By Benjamin Parke
Daily Bruin Contributor
Speakers at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday evoked
heroes of the past while portraying the party as the one to guide
America into the future.
The major speeches began with one from Jesse Jackson whose
oratory and the resulting applause could be heard outside the
Staples Center walls.
"Jesse Jackson was awesome as usual," said Rep. Wayne Meeks,
D-NY.
The African American congressman said that the message that
Democrats need to get out is that "young people must get involved
in the body politic," pointing to the nights keynote speech by
30-year-old Rep. Harold Ford, Jr, also an African American.
Meeks also said the many young people who have joined in the
protests outside the convention played a positive role, saying that
they had good issues but bad politics.
"Once we put together the issues with the politics, things can
change," Meeks said.
In another convention speech and an extremely rare public
appearance, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of President
John F. Kennedy, Jr. cited her father as the one who inspired Sen.
Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the party’s vice presidential
nominee-to-be, to go into public service.
She then introduced her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass, who
entered the arena to the cries of "Teddy! Teddy!"
Ted Kennedy praised "the new barrier of bigotry we are bringing
down" with Gore’s pick of Senator Lieberman, an orthodox Jew.
Lieberman himself had made a swing through the crowd of
delegates earlier Tuesday night; subsequently the convention played
a video titled "Someone of My Faith" which featured John F. Kennedy
giving a speech, promising that his Roman Catholic religion
wouldn’t affect any public policy decision made as president.
Sen. Ted Kennedy’s speech focused on health care, calling for
medical decisions to be made by doctors and nurses, and not by
HMOs.
Kennedy’s support for universal health care for children by 2004
was less ambitious than President Clinton’s health care plan early
in his first term, but Kennedy said that the election of Vice
President Al Gore as president would move America "step by step" to
universal health care.
Former Sen. Bill Bradley, who lost the nomination tug-of-war to
the vice president promised in his speech to "support and work
hard" for Gore, while at the same time reiterating his call for
campaign finance reform.
He also kept with the evening’s theme, referring to past
leaders, such as "Jack, Bobby and Martin," who worked to end racial
divisiveness, as he proceeded to dig at the Republicans.
"We don’t window dress diversity, we are the party of
diversity," Bradley said.
Renee Lipson, who was an Ohio delegate for Bradley, before the
former candidate released his supporters from their pledges, was
pleased with his speech.
"He’s a real mensch," Lipson said. "He was a mensch when he
started and he went out a mensch."
She added that she will now campaign for Gore, and supports him
"110 percent." Although Bradley had attacked Gore during the
nomination fight over questions of fund-raising irregularities,
Lipson said she thought Gore would fight for campaign finance
reform.
"It is an issue with him, but because of his own troubles I
don’t know what people are going to let him do," Lipson said.