RAY SUAREZ: Welcome to the Online NewsHour's special edition of the Insider Forum. I'm Ray Suarez. We're continuing our coverage of the Democratic National Convention here in our studio in Denver, Colorado.
All this week, the Online NewsHour has been asking Democratic leaders, analysts, and journalists your questions. And joining me now to answer some of those questions is San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Good to see you again.
GAVIN NEWSOM: Thanks for having me on, Ray.
MR. SUAREZ: Well, what do you make of the convention so far?
MR. NEWSOM: Well, I mean, I think it's everything we expected. A lot of intrigue, a lot of questions about what Hillary Clinton would say. A lot of expectations she'd say what she said, and that is she would meet expectation, at least for most of us. As a former Hillary Clinton supporter, I thought her speech was superb but recognize my subjectivity.
But for most of the people I've talked to, Barack Obama supporters as well, they felt very good about it. And I thought one of the most classy things that happened was all those Hillary Clinton signs that were handed out yesterday, I thought they were coming from her campaign. If you look on the bottom, it said Barack Obama for President. So it gave a unifying feel to the room. And there wasn't a curse word said and there wasn't a cross word said all my experience there in the hall, so I felt very good about it.
MR. SUAREZ: Is this a party . . . these are the activists in that room over there. These are the people who make the party go, who run the campaigns, who lick the envelopes. Are they ready to go out there and win, when suddenly they're - depending on who you believe, one point up, one point down, or a dead heat?
MR. NEWSOM: I think that's the backdrop of this is that it's real concern. I mean, there is some legitimate anxiety.
A lot of folks thought we'd be five to 10 points ahead at this point. And there is a lot of concern that we may not necessarily get the bump that we typically get in a convention like this because of the wisdom of the Republican Party to do their convention right after the Democratic convention and to eliminate that usual gap that allows one party to take advantage of that slow news time.
So I think it's going to be a close election; it's going to be a tough election. That's why it's so critical that we all get along, put aside our differences, and do exactly what Hillary Clinton said to do. And that's forget about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and remind ourselves about each other. It's about the future of this country. And remind ourselves about the party values that unite each and every one of us, regardless of who we supported in this primary.
MR. SUAREZ: You are mayor of what's thought of generally - spoken of generally - as one of the most liberal cities in the country. But you're a California politician, a Westerner, someone who looks out at politics across the country. Is the Democratic Party positioned in a way to appeal to the broad sweep of Americans and win a national election?
MR. NEWSOM: I think so. I mean, if people care - it seems to me - and I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican; you care about your health care. You want health insurance. You want to be able to afford that health insurance. That's a uniting principle.
You care about the ability to get a job and to raise a family. You care about affordable housing or housing that is affordable. You care about good quality public education. You care about the environment - maybe for different reasons; you're a hunter. Maybe you're a fisherman. Maybe you're someone that just loves going out in the kayak and you're starting to say, the seasons aren't changing like they used to.
I think these are uniting principles. And these are the principles that have always defined the greatness of our Democratic Party when we have the courage and the authenticity to stand on principle and advance solutions to these challenges. And so, I think in every respect, the answer is absolutely yes.
And I think what the resonance of a Barack Obama is he's reminding us of that. The reason he's here, I think, is because four years ago, he said a simple line. He said, we're not red states, blue states, we're the United States of America. Everything else got lost. That was such a profoundly simple statement. But no one else had enunciated it so pointedly.
And now, of course, this week, we're reminding ourselves that we're not Clinton supporters or Barack Obama supporters, we're a united Democratic Party. So we have an external challenge most assuredly to continue to remind people of that message of four years ago, but also an internal one.
We're taking care of the internal one in the last two days. Tonight, we'll get through that transition with President Clinton. And tomorrow, it will be critical that we have that unified message. Barack Obama takes center stage. It's his stage. It's his party. It's his time. We need to remind everybody.
MR. SUAREZ: Emily writes from Washington, D.C., "I'm originally from California but a little out of the loop now. Given that the state has often led the way in grappling with issues - immigration, energy, gay marriage - that then become national issues, I'm wondering what in your opinion are the latest key issues that California is addressing that we'll see expanding to the rest of the country."
MR. NEWSOM: Well, not a great time to ask me that question because we have a governor and a Democratic legislature that can't even get a budget passed. It's an embarrassment and frankly the backdrop of my experience at the convention is what the heck is wrong with California? Not a great time economically in our state.
Nonetheless, let me talk about my experience. I come from a city of dreamers and doers, of entrepreneurs, of innovators. A city that right now has one of the lowest unemployment rates in America, that has its highest surplus on record; that just had its bond rating increased: a city with progressive social values that also is a dynamic economic engine.
There are a lot of good things happening in my city, including the fact that we're the only city in the United States of America doing universal health care - innovative policy, not the rhetoric, not the ideal, actual implementation. A city that has the most progressive environmental policies in the country on solar, alternative fuels, on energy generation, that is growing the economy at the same time, creating workforce for the future. And a city where headquartered companies from around the world want to establish a presence.
So there's something going right in the San Francisco Bay area that I hope people take a look at.
And of course, coming to a convention like this, it's nice to be able to share those things as opposed to the mayor of San Francisco sharing that he's for gay marriage. Of course I'm for marriage equality. I think everyone else should be. I don't believe in discrimination, but San Francisco, the Bay area, and for California, for that matter, is certainly about a lot more.
We've always been on the leading, cutting edge. Controversies, not just good ideas, but I think it's a pressing question and I think right now, it's a difficult one to answer in the context of the larger state because of the stasis in Sacramento. But certainly, there are pockets of innovation that continue to out-perform.
MR. SUAREZ: I want to get back to what you call marriage equality a little later.
Taylor writes from Missouri, "Since you've had previous experience with promising health care for all in your city, how do you think Senator Obama and the DNC's plan for universal health care will work out? Even Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, said, I don't think we should have a government-run single-player system. He went on to say that it would be much harder to pass a universal healthcare plan in the entire nation in comparison to a plan locally or statewide."
MR. NEWSOM: Well, I don't think that local government should come up with a solution for universal health care. I mean, I don't think that's a business city and county of San Francisco should be in.
It was the absence of anyone else's solution that drove us to say let's take some responsibility and solve this problem ourselves. I hope President Obama takes us out of the business of localizing health care. For this simple reason - you can have a patchwork of different healthcare strategies and plans that may not be portable. You may move to Denver, Colorado, from the city and county of San Francisco or from parts of the Columbus, Ohio, or elsewhere and all of a sudden, that plan doesn't necessarily meet your needs. So you've got to have a national solution.
The question is, what kind of solution? For me, it's almost trivial, the nuances of this debate. Hillary Clinton's plan versus Barack Obama's plan versus Edwards' plan versus Senator Biden's plan to me, doesn't matter much.
The idea is the value proposition, the larger principles, and the desire to do more than we've done and let us not make perfect the enemy of the good. Let us, as move forward towards universal health coverage, not forget we've got a gap between the ideal and implementing and manifesting that ideal. So I'm hopeful that we make progress. I'm not naïve that overnight, in an economy like this, with all the challenges we have overseas, that we're going to be able to prioritize this exclusively.
But I'm certainly hopeful we'll make progress when the last eight years, we've actually slipped backwards save this last 12-month cycle, where we actually made a little bit of progress.
MR. SUAREZ: Brenda and Norm write from Lakewood, California, "We here in California and other border states are losing emergency rooms, have overcrowded schools, have lost jobs and seen wages driven down by underpaid illegal immigrants. We've seen them catered to and it seems no one is hearing us, the tax-paying citizens. Let our border officers do their job. What is Mr. Obama's and your solution? This is a big California."
MR. NEWSOM: Yeah, I know. I mean, look, I mean, we're all foreign. The talking point is common sense immigration reform and there's not that big of a gap between a Barack Obama's presidency and solution and immigration than there is a John McCain.
In fact, that's why McCain's been reasonably silent about his own plan and has argued, in some cases, that he's even opposed to his consensus plan that he built with the Democrats. So I think this is going to be front and center in the national debate. I think this is going to be wedge issue. I think the Republican Party wants this as a wedge issue. They tried a year and a half ago, they failed, John McCain as their nominee hurts and hurt that effort.
There's no question, as I'm on Lou Dobbs every single night not because I want to be, but because he wants to make sure everybody knows about what San Francisco sanctuary city's all about, that we're going to need to address this.
I look forward to turning the proverbial page and I've made an honest and sober and reflective conversation about this, not one that pits one group against another and not one where you have a question frame like this because, with respect, I don't think the economic woes of the United States of America are because of illegal immigration. I think there's some macroeconomic things happening in this country that need to be addressed and they're not exclusively driven by the example proposed in this question.
MR. SUAREZ: But maybe Brenda and Norm asked the question in a way that doesn't appeal to you but isn't true that states like California bear a heavy burden because they're providing emergency-room service?
MR. NEWSOM: No question -
MR. SUAREZ: Because they're providing seats in public schools and educating the children of people who are here illegally, not in the dozens or scores but in the thousands and the tens of thousands?
MR. NEWSOM: And cities across America. The reason you have 130-plus sanctuary cities, including Mayor Giuliani's New York, not just Mayor Bloomberg's New York, is because we're dealing with the reality of that and there's no question that's putting a strain and burden on municipal government as well as state government.
So, that's why we need comprehensive reform. They're not wrong to pose the question of what we're doing about our immigration policy and the failure to address our borders. That is absolutely right on.
But what I reject, or I challenge, is the idea and the notion that our lives have been dramatically diminished because of the life of someone else that has tried to find solace and employment in the United States of America. Some abuse, some take advantage, the question is, how do we deal with the reality? And how do it in a thoughtful and judicious way without demonizing other human beings?
Hold down the borders in a way that's thoughtful and pragmatic, deal with the 12-plus million, who knows how many people are here, illegally that are not documented. Let us not divide families in the interim. Let us not have ICE come in schools and take a young child out of a classroom. Let us not threaten a family that has a mother that has been abused by a man and who's scared to death about her husband's immigration status, who doesn't want to report that crime continue to be abused.
So let us be thoughtful and thankful that we're a nation of newcomers and immigrants but one that needs to reconcile the fact that we haven't been particularly pragmatic about undocumented workers. And the irony of that is it's only gotten worse in the last eight years.
I don't think we should stay the course - I don't think either party now is arguing for that. I look forward to a new day.
MR. SUAREZ: The next letter is from the San Franciscan, Justin, who says crime is a problem in San Francisco. "I'm raising two daughters in the Western Addition and I'm scared for their safety. Two to three nights a week, I hear gunshots. My neighbor was recently mugged and shot in the face walking home. The city is becoming increasingly ultra-rich and ultra-poor and middle-class folks like me are sprinting away from the city. Affordable housing is aimed at the poor, not the middle class, and is not helping the situation."
MR. NEWSOM: Yeah, and I understand the frustration and concern. Violent crime is down in San Francisco. We're making progress on the homicide rate this year by double digits. But he's absolutely right. The realities of living in areas like the Western Addition and some of these urban cores, it is extraordinarily challenging and that's why it's so outrageous that the current administration would cut the cops' funding for 100,000 police officers at a time when crime and violence in this country is going up, not just in the city and county of San Francisco but across America.
And we're eliminating the federal funding for police officers when we have a surge overseas when we should be having a same surge here in America, while we allow the assault-weapons ban to expire. So now, you have kids killing kids with the same weapons of war that are being used in Iraq.
You want to talk about the need for change. Mayors across this country, not just this one, across this country, need a partner. We don't need to succeed despite Washington, D.C. We need a partner in the White House, also in our state houses. So this is a real issue that is a legitimate question.
The loss of the middle class in this country, not just in its urban centers, is also a legitimate issue. It goes to the larger macroeconomic concerns and Barack Obama speaks to that. The question is, will he deliver in terms of what he speaks when he's president? I believe he can and I believe he must.
RAY SUAREZ: If you look back to the election of 1968, the election of 1972, it would have been unimaginable to have two major party candidates not talking a lot about the cities. And now, the way the tide has turned, everybody is trying to mine suburban votes and here we have a major party nominee who was a community organizer in a tough neighborhood in Chicago and I don't hear that much of an urban agenda coming from either nominee.
MR. NEWSOM: No, it's frustrating, because that's not what the pollsters tell you people are focused on. They're focused on two wars; they're focused on a planet in peril; and they're focused on the recession.
What we should be focusing on is the other war, and that's the need to advance dramatically some solutions to the problems of urban crime. I mean, if you started doing a scroll on let's say Nightline of all of those kids that have been gunned down by kids every single night, people would say, well, wait a second, I appreciate we're focusing on our heroes in Iraq, but what about these folks, these young men and women whose lives have been snuffed out day in and day out across this country, Democratic cities, Republican cities, and the like.
So I hope there is an increase in that consciousness. As a mayor, it's my job to be here to do just that. But I recognize and need to reconcile part of the national framework of a presidential election and hold an expectation to the point of your question or comment that Barack Obama, who is unique in at least my history, that can understand the plight and the challenges of that community organizer, of that city administrator, of that city supervisor or council-member or mayor to say, look, I recognize your need; I recognize your challenges; and we are going to go directly to the source of the challenges and we're going to start supporting community-building and community-builders. And that's the opportunity of a lifetime in this election.
With respect, it is not a modest differentiator between a John McCain and a Barack Obama when it comes to urban America. This is an opportunity of a lifetime.
MR. SUAREZ: Let's go back to marriage equality. You started marrying same-sex couples years before it became the law in California. Now there's a ballot question on the November ballot. Could that change the trajectory of the election for national office?
MR. NEWSOM: I don't think it will. I think this thing is, as they say, a proverbial golden oldie. It was pulled out in the 2004 election with, I think, some success. They tried it again in the '06 mid-term elections with less success.
I mean, you had pictures of San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi with Barack Obama and with guns, gods, and gays and we thought, wait a second: Didn't we just do this is '04 and 2000? Enough is enough. People are looking for real solutions to these big problems and even John McCain and his straight face can't say, this election should be about same-sex marriage; it's ridiculous.
And to his credit, he had the courage to stand up to President Bush and say, I'm not going to write discrimination into a constitution that has changed 15 times since the Bill of Rights to advance people's constitutional rights and freedoms. We're not going to restrict them by playing those games. We're asked to do the same thing in California, Proposition 8. I don't think Californians are going to do the work that George Bush couldn't do and that's why I think they'll reject it. If they don't, I think it's a big setback for the state of California.
We've always, as I said, been a leading state. And for us to send the message that we're moving backwards not forwards after legally sanctioning thousands of marriages that are going on today, that most people don't even recognize and don't necessarily need to reconcile in terms of the impact they're having on their own personal lives, I think would be a colossal mistake in terms of what the value proposition, the differentiation of what the state of California has always been in the minds and imaginations of Americans.
MR. SUAREZ: But what does it say to you that Barack Obama is ahead by double digits and the marriage question coming up in November is about 50-50?
MR. NEWSOM: Well, I've got a father who understands that. He says, why do you have to call it marriage? And I remind him that I don't know many married people that make that argument that have given up their marriage license for a civil union. I don't know many people that even know how to ask someone to marry them by saying, well, can we have - can I civil-union you? I mean, what is in a word? Everything is in a word.
Separation is not a core construct or a value that this country should embrace. It has in the past, but Brown v. Board of Education reconciled that. And for any Democrat, with respect to stand on the principles of Brown v. Board of Education and celebrate its 54-, 55-year history and then hold the line on that, but not do the same for the LGBT community I think is short-sighted and mistaken. Separate is not equal.
In 1967, 70 percent of Americans opposed interracial marriage, but I didn't hear many people in 1967 calling for civil unions between African Americans and white people. They understood the importance of marriage quality. They understood the symbolism and substance of marriage.
I think people will look back on the issue of LGBT rights and extend the same curiosity 40 years from now and say, are you kidding? What was the big deal? Let's move on and focus on real issues, not these issues that tend to divide.
MR. SUAREZ: Well, finally, Mayor, it's no secret that you're contemplating a run for governor. You've been so far out ahead on the marriage issue. If it just squeaks over the line or indeed loses, does that change the landscape for you as a state-wide candidate?
MR. NEWSOM: I don't think so. I think it's going to be close either way. If it wins, people will say, boy, this is a big setback for the mayor of San Francisco. If it loses by a point or two, they're going to say it's a huge success when, in fact, the margin may be one or 2 percent on either side. I think we can overstate the significance of that. I have core values; I have core convictions.
This is not going to help me politically; I'm not naïve to that. I'm hardly front and center at this convention and I certainly wasn't in the last convention, but it's about my convictions; it's about my ability to sleep at night and reconcile the fact that we're running the 90-yard dash on gay and lesbian rights.
And if you believe fundamentally that people should have rights that are of the same sex, but you're not willing to extend them equal rights, then what is it about that point of view that distinguishes it from your point of view about civil rights for people based on race or ethnicity? What is inherently more significant about someone and their rights that happens to be of a different race that should not be extended equally to someone who may have a different sexual orientation?
I think it's utterly inconsistent and I think, inevitably, Democrats as well as Republicans will have a harder and harder time accepting the arguments against this and the next generation is going to solve this once and for all because this is a no-brainer for young men and women in this country that just say, look, can we talk about my tuition? Can we talk about what's going on with global climate change? Can we talk about what's happening with these bridges that are collapsing, not just in Minneapolis, but maybe collapsing on the West Coast in a modest earthquake? Let's get on some real issues.
MR. SUAREZ: The mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom. Thanks for coming by.
MR. NEWSOM: Thanks for having me.
MR. SUAREZ: And thanks to all of you who joined us today and for sending us questions throughout the week. Please continue to do so and join us again tomorrow. Thanks for watching.
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