EXCERPTS: MAYOR PETE BUTTIGIEG ADDRESSES CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATIC PARTY STATE CONVENTION
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Today, Mayor Pete Buttigieg is addressing the California Democratic Party’s State Convention.
Below are excerpts of his remarks as prepared for delivery:
I’m not from around here, but I feel right at home every time I come to California... because the spirit of this state is so much like the spirit of my campaign: new thinking, bold action, and a focus on the future.
I’m running for president because of the seriousness of the moment we’re in. A moment of such consequence that even now, we may well be underreacting.
It’s a moment that calls for a different message, and a different kind of messenger.
And I’m here to make the case that there’s no going back.
My hometown —an industrial city that has found a new path to a better future—stands as living proof that there’s no such thing as an honest politics that revolves around the word “again.”
It’s true for our country, and it’s true for our party. In these times, Democrats can no more promise to take us back to the 2000s or 1990s than conservatives can take us back to the 1950s.
If we want to defeat this president and lead the country in a new direction, we must be ready to transform our economy and our democracy into something different, something better.
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He wins if we look too much like Washington…
He wins if we look like more of the same.
Which means, surprisingly, that the riskiest thing we could do is try to play it safe.
There’s no going back to normal right now. A president like this one doesn’t come within cheating distance of the Oval Office unless something is deeply wrong with the old normal.
The economic “normal” has failed a working and middle class that powered America into a new era of growth... only to see the amazing wealth we created go to a tiny few.
The political “normal” has failed when an American majority supports ideas from universal health care to common-sense gun safety laws... only to see their politicians unable to deliver.
And the disruption is only accelerating. Artificial intelligence. Self-driving cars. The new challenge of China.
Countries are like individuals. We are at our worst when we are insecure. So we’d better come up with some answers, and fast.
We’d better come up with something completely different.
So why not nominate a middle-class, Millennial mayor with a track record from the industrial Midwest?
Why not a mayor, when America wants Washington to work more like our best-run cities and towns, instead of the other way around?
Why not someone who has confronted the challenges facing diverse, low-income, struggling communities in our nation’s heartland?
And yes, why not send someone who represents a new generation of leadership?
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We do it with a message that revolves around our values: values like freedom, security, and democracy.
We start by breaking the Republican monopoly on the language of freedom.
Who are they to speak of freedom while their actions remind us that you’re not free
if your reproductive health is dictated by male politicians?
Freedom comes by way of education, which is why we need a Secretary of Education who believes in public education.
It comes from organization, which is why I stand with organized labor.
Freedom isn’t conservative, it’s American.
The same is true with security.
They speak of security. But it’s 2019, and there’s a lot more to security than putting up a wall from sea to shining sea.
Security means cyber security and election security.
It means naming and confronting a rising tide of violent white nationalism.
Being serious on security means insisting that we can respect the Second Amendment without allowing it to be a death sentence for thousands of Americans every year.
And I don’t have to tell California that we must face climate disruption as the life-and-death security challenge it is.
But balance will not come until we repair our democracy.
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Now, talking more about our values means talking less about the current president.
When Trump inundates the imagination with a horror show of taunts and tweets, let’s change the channel.
When the conversation is about the voters, we win.
And at the end of the day, that’s what this is about. It’s about everyday life.
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Nothing about politics is theoretical. Not for you and not for me.
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That’s why Washington matters. Not the daily drama of who looked good on a cable show. But the way a chain of events that begins in one of those stately white buildings reaches into our lives… into our homes. Our paychecks… Our doctors’ offices… Our marriages.
That’s why we’re here. That’s what politics is about.
