman in bad faith. I think they’ve had the daylights scared out of them. And I get it,” Clinton said.

Clinton and Gore, the former Tennessee senator, were the keynote speakers at the Tennessee Democratic Party’s annual Jackson Day Dinner, a fundraising event that generated a record $600,000 for the party’s war chest heading into the pivotal 2010 elections, according to party chairman Chip Forrester of Nashville.

Both Gore and Clinton urged the party faithful to back their congressmen to get health care reform passed this year.

“We need to pass a bill this year. Doing nothing is not only the worst thing we can do for the economy, it’s the worst thing we can do for the country. It’s also the worst thing we can do for the Democrats,” Clinton said, because Americans expect Democrats to deliver when they elect them.

“Democrats, you stay in there with your congressmen and you get this done,” he said.

Gore also emphasized health care reform.

“We have a lot of talk about liberal and conservative, and left and right, but when there are tens of millions of people in our country who can’t get access to health care, we need to pass health care reform this year. Build support for it. Let's give President Obama the victory our country needs,” he said to a standing ovation.

Clinton said health care costs Americans 16½ percent of income, compared to the 10½ percent residents of other advanced nations pay, and the difference means Americans pay between $800 billion to $900 billion more per year.

“That 800 to 900 billion is going somewhere. And the ‘somewhere’ doesn’t want to give it up,” he said.

He also said reform is difficult to pass because it’s complicated and “anything complicated can be misrepresented. Number two, it’s personal. It’s personal to all of us. Anything personal can be used to inspire fear.”

Both men also spoke in favor of efforts to curb greenhouse emissions and global warming, saying clean energy would create millions of jobs.

Memphis lawyer George T. “Buck” Lewis, who was party chairman from 1988 to 1991, said the attendance was “bigger or better than I’ve seen. We certainly never had one this big when I was party chair.

"Lot of young people you haven’t seen before and a lot of people I would not have expected to see at a dinner like this. I won’t name them but I’ll just say people I haven’t ever seen before – businessmen and moderates.”

Lewis said he believes grass-roots Democrats are aware of the importance of next year’s elections “but as much as anything right now, I think they’re really focused on this health care issue. I think Sen. Kennedy’s death has highlighted that but it was already front burner before Sen. Kennedy’s death. And President Clinton communicates in a way that very few leaders do – so that you can understand it at your kitchen table.”

Earlier Saturday, more of the party’s state luminaries warmed up the crowd at the Nashville Convention Center, including former Memphis congressman Harold Ford Jr. and Gov. Phil Bredesen. Virtually every speaker delivered a tribute to the late senator Edward Kennedy, who was buried Saturday at Arlington National Cemetery following a funeral Mass in Boston.

Forrester said the party’s goals in next year’s elections are to retake the majority of the state House lost to Republicans last November and to keep the governor’s office.

“The Tennessee Democratic party is strong, vibrant and ready to go,” he said. “It’s no secret that we took a punch last November but they didn’t know us down and they didn’t knock us out. Across the state, Democrats have rallied and are excited to take back the House and elect a Democratic governor.”

Earlier in the day, Tennessee Republican Party chairman Chris Devaney issued a statement saying that, "As Democrats gather in Nashville tonight to pat themselves on the back, the honest truth is their party, led by an ever increasingly failing president, stands for policies and principles that do not represent the views of most Tennesseans. Republicans look forward to continuing the debate of how best to move our state and country forward. We believe it is through our core principles of less government, individual freedom, and free enterprise that our nation advances. Standing by our principles brought Republicans great success last year in Tennessee and that is why we are planning on big success in 2010."