Dick Gephardt
Dick Gephardt
Richard Andrew "Dick" Gephardtis an American politician who served as a United States Representative from Missouri from 1977 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he was House Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995 and Minority Leader from 1995 to 2003. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 1988 and 2004. Gephardt was mentioned as a possible vice presidential nominee in 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, and 2008...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth31 January 1941
CountryUnited States of America
In every issue there are winners are losers, and the losers are plenty.
Those who have prospered and profited from life's lottery have a moral obligation to share their good fortune.
Diplomacy matters. Burden-sharing matters. Follow-through matters. And yes, sustaining the peace is harder, more complex and often costlier than winning the war itself. No matter the surge of momentary machismo -- as gratifying as it may be for some -- it's short-sighted and wrong to simply go it alone.
Eventually I foresee voting on the Internet, which will lead to much more direct democracy.
I grew up in the '50s and '60s when Jack Kennedy was president. We would watch him on television. And our teachers always talked about the good things public servants could do. I thought maybe that's something I should do. So when I got out of law school, my wife, Jane, and I became precinct captains.
I hope we can get back to what I call the kitchen table. Everyday issues that people are really worried about and focused on.
America is a great country. We are so wealthy. But our one remaining challenge is to fulfill the potential of all our people. And the only way we can do that is to try to bring everybody together to a higher place.
Democracy is interactive... Its a constant job of information, education, explanation, listening, and interactive communication.
A lot of what our firm does is unrelated to direct lobbying of members. When you are solving tough problems for your client, you realize that affecting something through the political process may be only one little part of the solution.
They have been following a budget that is faulty, and instead of sitting down with the president and with us and coming up with a consensus budget, they've been following this faulty budget,
the Republicans had tremendous amounts of special interest money. The pharmaceutical companies spent probably $50 million or $60 million supporting all Republican candidates and that blurred a lot of the issue on prescription drugs.
I told him we needed to try to work better together and I would try to make that happen, ... And he seemed positive about it.
I told the president on 9/12, the day after 9/11, that we had to trust one another, that we had to try to put politics aside, to try to prevent further acts of terrorism,
It's one thing to talk the talk, it's another thing to walk the walk, ... We've got to get labor and environment in these treaties, and we've got to do it when the treaties are before the Congress. That's when it counts.