David Gergen's Blog, page 18

Foreign policy issues lurking

(CNN) -- As excitement builds for next week's elections, international events naturally fall off the radar screen. But nasty storms are brewing out there and they will blow in soon after we vote. Consider just three.
On Monday, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan shamelessly admitted that he and his cronies regularly receive bags of cash from Iran -- money that diplomats say is intended to undermine U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan.
And Karzai once again insisted that U.S. private security guards -- vital for protection of U.S, citizens -- must soon go home. This from a man who owes his power to the blood and billions from the United States? How will we make this war end well?
On a second front, the Middle East peace talks announced with such fanfare at the White House just a few weeks ago have stalled almost before they have begun. Arab nations have given President Obama until just after U.S. elections to get them unstuck. A failure would be a setback in the whole region. Did we think this through before summoning Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the White House? What is Plan B?
As if this weren't enough, tensions are also building rapidly between China and the United States. According to The New York Times, "American officials speak of an alarming loss of trust and confidence between China and the United States over the past two years." The U.S.-China bilateral relationship is the most important in the world. Why is it in this dangerous spiral? Obama is leaving for Asia immediately after our elections. What plan does he have for restoring American leadership?
Next Tuesday's elections will preoccupy us for days to come, but soon after we will face some very tough questions overseas -- and we will need better answers than we have now. 
By david Gergen for CNN

History as a Guide

(NY Times) The resentment and anger driving American politics this year won't disappear anytime soon. Indeed, we could be entering one of the most contentious chapters in our history.

Elections this November are likely to produce even more gridlock in Washington than in the past, satisfying no one. Conservative insurgents will probably win enough victories to put the brakes on big government but with President Obama still in the White House and Senate Democrats able to filibuster, conservatives won't have the power they need and want to achieve their ultimate objective: rolling back central government. If wisdom prevails, the two sides will try to work out compromises on urgent problems like deficits, but there is much more chance of paralysis -- and continued frustration.
Meanwhile, economists increasingly think that it could be three to five years or more before growth and jobs return. One presidential adviser worries that risks are growing -- perhaps to a 30 percent level -- that we could follow the path of Japan, enduring a lost decade or two. That would guarantee more turmoil in our politics.
History also shows that populist movements often have staying power. Remember William Jennings Bryan? He became the spokesman for the farmers revolt of the 1890s and was the Democratic nominee for president in three separate elections – 1896, 1900 and 1908. Or think, too, of the Goldwater movement of the 1960s -- that started as a populist revolt and had its share of wing nuts. (Remember Robert Welch and the John Birch Society?) But it eventually flowered into the candidacy of Ronald Reagan and has exercised a powerful influence for more than 40 years.
The Tea Party movement hasn't yet found a strong champion like Reagan or even Bryan (Sarah Palin comes closest), but if it does, it could become part of the mainstream and be a force for years to come.
In the meantime, the gravest risk is that America will be so fractured and torn apart in the next few years that we will be unable to govern ourselves and will decline as a great nation. One fervently hopes not, but if we fail, the resentment and anger we see now will be child's play.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/...

Action Greensboro pioneers a model for growth

Son Christopher weighs in again --this time with a look at the home of one of the hottest universities in the country, Elon. I'm proud of my own associations with Elon and with Greensboro. 

By Christopher Gergen and Stephen Martin Try hunting for a convenient parking spot in downtown Greensboro on a Saturday night, and you'll see how things have changed.
Once abandoned for decades, the city's Elm Street corridor now bustles with nightclubs, restaurants, theaters and shops. It won't rival Charlotte or Chapel Hill's Franklin Street anytime soon. But the city's transformation over the past decade has been remarkable - and an innovative partnership among several of the city's private foundations has helped speed it along.
In fall 2000, when the textile industry was crumbling and a new report by consulting giant McKinsey painted a bleak picture of the city's prospects, Greensboro's future looked shaky. A few bold private developers were in the early stages of reviving downtown. But the city's base of corporate leaders was rapidly shrinking. Elected officials, prone to infighting, weren't providing visionary leadership either.
<img src="http://pixel.quantserver.com/pixel/p-..." style="display:none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt="Quantcast" /> [image error] Into this vacuum stepped the heads of six Greensboro foundations, led by the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation, the Cemala Foundation and the Weaver Foundation. Together they formed nonprofit Action Greensboro to revitalize the city's economy.
It was a pioneering model for sparking growth, a task that usually falls to top business and government officials.
"It just evolved from seeing the need to step forward and trying to create a can-do attitude," said Richard "Skip" Moore, who co-founded Action Greensboro as president of the Weaver Foundation.
Flush with more than $50 million from its member foundations, corporations and other partners, Action Greensboro has spearheaded the creation of the city's baseball stadium, park and greenway and accelerated work on the new International Civil Rights Museum.
It supported initiatives that helped improve public school performance, fostered industry and university partnerships and rebuilt the city's approach to business recruitment, luring Honda Jet, Mack Trucks and Elon University's new law school.
Foundations in Pittsburgh and Detroit have experimented similarly, so Action Greensboro's approach isn't unique. Still, it's turning heads.
Springfield, Mass., for example, is using Action Greensboro as a model for reversing its fortunes. Across North Carolina, many communities might benefit from its lessons as they grapple with the demise of the state's textile, tobacco and furniture industries and a severely damaged banking sector.
With Charlotte's corporate base reeling, the Foundation for the Carolinas and its peers could find ways to extend their leadership. In the Triangle, where the universities that help drive growth are suffering from the downturn, Action Greensboro might serve as a model for community development.
Action Greensboro executives can offer foundations plenty of advice on what to expect if they try - and their experiences also shed light on the challenges of leading community change over long stretches of time.
Merely aligning a group of foundations in support of the same projects is demanding. Each foundation has its own boards and priorities that must be made to overlap efficiently.
When a partnership is established, a massive time investment is needed to make it succeed. Foundation executives must build a network of business leaders, public officials and private citizens - while ensuring that their foundations' other projects, which often provide crucial support for education, health care and social services - don't get neglected. It takes a staff of five people, in addition to foundation executives, to make Action Greensboro run.
The group has flourished for a decade, but the passage of years brings its own challenges. Action Greensboro has focused on ferreting out solutions for so long and become so enmeshed in the city's leadership culture that "sometimes you can get the attitude that you know what all the questions and all the answers are," Moore says.
Well-chosen successors can help ward off complacency. Since it's an all-volunteer effort with no human resources department to manage the process, however, succession's not an easy task. Clearly, Action Greensboro will need a fresh injection of talent as its foundations' heads approach retirement and its existing partners in the business, nonprofit and education communities cycle out. With Greensboro's economy still facing serious challenges, its mission remains urgent.
So Action Greensboro's leaders are asking themselves big questions: How can they purposely cultivate new talent? With their own endowments hurt by stock market woes, where will the resources for new projects come from? How can they foster more public-private partnerships and increase the city's entrepreneurial base?
It's the problem of sustaining positive impact - and that, in a city that's endured more than its share of bad news, is still a good problem to have.
Christopher Gergen is the founding executive director of Bull City Forward and director of the Entre pre neurial Leadership Initia tive at Duke University. Stephen Martin, a former business and education journalist, is a speech writer at the nonprofit Center for Creative Leadership. They can be reached at authors@bullcityforward.or

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/10/24/756013/action-greensboro-pioneers-a-model.html#ixzz13KOJhhL2

Social Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century - NYU Reynold's Programs

U.S. Feels China's Economic Power

Let's get to the economy and jobs and Wall Street right now. The Dow lost 165 points, stocks suffered their worst day in two months following news that China raised its interest rates. Let's talk about that with the senior political analyst David Gergen.

David, I remember in the old days when the United States burped a little bit, the rest of the world reacted big time. Now China raises the interest rate, it burps a little bit and it has a huge impact on what's going on, not only here but around the world. I think it's a sign of the times.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It sure is. The world is changing in front of our eyes, Wolf.

For most of the years since World War II, the United States has been the locomotive of the world economic growth. We were the engine in the front pulling everyone along. But coming out of the financial crisis, China has displaced us. It's now the locomotive of world growth.

And today, the Chinese engineer slammed the foot on the brake. And when they did that to slow down the locomotive, all of the cars behind, and that included us, they got a real jolt and our markets went down.

BLITZER: You know, look at the numbers. In the second quarter of this year, China's gross domestic product, China's gross domestic product went up 10.3 percent in the second quarter. The U.S. GDP went up 1.7 percent. Wow, what a difference?

GERGEN: Absolutely. And those differences, Wolf, are not only translating to what we saw today, but they're translating to growing economic tensions between China and the United States. We had one more development on that front today.

The "New York Times" has just been reporting on its website that according to three sources, China has retaliated for what we did last Friday. Last Friday, we announced, the U.S. government announced that we were going to investigate their renewable energy industry to see if they were violating world trade rules.

Now they've come back. They were angry about that and apparently, according to these sources, they have slammed restrictions on, they have curbed the shipment to the United States of vital minerals. They're something called rare earths. Not many of us understand them, but they're used for high-tech kind of things, like guided missiles.

They're also used in the renewable energy industry, and China controls 95 percent of this industry. They control 95 percent of this industry and these rare minerals. Most of what we had in the United States has moved to China and here they're using that as a lever against us to retaliate.

And of course, already we've got all these the tensions over currency rates. So these rising tensions between the number one and number two countries -- we're number one in the largest economy, but they're, as those number you just put up, Wolf, illustrated, they're coming up fast.

BLITZER: And they still have nearly a trillion dollars in U.S. T-bills as well. So they have a lot of sway with the U.S.

David, thanks very much.

GERGEN: They're our creditors.

BLITZER: Yes, they certainly are. They have a lot of money right now, the Chinese.

Transcript from The Situation Room Aired October 19,2010

Obama: Does He Get It?

         
CNN) -- "Does he get it?" That is a question about President Obama that I have heard repeatedly in recent travels from people across the country. If they read an in-depth portrait of the president by Peter Baker this past Sunday in The New York Times Magazine, I imagine many of them would conclude, "No, he doesn't."
Most Americans, I sense, still want the president to succeed -- partly because they like him personally, partly because they are worried about the country. But they are not sure he gets them, their values or the way they see the world.
Example: Twenty percent of Americans regularly identify themselves as liberals, but according to some polling, 66 percent say that Obama is liberal. That means roughly 46 percent think he is to the left of them. They want to see a fundamental change in direction.
But the Baker piece emphasizes that the president and his aides have a different take on reality. Reflecting on the first two years, they say: Yes, we made mistakes, but on tactics, not on the big things. Example: They argue that their mistake on health care was to negotiate too long with Republicans. That's not the real problem, say a majority of Americans. They think the health care bill is flawed (some think it is not liberal enough).
Both in his recent appointments and in his reflections on policy, as Baker recognizes, the president's emphasis is much more upon continuity than upon change. It's his call, but it strikes me as the wrong call.
After these elections are over, the country will face a crucial moment in governing, one that will demand the two sides stop squabbling and work together to head off a deepening national crisis. It will be hard enough to persuade Republicans, who may be flush from victory, to work with Democrats. Some would say impossible.
But unless the president signals change -- unless he shows he wants to meet them halfway by pivoting toward the center -- prospects for the country could go down sharply.

- David Gergen for CNN

Secret Spending Scandal Feared

BLITZER: New warnings that the U.S. could be ripe for yet another political scandal on the scale, perhaps, even of Watergate, this one stemming from secret special interest money coming into campaigns.

Let's bring in our senior political analyst, David Gergen -- David, let me read to you from Al Hunt's column on Bloomberg.com. He writes this. He says: "The U.S. is due for a huge scandal involving big money, bribery and politicians -- not the small fry that dominates the ethics fights in Washington -- really big stuff. Think Watergate. This year, there is a massive infusion of special interest money into U.S. politics that is secret, not reported. Corporations and other interests will spend more than $250 million of undisclosed funds to affect the outcome of the November 2nd national elections.

Are you as worried about another Watergate-type scandal as he is?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: No. Al Hunt is one of the preeminent journalists of our time, someone both you and I greatly respect, Wolf. But on this particular question of Watergate, I -- I think it's, you see, unless he has evidence -- and "The New York Times" also ran a story yesterday suggesting this would be another Watergate. They had pictures of Nixon all over the place -- and Spiro Agnew.

Unless there's evidence, it's  a red herring. They're injecting something and it's a scare tactic to just get people scared -- oh my god, the Republicans are going to bring us another Watergate.

And there is no evidence of that at all.

I do agree with Al Hunt. I think he's absolutely right to champion the disclosure of all contributions. That was something that some Republicans did support early on, when just a few months ago. And I think the disclosure is important. I think Al is right on that.

But why -- you know, the only reason is to reach for Watergate, unless there's evidence, it's like the whole effort like over the last two weeks to say that the Republicans are bringing all this foreign money.

There's no evidence of that and then the Chamber of Commerce and others will come forward and show us all your donors if you want to convince us. And there's not a shred of evidence.

It seems to me that those two arguments are -- they're going to be on the bounds of what I seek happening.

BLITZER: And they said that recent Supreme Court decision made it clear that in some of these organizations, you don't have to disclose where these millions and millions of dollars are coming from.

GERGEN: Well, that's right. The court in this decision that was so controversial said, you know, it basically advocated disclosure. I think it was right. It's been -- as Al Hunt pointed out in his "Bloomberg" piece the Federal Elections Commission has really been dragging its feet, it was a very ineffectual dysfunctional group. They've been dragging their feet.

There is a lot of money coming into this campaign at the last minute. But I do think there a couple of other narratives which are also wrongheaded. Increasingly the narrative is the Republicans are bringing in all this foreign money and that they're basically spending tons and tons of corporate money and they're almost like stealing the elections through their money.

The fact is, I think, the facts at least born out by a big news piece in the "Wall Street Journal" today was that the two sides are relatively balanced now in terms of how much money through all their different channels they're bringing in and throwing into this.

And that the Democratic candidates for the House actually have a little more cash on hand than the Republicans. The Republicans have brought in a ton of money. Is it helping them? Yes. But I don't think it's stealing the election.

I think first public opinion moved into the Republican direction and then money came. It wasn't the other way around. The opinion was already moving.
BLITZER: Do you have a problem with the American citizens, employees of foreign companies that may or may not operate in the United States giving money to politicians?

GERGEN: Well, the "Hill" newspaper came out today saying basically they -- and reporting that now we learned that there are employees of foreign subsidiaries who are giving money to the Democratic Party. And that has been -- Republicans are arguing that's foreign money, it's inappropriate, it's hypocrisy to talk about our foreign money when you got this foreign money.

I think if you're working for a foreign company, you're an American citizen working for a plant here in America or say GlaxoKline (sic), a pharmaceutical company, you're working for their subsidiary here, I don't think that's foreign money. I think that's a false charge against the Democrats.

We're getting a lot of mud throwing around here, aren't we?

BLITZER: Yes. Well, there's a lot of money and you know what they used to say during Watergate --

GERGEN: There's a lot of mud, a lot of money.

BLITZER: All of the money. So that's what we're trying to do a little.

All right, David, thanks very much.


Transcript from The Situation Room Aired September 18, 2010

Showdown In Sin City

President Obama and Big Business

BLITZER: President Obama speaking candidly about his last two years, nearly two years in the White House. He is acknowledging there have been lessons learned and mistakes made. An interview with the "New York Times" magazine comes as the White House is struggling right now to assure Wall Street executives that the president is not against big business. Let's talk about all of this and more with our senior political analyst David Gergen. He joining us from his office at Harvard University in Cambridge.


David, thanks very much. Let me read to you from the article Peter Baker writes in this coming Sunday's "New York Times" magazine. "Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency but he did identify what he called tactical lessons. He let himself look too much like the same old tax and spend liberal Democrat. He realized too late that there's no such thing as shovel- ready projects when it comes to public works." He is trying to deal with big business at the same time but I take it he is having some serious problems reassuring them that he is on their side.

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: He is having very big problems with that, Wolf. I have had the opportunity the last few weeks to meet with a number of CEOs, a number of business groups, many fields, Wall Street yesterday and others and I can tell you that the kind of disappointment that people felt early on has turned to alienation and it has hardened, the attitudes of business have hardened. I think I have had four or five major CEOs in a row speaking almost in identical language about how alienate they had feel. They think he hates them. They think he doesn't understand their world. That he and some of the other people around him think the world works one way and they, in Wall Street and elsewhere, think it works another way and they can't persuade them. It is not a question of disagreeing over tactics, they disagree over broad directions.

BLITZER: They say the White House, accord to this article by Peter Baker, they're trying to do Obama 2.0 now. How does he restore that relationship with big business?

GERGEN: Well, one hopeful sign is, Wolf, several sources have told me that the president has had at least two and maybe more individual high-level from the business community come in and meet with him one-on-one, nobody else around, for searching conversations. They have been very quiet, secretive meetings and I'm told in there, he is asking, where do you think I have gone right? Where do you think I have gone wrong? Help me think this through. What should we do? That is a hopeful sign that is a president who is trying to you know, sort of figure out how do I get this better in the next two years? But I must tell you there is a feeling among some major CEOs that he is a little lost, that he came in and was -- he was inexperienced, he wasn't quite sure how the world worked, he tried some things that he thought as many young people do you can do everything, you know, you can do anything you want and he tried, had had this hugely ambitious agenda. He got himself off course, now he has got an economy in a mess and he's not quite sure what to do next.

BLITZER: We'll see what happens together with you David. Thanks very much, David joining us from Harvard.

GERGEN: Thank you.

BLITZER: Foreclosures are rising to record levels right now, and there's growing fear that a second mortgage debacle may be in the works.

Transcript from CNN's The Situation Room Aired October 14, 2010

U.S. Rises To The Occasion

(CNN) -- All the world is watching, eager to welcome those 33 miners from the pits of hell. It is a tale of courage and resilience that rivals the return of Ernest Shackleton and his men from their ill-fated voyage across Antarctica.
Nearly all the credit belongs to the 33 Chilean men who have survived the ordeal. So, too, should it go to their families and fellow countrymen who have heroically rushed to the rescue.
But even as we wait to see if all men make it safely to the top, it is not too early to salute the Americans who pitched in to help as well with the U.S. technology that proved so vital. After a long dry spell, it is so refreshing to see us at our best again.
Jeff Hart, left, and Matt Staffel, right, both from Denver, Colorado, embrace Elizabeth Segovia, sister of trapped miner Dario Segovia Rojo at the San Jose mine near Copiapo,

The U.S.-Chilean company Geotec Boyles Bros., which operated the first drill to reach the miners, assembled help and materials from across the globe.
After a long dry spell, it is so refreshing to see us at our best, again.

In Western Pennsylvania, two companies long-trained by mine collapses in that region rushed to action. They had UPS ship south a specialty drill, capable of creating shafts large enough to fit the men without collapsing within 48 hours. And they did it for free.

Then, working with Chilean crews, Geotec's Kansas-based partner came up with the plan to get the miners to the surface almost two months earlier than the Christmastime date originally projected.

Expert driller Jeff Hart, a contractor from Denver, Colorado, was called from Afghanistan, where he was helping American forces find water, to man the machine. The 40-year-old drilled for 33 days straight, through tough mineral ore, to reach the men trapped more than 2,000 feet below.
His comment after breaking through last week? "We got the job done."


Three NASA doctors have provided advice on how to keep the miners healthy, both physically and mentally. And the design of the rescue pod is the brainchild of NASA engineer Clinton Cragg. Cragg drew on his experience as a former submarine captain in the Navy and directed a team of 20 to conceive of a small 13- foot-long tube to carry the miners one at a time to the surface.

All told, about a dozen Americans decamped to the desert, and many more labored from home, to rescue the miners. The display of generosity and technological ingenuity shows our finest face to the world. Our capacity for problem-solving and helping those most in need of it, sustains the faith that we can, as Hart said, get "the job done."

By David Gergen and Natalie Sherman

Natalie Sherman is a researcher for Gergen and an editorial assistant at the Boston Herald.