PETER: Good afternoon. Welcome to Inside Minnesota Politics. We have the long anticipated special guest that we've been talking about – the honorable Senator Dave Durenberger. The Senator has been know for his independent thinking at a time when we're having a lot of partisan politics on both sides of the political aisle from Washington to a little town in Minnesota . And so it's a privilege, an honor, to have the honorable Senator here to come down to Inside Minnesota Politics. Welcome.

DAVE: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be asked to be here. And it's a delight to be here.

P: Well, we're going to go right away and what we're going to talk about is about the division that is going on in the senate where you were before. Never has before in the history of America , at least not since the civil war, have we seen our country more divided than ever before. There seems to be no cooperation on both sides of the political aisle on meaningful legislation. As a result there's a lot of stalling, nothing seems to get passed, a lot of basically finger pointing. Blame game vs. innovative solutions that the people who send them to Washington are yearning from their leaders. Why is this the case? You know people have commented that it's the leadership that sets the tone in Washington . But we've had Republican leadership before. We've had a Republican leader that had strong faith like Ronald Reagan who we later found out was reborn. But still legislation was able to be passed.

D: Right, and I thing both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, his Vice President who became President, are the best examples of how you can move a Republican party into a majority status. Particularly with a Democratic party that doesn't want to change by trying to find middle ground on a variety of issues. And in order to do that, you first have to figure out where you stand – which Ronald Reagan was very, very good at and I would say George H. W. Bush was pretty good at -- and then be willing to recognize that the people on the other side have either a different set of values or a different set of goals and objectives than you have. And what you have to do is find out where it is that you agree. And that's what the two of them could do. I mean Ronald Reagan did that on tax policy. He brought Rostenkowski, he brought Bill Bradley, he brought a bunch of people around to his way of thinking on tax policy. He brought Phil Gramm out of the Democratic party into the Republican party on budget issues. And a whole lot of people like that came together because Ronald Reagan was the kind of person who wasn't mean-spirited. He wasn't “my way or no way” . And I think that's why he and H.W. Bush were successful and I would argue the current President Bush is going to be less successful because so far he really hasn't delivered, nor has any Republican that I know currently, delivered on this concept of a “compassionate conservative”

P: I just want to make one correction. You mentioned the other party that does not want to change. While Bill Clinton was President a lot of changes came. He embraced a budget deficit. Balanced the budget. Last time that was done was when Andrew Jackson was President, which was another Democrat. And then we also had him push welfare reform even though the Republicans had championed it, Bill Clinton embraced it. So there was a Democratic leader that was willing to change , but above all recognizes that not all political parties have all of the answers to all the problems.

D: And let me add a correction to your correction. Bill Clinton is a southern state governor who became President of the United States . And like his predicessor Jimmy Carter, like others from the south – I remember so well people like Jennings Randolph in West Virginia and Russell Long in Louisiana , people like that – they have conservative principles even though they are basically part of a liberal party. And part of the conservative principles that appeal to me in Governor Clinton were both education reform and welfare reform. When he got to be President of the United States , he reverted to the basic liberal side of the national Republican Party. He did not come on as a southern conservative. And it was a time that you could have matched southern conservatism with Republican moderation as in Bob Dole, Bob Packwood and Dave Durenberger and John Chafee and Jack Danforth and a whole lot of us. If you wanted to do health reform, you could have matched that up and you could have done really good health reform. Instead, they went all the way over to the left. When you got to tax policy, what's the first thing he did? He raised taxes. I don't know a lot of southern Democrats who like to raise taxes. But Bill Clinton raised taxes and your right he balanced the budget and he had a lot of help doing that from both Republicans and Democrats. But, and the economy as a whole. But frankly, despite the fact that he was the most gifted politician I think in the sense of personality that I have ever met, he wasn't gifted by backbone. And Ronald Reagan was. Russell Long, the Democrat, was. Danny Rostenkowski a Democrat was. Joe Biden a Democrat who is still there, is and so we will have a slight modification of our agreements or disagreements

P: (Laughs) Well, I appreciate that. I like to point out that he may not have had the back bone that Ronald Reagan had as some may say including the current President. But you see I believe that results are more important than you know “we must cut taxes, we must raise taxes” that's the politics of the past. You know, the notion, or the idea that when you raise or lower taxes leads to.. is a panacea to a strong economy. I think that it's a lie that needs to be unraveled. You know, you said Clinton raised taxes. Well, 22-million jobs were created. And Ronald Reagan cut taxes – 20 –million jobs were created. So both created jobs under their leadership. So I don't believe raising or cutting taxes is the panacea. I think a sound economic policy. This President has cut taxes more than any other President in history. He has made them permanent. And now every child born in this country will inherit a 36-thousand-dollar debt. How does that help America? We're supposed to:

D: Let me answer the question. The difference between this President Bush and cutting taxes and the first President Bush and Vice President and Ronald Reagan is this. I think the current Republicans and the current President believe that just cutting taxes or cutting marginal rates is all you have to do.

P: Yes (laughs)

D: Ronald Reagan didn't believe that. Ronald Reagan believed that balancing the budget, even though he didn't do a very good job in his first few years, that actually balancing the budget—getting your expectations with in your capacity – was equally important. And so when we did that historic tax reform bill in 1986, the way we brought the marginal rate on taxes from 50 percent down to 28 percent was by cutting out a whole lot of tax spending. A lot of the so called loopholes we got rid of in order to finance the marginal rate reduction. And so my point in regard to Bill Clinton was he didn't finance his marginal tax increase with cuts in other areas because he simply wanted the money. This President Bush didn't finance either because he didn't want the money. And he apparently – he and the other Republicans –have no problem with the concept of a huge deficit. Which to you with your background that I know of in environmental areas and things like that… and to me is a really serious ethical and moral issue because that deficit is not just a gap on a piece of budget paper. That deficit is money that is being paid for interest on debt which should go into education and health care and national defense where you need it. Environmental action, things like that. We can't spend it on the things we need as a society because the dominant party – the Republican Party and some of the Democrats – are spending it on debt. And that's the disaster.

P: It is indeed a travesty. And I also like to ..and I agree with you wholeheartedly and with all due respect I also like to point out that, you know, the President – Bill Clinton then – asked his Vice President Al Gore to reinvent government and created the smallest government since the time of Kennedy. And so there must have been some savings there. And you're right, during the time of Ronald Reagan they cut some spending because then a toilet seat in the Pentagon was costing 600-dollars

D: 700 dollars. They all cost 700-dollars today.

P: (Laughs) so there is a lot of waste in the system could be eliminated and it takes leadership on both sides. With regards to the deficit, you know how can we continue? People are telling us that the Chinese are paying our debt. You know we're supposed to pay all of our debt except the debt to love one another. The Chinese are paying our debt and we don't love each other. (laughs) This is a trend that is continuing in the country. The Vice President Dick Cheney kind of alluded in one of his interviews that it was no big deal. I think it's a clear and present danger to our national security. One of these days they will pull the plug on us. And what are we going to do about it? I mean, what's your suggestion to this President? The deficit – we need to pay our debt – that's very important to create a bright future for future generations.

D: It's all in how government makes its decisions to implement whatever national policy is designed to meet national needs . And so if you start out as they did with no child left behind on education and so forth. He made a valiant effort to find a way to compromise with the Democrats – Teddy Kennedy in particular – about education quality and so forth. And I don't know the details of the bill and how they did it. But the way in which they finally developed that, it was largely left to the national government to fill financing gaps that would be required for local governments, school districts, to meet certain new needs, new standards prescribed by no child left behind. If you don't finance your policy … you want policy changes to enhance quality, you better finance it. If you don't, then its not good policy. The same thing happened with this new medicare modernization where they said we're going to give drug benefits to senior citizens through the Medicare program and all of you states who have been giving drug benefits or providing drug benefits in Medicaid for your low income seniors. You're going to have to pay us for taking over that obligation in the Medicare program. That's the first time history I believe the national government had demanded that states have to pay the national government to discharge a national responsibility which is to secure the blessings of liberty and good medicine and good medical care to all citizens of the country. And yet… I'm say that's the .. that is not a philosophy that is designed to get you better health care for seniors or better education for kids because you have not made the financial commitment that is necessary to implement your policy.

P: There's a lot of unfunded mandates, and when I ran for Congress one of the issues that my constituents – both Republicans and Democrats – were complaining about was the unfunded mandate with regards to “no child left behind” as you have so eloquently mentioned. They wanted me to take a position to literally condemn the “no child left behind” and I said “you know what, the truth of the matter is it has not been fully funded, so we can not really assess its success. If it was fully funded then we would know whether it was successful or not.” So I didn't want to condemn it entirely because of it was not funded. I wanted to get it fully funded first. And that was the position that I ran on. And so we have all these unfunded mandates going on right now and I cannot understand doesn't the President want to leave a legacy that you can look back on and say “when I was commander-in-chief of the greatest nation in the world I had the opportunity to make a difference and this is exactly what I did. “ Doesn't that sense of calling, is it not embedded in his soul is what I want to ask. Let's look at health care. You are an expert on health care. You've held many forums. In fact I met you I think once, years ago, a decade ago in Hopkins. You held a forum on health care. In think in 1989-90. It was Richard Nixon that first proposed universal health care for this country. This is something that you'd think the Republican's would embrace. How come they've shied away from it. Every time some Democrat or leader introduces a new universal health care bill whether it was Hillary … we try to look for why it would not work. They instill a spirit of fear the body politics of America and our country is not founded on fear. We have power, we have love, we have a sound mind. And those are scriptural quotes. Why have they used fear-based politics to hinder the American people from having a national health care bill?

D: I think the answer is – its sort of like a traditional answer if you go way back in time. Health care in this country and health policy in this country has been dictated by doctors. The doctor is god and he's the one who possesses power like the old witch doctors (Peter Laughs) who have these powers that nobody else has. You know and my doctor has more power than any other doctor which is why I go to him. And so, in order to enhance that aura of power over time, the medical association has said “we really can't … we have to have a relationship with the patient which includes paying for our services.” And they invented health insurance like Blue Cross for hospitals and Blue Shield. And so they were then guaranteed patients, they were guaranteed that the patients would have money to pay for their bills, and they would have the autonomy to do whatever, whatever they thought was appropriate. In this very complicated age of medicine we live in today, a doctor is not a doctor is not a doctor. There's a lot of distinctions that we don't know anything about in terms of the quality of medicine and things like that. And so, one of the fears that doctors have of course, and others, with universal health care is that somehow the government like in Medicaid or Medicare is going to dictate how much medicine you can practice and on whom and how you can do it and much you're going to get paid and all of the rest of that sort of thing. So that's a genuine fear on some people's part. On the other hand, the Republicans now say that's bad, you know, to have the Medicare program is a government run program so its not good. Medicaid is not good because it is run by the government. We want health insurance companies to run it. Well doctors should be protesting that too.

P: They should be. 100 percent.

D: There is no doctor in this community that is as rich as Bill McGuire, for example with the United Health Group because he has a very successful health insurance company. And yet, if you were diagnosed with a rare form of cancer or neurological dysfunction of some kind, would you go to Bill McGuire?

P: No!

D: Even though he's an MP. But would you go to him just because he's very successful at health insurance? Well you wouldn't. And so we don't get our care either from government or from insurance companies. We get our care from highly motivated, incented, physicians. And neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have found a way yet in which to properly incent the real creative health professionals in our country. We did that many years ago here in Minnesota with multi-specialty group practices, HMOs, the old concept of group health, which was a cooperative for doctors and the hospitals and the actuaries and the people all have the same stake in staying healthy and recovering quickly and getting the best long-term care, rehabilitation care. And so what the country really needs is to find a way to get back to …

P: the basics?

D: Yeah, get back to the basics that many of us in this community have sort of taken for granted over a long period of time. That's a long winded answer to your question which I've already forgot.

P: You know. You've really mentioned a lot of things. Obviously the Republican party is worried about what they call a government takeover. You know there's also another notion that everything, anything the government touches is bad. Its really wrong. You know I was born in England. Grew up in Africa. We have the best postal service in the world. Period. We have the best armed forces in the world. Period. Government runs those institutions. I don't see any Republican complaining much about those two institutions or that the military is run by the government.

Secondly, I agree with you. The doctors right now don't have much power. The insurance companies are deciding. You know a physician has to decide when a patient comes to him number one “Am I going to get sued” and “What is his insurance company going to cover” and “what is the best surgery for this patient”. These are things that the doctor should not spending their time on. And all that costs money. And you have some bureaucrat in an administration in charge of that. We need to remove that. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a health insurance company, but we can streamline that. The time has come for major reform in the health insurance companies. There's got to be a compromise—my suggestion between the government, employers and individual contributions. We can foster and fashion a national health care bill that all of us win. We may not get everything that we want, but we can still maintain, intact, the quality of health care in America. I think this fear based notion, that if we have a universal health care bill it will undermine the quality of health care is wrong. America is not Canada. It's not Great Britain. America can do better. You know we've always risen up to the challenges that come before us. When I ran for Congress I said if we can put a man on the moon, we sure can provide health care for all Americans. Don't you agree Senator?

D: There's no doubt about it. When I chaired that Minnesota Citizens forum on health care costs for Governor Pawlenty a couple years ago it didn't take us long as an 18-member group to come to that same conclusion. We didn't call it universal coverage. We didn't call it like everybody in America has to have a health insurance plan or a health savings account or something like that. We talked in terms of universal access, because people are not all the same. People are culturally different. They come from different places not only geographic…

P: Different ethnics, different diseases more prone to different groups.

D: Yeah exactly, we have so many new immigrants in this country and so forth. You can't … you just can not pride yourself on the fact that everybody had health insurance, even though we have 44- million that don't. The solution is not insurance. The solution is access. And that takes a whole different kind of thinking. And the conclusion we all came to, and one of the conclusions I should say I came to now that I'm out of Washington for ten years here—that there are not national solutions to these problems, they're all local. Health care is local. Your solutions are going to be local. If somehow or other the Governor would appeal to us as Minnesotans to take up this burden ourselves the yoke would get very sweet and easy. Because we could lift this burden of cost and access and questionable quality… we could lift that from our shoulders if we took responsibility as a community of people. Its that what the doctors and the hospitals need. They need to get this sense that everybody is on board the change. If they're the only ones that have to change, then it's going to be hard. But if we all said we're going to start taking responsibility for our own health. We as communities of people are going to think about ways in which we can provide for those who are disabled, those who are elderly, those who fall into the behavioral health problems or mental health problems through no fault of their own directly, family circumstances… you know family of origin certain family things like that. But it takes more than an insurance plan. And it takes more than money to bring down the cost and improve the quality of the health care.

P: It takes education. 60 percent of our society are obese.

D: It takes education, commitment, it takes assuming some responsibility, but above all it takes leadership. And somebody has to stand up who is a recognized leader like a Governor or head of a big health plan or something and say “hey this is our problem, this isn't the government's problem. This is our problem.” If I could just hear the President of the United States say that. I advocated to Bill Clinton when he was 100 days in office and he hadn't delivered his health care bill like he promised and they invited us to the White House. Finally, after 100 days Republicans finally got invited to the White House. And I said you know Mr. President, if you spent the next… if you spent the Summer , I guess it was three or four months, going around America standing on those proscenium stages you know with your lapel mic and you'd have thousands of people in the audience. And all you'd have to do is say “I'm Bill Clinton and I'm blessed to be the President of the United States right now and I'm here to talk to you about health care—access, quality, safety – those kinds of issues. But I don't have any of the answers, but I think all of you do because you've had experience with the system.” And then just say “now it's our problem, not mine. It's our problem, not yours. It's our problem so help me figure it out.”. and then just stop talking you know. And just let people talk to you. And then I said, “you know if … I can swear, right now that after three or four months when Mrs. Clinton gets her bill out, either you are going to have changed that bill because of all the input you've got. Or people are going to believe that whatever she comes out with was a fruit of their effort, or our effort and they will support it even though the special interests will attack it.

There is really a desperate need in this country for us to be made part of the solution. Because in Washington, problems are always defined in partisan terms, in self interest terms, or in money terms. They have to be made our problems as a nation, as people and elected leaders, as Democrats and Republicans or you can't solve ‘em. It's true of health care, it's true of the quality of education, it's true of national security and national defense. You have to understand these are our challenges as a people. And I don't think any President lately, Bill Clinton could come close and Ronald Reagan was really good this sort of thing. But I have just to yet to see from the current politicians Democrats or Republicans and their candidates anyone who could really sincerely stand up and say to an audience “you know this is our problem. Help me figure out what we can do about it” in a meaningful way. Sure, politicians still make those speeches. I had an interesting conversation near the end of the 04 election with Garrison Keillor. We happened to be on the same airplane together. He says he's been going around to all these Democratic audiences to raise money because everybody knows he wanted to beat George Bush and so forth. But he says “I've spoken at all kinds of – around here in Minnesota – for all kinds of candidates”. He says “I've yet to meet a candidate who could actually speak in a way that would connect with his audience.” Isn't that something? That observation. So I said “what do we need in politics today?” And I thought he would say “well we need campaign finance reform”. He said “what we need is a good is a good 15 minute speech.”

P: (Laughs)

D: You would appreciate that as a candidate. A good 15 minute speech. But what he meant was politicians are not connecting. Somebody has taken the personality out of politicians and have inserted the Democratic tape, the Republican tape or something like that and they go around reciting, reciting, reciting, reciting the same old crap all the time.

P: The same old rhetoric, because they're not speaking from the heart. They are so micro-managed by their managers. And there's also a lack of leadership too. And there's a lack of boldness . You know, you mentioned about Bill Clinton. And I think I'm beginning to understand where you're coming from here. I believe he may have missed an opportunity by really giving the whole health care thing to Hillary and not taking advantage of his gift and going before the American people and doing exactly what you said. “You know I don't have all the answers, but I know the answers lie in the hearts and minds of the American people. This is an issue that we're all in together. Help me out here and let's work together and bring America together.”

D: I agree with that. That's the right conclusions.

P: But on the other side, on the flip side too he was also worried about the partisan bitterness that was already creeping in the country. I mean look at how they ripped the Hillary health care plan apart. That could have been Bill. So Hillary basically took a shot for the President. (Laughs) I don't know if that is good.

D: Hmm. Well, then came contract for America and Newt Gingrich took his own shot. I mean he shot himself.

P: Yes he did. Well I wonder if the current Governor is looking at that page book and seeing how well Clinton won that contract for America because right after government shut down Clinton reemerged and came back.

Switching gears, let's look at our current President right now. Our nation's at war. We were told that because of weapons of mass destruction we needed to go in, unilaterally into Iraq. Brent Scowcroft, the powerful national security advisor to George W.H. Bush , the President's father and architect of the Persian Gulf war together with Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin Powell and the current Vice President. A war that was executed with bullet-point accuracy, advised --I was told – this President to reconsider his decision to go to war in Iraq. Obviously he did not listen. They went to war in Iraq. And then we get this Downing Street Memo from London and it shows that the decision to go to war Iraq had long been made long ago. You know, Carl Rove argues that it was also on the agenda in the State Department when Clinton was in power it was just an option that he hadn't used. So there's a lack of people questioning right now whether we made the right decision or not. And that doesn't bode well for our troops who are laying down their lives – making the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of the United States. I listened to the President's speech. He mentioned freedom many times and he tied it to the situation with Iraq and terrorism. But the American people know today that according to the latest 9/11 report which came out, which is bipartisan and authentic that there was no connection between Alkida and Saddam Hussein. Which means Saddam Hussein was not involved directly or indirectly with what happened in the towers in New York. What does that say about our leadership and the erosion of confidence in good government in America?

D: That's a huge question. But first let me say that it is a challenge like none other that we've ever faced before. Because it's the world. It's the whole world we're talking about. And how we meet that challenge is really critically important. Secondly, let me say that I don't believe this nation is at war. I think there's a family down in Clarks Grove, Minnesota that's at war. You can go around reserve units, National Guard units, you can go around families all over the United States and you can find people who are at war. When you go to eastern North Carolina and you find that their Congressman is saying we need a deadline. And I know this fellow, Walter Jones. And the minute I saw that he was talking about a deadline, I knew there was problems at Fort Bragg, or at Fort… that's in South Carolina. There were problems in eastern North Carolina with the troops and with their families because they are the only ones at war. The rest of the country is busy making money. Busy going to the beach. Busy living like business as usual. Voting for a President because he stood up to terrorists or whatever it is, but they are not invested in this war. This is a real serious problem for a President who is reaping the temporary benefits of being at war with an identified public figure who is characterized as a tyrant and a dictator, and a bunch of things like that – Saddam Hussein.

P: The person Rumsfeld visited when he was in power.

D: They can't find Osama Bin Laden. They can't find the real terrorists. They needed an identifiable person and they needed to characterize him as a terrorist and so they used Saddam Hussein. I don't want to take the time here to credential myself on was “were we right in going after Saddam or not”

P: I agree that's the past.

D: I won't do that. But the answer to your question is we were wrong. It was the wrong decision. I would've never of voted for it. I do not understand how people like John Kerry and so forth voted to go to war when they should have understood, number one it was the wrong target. There are people we should be at war at, but it's a whole different war. So it was the wrong target. It was the wrong time to go after that target if we were going after him. And you never had the tools to fight the kind of war you're going to fight anyway. And I won't try to answer the question about what should we do now because we could spend the whole morning on that question.

P: You know, when I ran for Congress and met with Bill Luther and the nation was about to go to war and I told him that the clear and present danger to our country right then in the Middle East was Iran. And that they were building a nuclear facility down there. And that they were the ones that had, were closer to developing the atomic bomb. And I didn't see… I felt that Saddam Hussein had been boxed in by the UN sanctions. And obviously that message didn't get out and we went to Iraq and we're finding that now Iran that is closer. There's just this feeling in the world that America is the greatest nation in the world. We've always risen up to leadership. We got involved in wars to save humanity, to save freedom. People are asking us, did we divert the war on terrorism by getting involved in Iraq. Now there are terrorists down there. Everybody that hates America is going down there. We need to fight them. We can't let them come to our shores. But the question is are we not there before until we got down there. It was when we got down there that they saw us like o these are sitting ducks. And we got down there and also looking at the execution of the war itself. Most of our soldiers have been lost to the IEDs which are which are the improvised explosive devices. It took a long time before the Pentagon began to realize that we need to do something about these IEDs. I'm glad to hear that there's a home grown called ATT Alientech Systems that have developed a new device that makes the IEDs explode before our vehicles and Humvees get down there. That's revolutionary. I think we spend less technology on defense-based weapons systems which are in more need in the wars of the 21st century than offensive weapons systems that when we get down there, we cannot keep the peace. Don't you think there should be an overhaul in the way we spend our dollars in the defense department to reflect the wars of the 21st Century?

D: In 1985 and 1986 I served as the chairman on the Senate select committee on intelligence at the time when Bill Casey was the director of central intelligence for President Reagan. We had some fairly highly visible differences of opinion over whether or not the Nicaraguans were likely to take over the United States by military force.

P: (laughs) The Contras

D: Yeah the Contras. And it were the Sandinistas were the ones they feared. But the one thing we never disagreed on was that the nation needed desperately a national security strategy that reflected the realities of the next 20 years from 1985 to now. And I said “why don't you go and put one together?”. And he did that. And he came back to me in a couple of weeks and it was all about the kind of things we're experiencing today. It was not about a two-front war. It was not about the Soviet Union. You know, that sort of thing. It was about economics. It was like globalization leads to a variety of problems. It was about religious fundamentalism. It was all about non-traditional kinds of warfare. He was the director of central intelligence. He has all the resources in the world to tell him what war fighting requirements will be in the next 20-years. And his answer – we still haven't, the defense establishment has still not come up with the answers to what he proposed to me and he proposed to Cap Weinberger at Defense and to George Schulz at Secretary of State should be our strategy. So we have not changed the military and so we're recruiting people in to the army, navy, air force, marines, etc. , coast guard today on the theory that we're still going to be fighting the Russians, we're going to be fighting some whatever it is… and so all of our electronic and IT technology is on can we bomb people from 40, 000 feet in the air or 40,000 miles away. Right? As opposed to what you just talked about. Which is the realities of where war is going to be fought.

P: It's intelligence. You know I look at what the insurgents are doing in Iraq. They know when the cabinet secretaries or ministers leave their houses. They target them. They kill them. They know when they're coming out. They seem to know exactly when these elected officials are coming out of their residential homes. Even with their motorcade, they know what weapons to use. How come we are not able to use intelligence to track down these terrorists. I am deeply concerned about the use of the helicopters, the Chinook helicopters. They got shot down in Somalia. They got shot down in Viet Nam. And their getting shot down in Afghanistan, they're getting shot down in Iraq. Can you tell me that there is nobody in the Pentagon that has figured out from the beginning that we need to develop this helicopters in such a way that they can withstand and RPG? That's a third world, third rate weapon that is killing our fine men and women. What is it going to take? How much research dollars do we need to build those helicopters. Maybe we shouldn't have used them. I was looking at the British army. I noticed that they hardly use those helicopters. And anytime one goes up it's so easy for somebody hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan to shoot them down. And it's a colossal loss of life because these are the finest men and women. The SEALS you know. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are made to train them. How come there seems to be nobody in the Pentagon who says “you know what? Every time we put these helicopters in the air they're just getting shot down. Maybe we shouldn't use them. Maybe we should try a different strategy. “

D: I ah… One of the first books that I wrote was called “neither madmen or messiahs” and I wrote it back in 1982 because when I got elected I was not at all experience in national security matters. And I needed to get smarter. And particularly since I was on the Intelligence Committee. So that and others were ways to get smart. So I wrote a book on my view of national security strategy and so forth just to let my constituents know where I stood. Where I was coming from and so forth. And so one of the things that I've learned is at any given time whether it is 1982 or its 2005, there are lots of people inside the Pentagon who know the problems. It's that the leadership cannot reflect the realities. You can't get that word up the chain of command until you have an adverse experience.

P: You need a change agent to champion it at the highest level.

D: Yeah exactly. Just like the American people. You know people say what will it take to really reform the health care system. We'll have some sort of crisis. What will it take to really reform social security? Some kind of crisis. My answer to that is usually “No, it takes leadership.” It shouldn't have to take a crisis. But it does take leadership. Some would argue that Don Rumsfeld, you know if it hadn't been for 9/11, if it hadn't been for the follow up policies which he allegedly wasn't fully supportive of – to attack Saddam Hussein – was one of those change agents within the department of defense. So we'll never know now. Except now we're going to have to go through this horrible experience of learning one dead military serviceman from Clarks Grove at a time. We're going to have to learn the hard way what it wasn't that hard to learn in the first place because people inside this security establishment of ours are a lot smarter than we are. And when they get out they go work for Allientech or they'll go work for someplace else building the kind of equipment that they know we're going to need in the future at sometime. It's just like inventing drugs. You know the drug is going to be used at sometime even if there isn't a current need for it now. It's just always a leadership issue.

P: You're very right. Now turning back to politics again. Obviously there's a big race going on in the Senate. And we have Mark Kennedy running from the Republican side and a host of Democrats who are planning to run. Who do you think is going emerge victorious? I know at the beginning of our interview we mentioned some things about the Democrats not willing to change. Obviously there's some major reforms that need to be done in our party our self, the Democratic party and I'd like to hear from you, your commentary looking from the outside how Democrats can rise up to become the dominate party once more again in Washington.

D: One of the good things that came out of the most horrible election I've ever sat through which were the 2004 elections was this concept of red states and blue states. It's horribly divisive and all that sort of thing.

P: (Laughs) Yes it is.

D: But the good part of it. The good part of it is I think it taught a lot of people on both sides some lessons. The question is which side is going to learn most quickly? And the answer to that is the Democrats. They have to. They're the minority party. They got fewer blue states than there are red states. Even some of their blue states like Minnesota have some very shaky foundations on them. So you better wake up. So I did this little interview in City Pages magazine and so forth. And all of a sudden I'm getting calls from Democrat candidates for office. And basically I said I'm not a Democrat. I'll never be a Democrat. I don't find anything you know I find in my kind of a Republican the way I was raised up – my family, my mentors, my employers like Elmer Anderson and Harold LeVander and all those kinds of people. That's my version of being a Republican. So I give that to you as a model for a Democrat. I mean stop sticking with the old…

P: Old paradigm , failed policies of the past?

D: That's right you got to get off of that. And just because some Republicans are talking about school choice and outcomes based education and charter schools and things like that, doesn't mean that you Democrats shouldn't take that issue away from them. Look who did it in Minnesota. It was not Arnie Carlson the Republican. It was Rudy Perpich, yes the Democrat, who provided the leadership in this state for real education reform. He's never been given the credit for it. Arnie took the credit even though he opposed all this stuff in his first term. He took the credit in his second term. Republicans, just to stick with education, Republicans are making the mistake as they always will and always have of being against public education. What they should be identifying is the concept of government schools need to have some competition. The government schools are the problem, not public education.

P: Like it is in other parts of the world.

D: Many places. You can look. You've traveled. I've traveled all over the world and you can find within public education you can find a lot of private schools and so forth. But if you say as Republicans do, “private education is better than public education, so we need to use public money to finance private education” you are wrong.

P: (agreeing) You're wrong.

D: You are dead wrong politically. You're dead wrong economically and from an education efficiency standpoint. We need competition and choice within public education in order to enhance the value of public education in our communities. And the Democrats ought to be the first ones to get there. And teachers understand this. Teachers unions don't. Teachers do understand this. And all of my life in the United States I favored like tuition tax credits and things like that because I think public schools ought to start charging tuition and getting tax subsidies. So teachers would be sent out by the education association to talk to me at various times and I would say before , before I answer your question about why do I support choice or whatever, you got to answer a question for me. And this is the question. I'd look ‘em right in the eye and say “please tell me the last weekday morning when you woke up in the morning and couldn't wait to get to school.” And I must tell you, in whatever it was, maybe a dozen years of asking those questions hundreds of times I never got an answer. Meaning teachers are not waiting to get to school in the morning.

P: They're not happy.

D: Meaning there's a problem in education. And it is in public and private education today and private education is not an answer to the problems in public education. Choice. Family involvement. Competition. You know all of those kinds of things that are embodied in a lot of the movements that Republicans take credit for. Something that clearly Democrats clearly should be championing.

P: I agree with you. You know when I ran for congress, I proposed the teachers bill of rights. I think I was the first person in the country to talk about that. And obviously, I found out just from my own early childhood education the role that teachers played in our upbringing and that we need to recognize them for what they do in our society today, give them opportunities and scholarships to get advanced degrees because in the long run they're going to teach your children who will come ready to learn and then learn ready to succeed. I know that the Chinese and the Indians don't have this voucher issue but they keep winning the math and science competition. So we need to take a cue from that. Thank God for our institutions of higher learning. We always catch up by the university level in America and that's why everybody comes to this great country to get best education for the advanced degrees. But there's a collapse in our education system from seeing the children coming up today. They're unhealthy. 60% obese are our kids. That doesn't bode well for our society. They're not really ready for the work of the 21st century. Thomas Freedman wrote a book “The World Is Flat”. We're facing some stiff competition. We need to do something sooner rather than later to address this problem and it's going to take the cooperation of both political parties. And get away from the rhetoric and use the Minnesota model when we invested in education in the early 50s and that has made us what we are today. This is really key for us.

D: So that's one of the… I mean I think that's one of the challenges that the Democrats face. In health care I think they're better equipped to carry the day because the Republicans have probably stepped way over the line by saying only private insurance companies can deliver good health care. And I think there's an opportunity for Democratic candidates to take the lead in concepts like universal access and getting people involved and giving identity to that in concepts like long term care which is largely supportive services, assisted living, things like that. Getting rid of words like “long term care” (laughs) and talking about it the way people would like to talk about it which is “I need a little help with my average daily living. I need some supportive services. They don't have to come from the insurance company, they don't have to come from the government. They can come from my family, they can come from my home. They can come from my community. They can come from my neighborhood.” And so forth. And people understand that if you go in North Minneapolis or you go in to Green Bush, Minnesota. People understand that sort of thing. They've become too dependent on government programs to meet some of the needs in their lives when they can't meet them themselves. And simply its not a matter of abandoning government programs. It's a matter of changing the role of government. In helping people finance access at those periods of their lives when they need it. And Republicans are right. People make better choices than government does, that sort of thing. But the Democrat would be right by saying “yeah but insurance companies don't make better choices than either government or families” and so just saying everybody is going to have long term care insurance, everybody is going to have health insurance, that doesn't solve the problem either. Those are two major areas where candidates to speak out on . I don't know… and I admire Mark Kennedy, very intelligent person and he's very gifted and were… Say Mark Kennedy had been elected when I was elected. Mark Kennedy could be a very good United States Senator. Mark Kennedy though running for office in 2006 is basically stuck in a Texas Republican party.

P: Carl Rove organized the Texas party.

D: The Texas party. It's not a Minnesota party. And you know, I wouldn't say this to you if I hadn't already said it to him. I mean, he needs to be a Minnesota Republican. And I don't mean necessarily the current so called from the business right or whatever the right is in Minnesota. Business, church, evangelical or something or other. But he needs to be what his instincts, what his upbringing in Pequot Lakes, what his education at St. John's taught him to be – a compassionate conservative. And that would win in Minnesota. Now can he do that vs. what can Amy Klobuchar do, what can Mike Ciresi, Patty Wetterling do. I don't know. I don't know. Can they raise the money as Democrats in order to be free to say what they believe? Or are they going to get stuck in order to raise two-million dollars, five- million dollars.

P: They have to say… they have to abide by the..

D: Yeah, do they get stuck with the Hollywood line or the AFL line or I don't know,

P: or the union line

D: whatever the line is that is at the top of the check? (laughs)

P: The freedom to speak from the heart. How did the late Senator Paul Wellstone pull that off, you know, to get the freedom to speak from the heart and win the election? And that was so lacking even at the highest levels in the 2004 Presidential election where I was told that one day John Kerry went to a meeting after the campaign and there was the head of the pro-choice movement and some other powerful Democrats. And they were doing analysis of the paralysis—why they had lost 2004 – and he really spoke out and I quote some “ Not every Democrat is for … believes in abortion. Not every Democrat believes in gay marriages. “ And the leaders who were with him were shocked. They opened their mouth. Because it didn't look like the Kerry that they had known. It looked like he was coming out and speaking from the heart right after the election. Why didn't he do that during the election? You know, why was he afraid that he may turn down… voters may not be fired up to come out on behalf of him? I mean I don't care where you stand on those issues, but take a stand and defend it and not be afraid of where you stand. We don't see that in the Democratic party and this is the truth.

D: And you don't see it in either party anymore and largely because it's, it's… let me put it this way… The reality is you can't get on the ballot today unless you happen to be a Paul Wellstone and you're really unique. You can't get on the ballot today unless you kiss up to either the current DFL, whatever that is, or the current Republican, whatever that happens to be. And it gets narrower, and narrower, and narrower all the time. And so that's the only way you get on the ballot. You know the idea that… Jesse Ventura…

P: …was an independent. What about the Independent Party?

D: Well yeah! I was in Dhaka, Bangladesh and I heard about Jesse Ventura

P: (laughs)

D: From Bangladeshis who watch WWF on television. So. But that's the only way an Independent gets elected, you know. Honest to God. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger had to run as a Republican even though he's not the kind of Republican….

P: a moderate Republican

D: Yeah exactly. Or Guiliani or somebody like that. So those are unique. Everybody else including John Kerry, you got to kiss up to the current D line or R line in order to even get on the ballot to get to the people. And so after that it's pretty hard to be independent. I go back to the basics. Unless you can have a real Republican or a real Democratic party for ANYBODY who says “I'm a Democrat” or “I'm a Republican” has a chance of getting endorsed, regardless of their views as you referred to on gay marriage or abortion or whatever, regardless of their views, if you say “I'm a Democrat”, I'll caucus with a Democrat. I'll vote with the Democrat most of the time.

P: You have to stick with them.

D: Yeah. That's the only way we can keep a healthy two-party system going. (If) we keep narrowing the credentials for each party we are going to kill the two-party system. I don't know what's going to replace it, but certainly not good government.

P: But how did you run yourself? You were very admired. It's not because you did the “City Pages”. You have always been admired by many Democrats. I remember I was an activist in Clean Water Action. Just graduated from Gustavus Adolphus college your friend Diane Jensen. We stood up at Clean Water Action. She used to say, you know Dave Durenberger was a person that they could do business with, with regards to the environment. In other words, you were not like the other Republicans. You believe strongly in the environment. And that was something that was echoed to us. In fact you may not be aware, but the day, when you were running against Humphrey, you know, normally Clean Water Action being an organization that even though a strong environmental organization, non-partisan, the majority of the supporters are Democrats more on the liberal side. And the normal tendency was to endorse Skip Humphrey. But just because of what you stood on the environmental policy they took a “no endorsement” stance and Skip Humphrey wasn't too happy about it.

D: No they didn't have the guts to endorse me. So that the reality is….

P: So why did you choose to do what you felt was right rather than just toe the party line like Rudy Boschwitz and Rod Grams?

D: First, because that's the way I was raised. Secondly because the people I had an association with as a Republican like Elmer Anderson and Harold LeVander, they were that kind of Republican. Thirdly because in the 60s and the 70s when I was growing up in politics there were all kinds of Republicans. There were the Bob Taft Republicans and the Nelson Rockefeller Republicans. There were the right and the left. And after every election was over or after every endorsing battle was over the conservatives and the moderates came together and hugged each other and they elected the Republican. They didn't elect the conservative, or the moderate. They elected the Republican. That's… I was a product of that. In 1972 –73, 74, that all changed. First the Democrats with Don Fraser in charge decided to create a Democratic convention made up of individuals rather than what was a collective sense of what was a Democrat. So everybody got to caucus, sub-caucus, sub-sub-caucus, with their own freaky notion of what's good public policy. So rather than have a big tent Democratic party, you know, you had 10,000 individual notions of what a Democrat was posing as a Democratic party. 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States did Roe v. Wade. That became an opportunity.

P: Galvanizing

D; Yeah, for the Democratic party to get rid of a whole lot of pro-life , anti-abortion Democrats. And they did. And those people came over to the Republican party. And the Republican party, being a minority party, welcomed them with open arms. They welcomed anybody. They still had the big tent open. You know, we welcomed anybody who would come. And gradually… I got elected, Rudy got elected. Al Quie got elected from the old-fashioned camp. But I tell you every two years after that you could just watch the base narrowing and narrowing and narrowing and narrowing. And it was driven by single-issue politics entirely. Entirely. And I didn't get to experience it all directly because when you're a Senator a lot of people don't' tell you what they're really doing or thinking or so forth. But lots of other people I knew did. My children did. When my sons would go to precinct caucuses they'd get beat up on by people “why did your dad vote this way on prayer in the schools or burning the flag” or something like that.

P: (Laughs) Is that right?

D: Oh yeah, Oh yeah. I mean … It's like a favorite congressman friend of mine who happens to be a conservative Democrat from Tennessee, Jim Cooper, said that he'd been out of the congress for 10-11 years and got re-elected and came back in. He said “You know the problem with the Congress today is it's like the frog in the water. If you go in the water when the waters cold and somebody starts turning up the heat, you don't even know you're boiling to death. But if you jump into the boiling water, you jump right out.” He said people in congress today and this is true of current Democrats and Republicans , don't even know how they are perceived by everybody else in the country. And this is true of these characters at the state legislature. The Republicans and the Democrats. They have no… they have so long been in the gradually heated water that each one of them thinks they're doing the right thing for their constituents and they don't realize how foolish they look to all the rest of us in Minnesota.

P: The last issue we'll talk about is state government. You know I was listening to Public Radio. I listened to Christine Whitman and she mentioned that the moderates in the Republican party had not stepped up to the plate and that's why the far right or the evangelicals, with much credit to them had dominated the politics in Washington, and that's why we have what we have in the Republican Party. And what it has done it has triggered the opposite in the Democratic party. There's a saying in Newton third law of physics that in every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. And so you have the far left dominating the Democratic party. Where even we are perceived as people that are not a party of faith. Even though it's not true it's just been a negative perception. And then you have the far right where they're perceived as a party that basically wants to destroy the separation of church and state. So two major, major, major, major polar opposites and no center. No middle ground. And you're either there or the other. I mean you can see the hammer being put on the Republicans. They need to support everything the President does. I think it was Voinovich, that Senator from Ohio who crying when he explained why cannot vote for Bolton and that really left much to be desired. We never… I never thought we'd come to that.

D: Yeah. I would disagree with Christine Whitman on only one point. The moderates have tried and they've been beaten down, beaten down, beaten down so they just quit. So you can't expect changes to come a far-right-of-center party from those who are only slightly right of center. It's going to have to come from the Democrats. And that's why until the Democrats in this state and the Democrats nationally wake up to the reality that the people are to the right of their party, then we're going to have all of the problems that we predict. So it is really today, up to the Democrats. So that's why you're right in saying the disappointment that both of us have, while there are things to admire about Bill Clinton one of the great disappointments is that he didn't take advantage of the opportunity that the public was giving to define the middle. Because he had the contract for America Republicans moving so strongly to the right. Texas Republicans, the southwestern kind of Republicans moving my party too far to the right. He could have defined a left on which many of us… or a middle I should say on which many of us could stand rather than on the left on which Paul Wellstone and the Democrats stood. And they did a lot of great things for America. Civil Rights is only one of them. So it really is up to the Democrats. The Republicans don't' have the capacity to change it. The one exception to that is a Governor in my book. And I bet on Tim Pawlenty to be that kind of Governor and I still would like to bet on him to be that kind of Governor. All though the evidence so far is

P: It's not there.

D: It's kind of like a stretch to find it at the current time.

P: He started well with the health care thing. Willing to allow senior citizens to buy prescription drugs from Canada and I understand that just got shut down by the Canadian government recently.

D: But I still think that's his heart. That's where his heart is. Why he can't get back to that I'm not sure.

P: Why did he cut the Minnesota Care on the people that needed it the most in order to balance the budget or in order to fulfill his no tax pledge. My biggest… You know Tim Pawlenty is a brilliant governor. My major beef with him is you have these politicians that make promises and pledges that they can't keep. And they come into power and they realize they can't them and in order to keep their word it's done at the expense of the people. And so we had to have some cuts And these cuts have effected the least in our society. And you cannot say you are a compassionate conservative and you are a man of faith and then do everything that is unscriptural. I'm sorry to say, it's just a fact.

D: Right

P: and just out of tune with being a people driven government or a people driven governor.

D: Yeah, I wasn't part of the decision making process so its hard to answer the question why did he do what he did. I have no question in my mind however, had he taken all of the recommendations that came from this Minnesota Citizens Forum group—that really came from the citizens themselves – and sort of enlisted the people in a process of changing our insurance system, changing our health delivery system, changing we ourselves take responsibility for our actions. If he had had that kind of community support behind him when he went to having to deal with the budget issues, there would have been a lot more support. But because he chose to create a health cabinet and keep it sort of inside the government, the people weren't invested in whether or not the way in which he was recommending changes were right or they were not right. And though… that's about as far as I can get because I don't know exactly the details of his recommendations.

P: What are the political consequences for the government shutdown? We know that when it happened in 1995, it was a big victory for Bill Clinton. Actually turned his political career around when people thought he was all but finished because we lost the House and the Senate. I think the House the first time in 30 years with the contract with America and the revolution of Newt Gingrich. Is the Governor betting that this will turn out in his favor? Or are the Democrats betting that it's assured that this is a do-nothing Governor? I mean, both parties must be thinking about the political positioning for them to shut down the government. I don't think they care about the people.

D: Oh year, that's all their thinking about. They're only thinking about their political…. Yeah you're right exactly. And they're thinking about it seriously because the Republicans lost what 17 seats in the last Minnesota House election. So they got reason to think about it. My view is … I think actually the shutdown occurred after the Republicans took charge of the house. And then Newt Gingrich was the speaker and he was responsible for the government shutdown and they paid dearly for it in the times after that. Because people blamed… I mean Clinton was able to lay the blame on Gingrich and Gingrich got it. For the same reason, here in Minnesota the blame is going to lie on the Governor. I mean the people aren't going to be able to distinguish between Steve Swiggum in his sweater and Dean Johnson in his neat little suit and tie. So they're going to lay it off on Tim Pawlenty. And that's serious enough so that the Governor and his Republican party colleagues and legislative colleagues need to spend some time right after this is resolved, rethinking what do they say to the Minnesota electorate between now and the election of 2006. It has to be a different message. It can't simply be the message of “leaner government, better government, cheaper government” no taxes, no this , no this. You can't be a negative message. They have to come with a positive message in order to reclaim the support of Minnesotans.

P: Well I want to thank you very much. It's been a great pleasure to speak with you and hear from you, which was the most important thing. You sure do carry a lot of wisdom. And hopefully we'll get to interview again as time goes on. As the politics heats up in 2006 .

D: Thank you very much. I enjoyed the interview a lot. Most intelligent interview I've had in a long time. (laughs)

P: thank you so much.