Notes From The No Limits Policy Conference

By Sarah Smith on 11/07/2009 @ 10:25 PM

I was fortunate enough to attend the No Limits policy conference yesterday and I thought people might enjoy seeing my notes. The conference wasn't only informative - it was like one big reunion of over 550 friends. I can't begin to say what a rush it was to catch up with them and find out what they've been up to since the whirlwind, death-defying and record-setting campaign of 2007 - 2008. People came from all over the country to be with Hillary as she talked about her work at the State Department and I wouldn't have missed it for all the world. Hats off to Ann Lewis and Liz Wing - and to all the mighty volunteers - for pulling this memorable event together!!!

NO LIMITS CONFERENCE

VIP BREAKFAST

Chance for everyone to visit and catch up.

No Limits Board Chair Mark Weiner recognized elected officials in the room, and congratulated Liz for a job well done in organizing the day’s events.

Sen. Gillibrand came by and spoke to the 200 assembled – talked about health care reform and efforts to address climate change.

Kick-off session
Ann Lewis got things rolling in the auditorium of the Reagan Conference Center in DC.
Recognized a few elected officials (Sheila Jackson Lee), talked about No Limits and today’s schedule, and made a few comments.
The organization now has 35,000 plus members – by this time next year they hope to have 100,000 members!

Rep. BARNEY FRANK (D-MA) talked about the economy
Moving from the bush recession to the Obama recovery
No one has ever run on the slogan of “yeah things are bad but they'd be a lot worse without me!”
Total Republican control (1994 through 2006) of the Congress and White House (2001 – 2009) - this is THEIR RECESSION.
Our job now is to dig out and put policies in place to prevent this mess from recurring.
Inherited from bush:
Iraq war
W/o the war we wouldn't have to worry about how to pay for health care reform.
Republicans are all denouncing bailouts - every single one of the bailouts they’re complaining about was initiated by bush.
AIG was done by BushCo without consulting congress.
Democrats did economic recovery bill / stimulus bill
Focus groups tell us to call recovery bill “Stimulus bill.”
Counterintuitive – most people would rather recover than be stimulated.
Moderate republicans are being driven out (NY 23).
Bush started 2 wars and handed out 5 tax cuts – can’t do that without getting into serious trouble.
We have to cope with what we inherited.
Right wing are benefitting now from their own mistakes.
GOP controlled government for all those years – they don’t believe in government and that leads to bad results.
He’s been in public office since 1968 and he’s never seen a tax cut put out a fire.
GOP has discredited government so it’s hard to get votes to fix things now.
We suffer not from deregulation but from non-regulation (actively choosing to not regulate).
There aren’t any rules to contain new innovation.
Bush deeply resisted regulation.
Challenge now is to get rules in place to organize things.
He asked us to go back and look at what they said when FDR set up the SEC and antitrust laws – they’re saying the exact same things now about current efforts.
They’re making progress in Congress in clean-up effort.
Reducing rate by which folks lose their jobs.
He thinks we will get health care reform done this year.
When GOP say “yeah we need to reform the health care system” he asks them why they didn’t do it in the 12 years they controlled the government.
Thinks BO is fully committed to making things better.
Depth of real problems and opposition to getting things done – still thinks we’ll be in good shape this time next year

TOM BUFFENBURGER – MACHINISTS UNION
Called Ann Lewis the expclamation point behind NO LIMITS.
Machinists were the first to endorse Hillary and the last to leave her side in 2008.
They made her an honorary member of their union.
Noted that the figures released this morning put the unemployment rate at 10.2% for October.
Map in his handout reflects a country in the grip of a deep recession.
Unemployment rate is as high as 29% in some counties in the US.
It’s midnight in America and dawn is a long way off.
Morning brings fresh worries for the invisible folks – the unemployed.
Being jobless robs us of a sense of worth.
It's rough knowing that your neighbors and friends know you’re out of work.
Invisibles – the jobless have been slammed.
BO didn’t create this jobs crisis – it takes time to move a nation of 300 million people.
Paul Krugman said without recovery package we would be much deeper into this crisis.
Today’s numbers come with 30 pages of charts and tables – all of which show that 31.6 million Americans are idle right now.

JIM MESSINA – White House
Gave us an update re the effort to reform health care system and took questions from the audience.

Morning breakout sessions

WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS
Moderated by Randi Weingarten of the American Teachers Federation.
Hillary’s Beijing speech was given nearly 14 years ago.
Said 200,000 women and children have been raped in the Congo since the war started 13 years ago. It’s still a novel idea that women’s rights are human rights in many parts of the world.
Hillary (and relief workers) travels the world not to tell survivors what to do, but to listen and become their voice.
To EMPOWER them.
You do that with:
Advocacy
Aid and
Education
Panel:
LISLissa Muscatine – was Hillary’s speechwriter in the White House (wrote the Beijing speech!!), worked with her on Living History, and now serves as speech writer at the State Dept.
Kakenya Ntaiya – founder of the Kakenya Center for Excellence – building school for girls in Kenya.
JoDee Winterhoff – CARE.
Lissa – Never anticipated that phrase in Beijing speech would mean so much to so many.
Still working to include those still marginalized.
Human rights = dignity and freedom.
1st trip with Hillary (as Sec. of State) was to Asia.
They did town hall meetings with women in South Korea, Indonesia and China.
Hillary met with some of the same women in China as she did at the Beijing conference in 1995.
This is the first time a secretary of state has appointed an ambassador for global women’s issues (Melanne Verveer).
Issues like climate change hits women – Agriculture – women derive much of their income from Agriculture.
Food security initiative – they go in and find out what they need and get it for them.
Used the example of shovels – women in one village said they needed shovels. When someone pointed to a stack of them nearby the women said those were for the men – regular handles etc. The women work in the fields with a baby strapped to their back so they bend down and need a different handle. Little things like that mean so much but we wouldn’t know that if we just went in and told them what to do without listening.
Melanne Verveer went to Goma and the refugee camps with Hillary. Lissa too. It was like triage in the camps – so MUCH suffering and violence – sexual violence is being used routinely in conflict areas – it’s a fact of life for so many.
Lissa talked about the role of New Media and how Hillary’s using that at the state department.
Things like instant messaging can be used to quickly and safely report rapes – and cell phones for micro-financing to make person to person small loans.

Kakenya – Grew up in a small village in Kenya.
Oldest of 8 children in her family – helped raise her siblings.
She was expected to marry as soon as she reached puberty and got cut.
Her father abused her mom – she was uneducated and his property just as everything in their home was his. The cattle – the crops the others grew and harvested – he could sell it all and take the money and do with it as he wished.
Her mom never got an education and was helpless – she didn’t want her life for her children.
Girls went to primary school in Kenya. Kakenya admired her teachers – she wanted to teach when she grew up – not farm.
In the 8th grade (at age 13 or 14) she was ready to be cut (female genital mutilation) but she didn’t want that. Bargained her way into high school with her father.
It’s against the law in Kenya to cut girls – but that law is never enforced. Families considered it a disgrace if their daughters didn’t get mutilated.
Kakenya managed to get permission to go to school in the US. Applied and was accepted and raised the money to get here. Her eyes were opened to women’s rights when she got to the states.
At home – girls are worth 7 cows – their father gets 7 cows when she marries.
Something as basic as bathrooms in school make a difference. When a girl reaches puberty and the school has no bathrooms, she stays home 4 or 5 days a month from school.
Thanks to Kakenya and her organization, last year they broke ground on a new school for girls – 32 girls are getting an education there now.
Teachers are trained to see girls with limitless potential. Quality education for them is the result.

JoDee – women’s rights are human rights and there should be no limits – great idea!
Hillary went to 7 nations in Africa in 11 days recently.
Kankenya’s story is not uncommon.
CARE started as a disaster relief organization 60 years ago (?) and delivered boxes of supplies.
They go in and ask what folks need instead of telling them what they need.
Help to build school and work with government to help them understand why girls should be educated.
CARE works in 70 countries and has 12,000 staff.
Majority of them are native to the nation they’re working in.
They serve 60 million people worldwide.
1.3 billion people are living on a dollar a day or less – 70% of them are women and girls.
A woman dies every minute of every day from childbirth or complications of pregnancy.
Women bear the brunt of poverty in the world.
We’re a huge part of the solution.
Health care, food and education.
We’re 3 times more likely to put our resources back into the community than men.
Good news – CARE is not alone in the work.
Women’s power center – Hillary and Melanne at the state department.
Senator Boxer and her Foreign Relations subcommittee on global women’s issues.
JoDee closed by saying that one day she got a pop-up on her computer asking her if she wanted to “re-set normal”. Didn’t know what that meant so she said no or cancel. But it occurred to her that we need to RE-SET NORMAL re the way people think about women and our lives.

Q&A
College student from New Jersey said she was the president of the feminist club on her campus (lots of applause). She said people thought women’s rights were no longer an issue or a problem. To the point where people wore t-shirts that said “NO MEANS NO (UNLESS SHE’s DRUNK)”
How do we get the message out that there’s still work to do re women’s rights?

Randi said that’d be a great topic for No Limits – to tackle that notion that we don’t have to worry about women’s rights any more.
We’ve made progress re race relations (black and white etc) but we still have a LOT of work to do re relations between the sexes.
We’re waging a battle of mass culture here.

Part of the solution needs to be economically based.
Women still control massive amounts of income in this society and set family budgets – make a lot of the purchasing decisions.
It might take boycotts of companies that profit from the sexist nature of what’s done in the media and in marketing / advertising.
It’s going to take the political will of women.
Example - Liberia now has a woman leader.
It all started with a sit-down strike and the women who refused favors to their men.
They stuck together and achieved great things.
We need to somehow replicate that model.

LUNCHEON & HILLARY!!!!

[Ann said there were 500 registered attendees this morning, but a friend - who's attended many events like this - said the crowd who turned out to hear Hillary at the luncheon looked to be more like 1,000!]

Hillary started off by saying our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those killed at Fort Hood.
She spoke of her friend Ann Lewis and No Limits.
This conference was like a big reunion of friends from the campaign and other efforts. She said a friend of hers from the 6th grade was in the audiance at the luncheon.
Leaders today have a choice – allegiance to the past or a commitment to a new path.
They need to be willing to keep looking forward rather than focus on the rear view mirror.
Her job is to better explain what the US stands for globally.
Everyone has a story to tell – we need to find a better way to tell America’s story.
Public opinion matters.
Even dictators need to listen now and then.
Better communication.
She held town hall meetings with people wherever she went as Secretary of State.
Went on the Awesome show in Indonesia (?)
Information isn’t compartmentalized – it’s pervasive.
They’re using new technology at the state department.
Example - Twitter became a major force after the Iranian elections and during the protests.
She said Twitter was scheduled to shut down for maintenance during the Iranian protests. Twitter was the only way they were getting information out to the rest of the world – the State Department contacted Twitter to ask them to postpone their shut-down, and they complied. First time that’s happened.
Important that we look to the pillars of foreign policy:
Defense
Diplomacy
Development
She’s asking Congress for funding for more experts at state department / in the field.
They’re conducting a complete review.
Quadrennial defense review.
They’re realizing it’s time to stop doing what’s not working and start to do what works.
Talent is universal but opportunity is not.
There’s a lot of wasted potential when girls aren’t educated and nurtured.
At the State Department, they’re investing in food and agriculture.
Food security initiative.
Bring all programs together to coordinate efforts.
Better agricultural productivity to help people:
Grow the food.
Transport it.
Market what’s grown.
She talked about Melanne Verveer and Vital Voices.
Said that everywhere she goes the women of Vital Voices turn out to see her with their flying V pins.
It’s important to support individual women.
Melanne went to Goma with Hillary to visit the camps.
What they saw and heard – it was one of the most painful experiences ever.
Sexual violence has become a tactic of war.
1100 women and kids are raped each month.
That breaks down to about 36 per day.
Courage and resolve of the survivors is inspiring.
She pledged $17 million to respond to the violence and support the survivors.
There’s good news and stories as well as the bad.
She already sees change.
She went to Indonesia to celebrate 10 years of democracy recently.
No Limits message is such an American message but not the only message.
Helping people around the world lets us see our values in action – that’s good for America.
She wants to make sure our foreign policy is delivering for the auto workers in Michigan.
Wants to be able to explain things to them and make the connection.
It’s important to our security and lines up with our values.
We need to keep our eyes on where we want to lead the rest of the world.
Smart power in action.
Smart power requires smart people.
It also depends on folks like us.
She’s heading out of town on another trip tomorrow.
She’ll go to Berlin to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
That was an extraordinary moment in history when the wall came down.
It used to be all black and white – good vs bad – us vs the USSR.
We’re in a more complex world now.
She then heads to Singapore to meet with her Asian counterpart.
Wants to foster dignity and democracy.
Then she goes to China.
The Philippines will be on the agenda as well.
How do we translate the NO LIMITS message into reality?
We are here today because we want to stay involved and give back.
Hillary urged us to stick around for the afternoon sessions.
Learn new skills.
We’ve shared experiences and optimism.
We have an opportunity and responsibility to carry on the message.
HILLARY took the time to shake hands from the raised platform after her speech, and thank her friends for turning out to support No Limits etc.
I got some nice pictures and even got to shake her hand!!

For the text of Hillary's remarks, and video of her speech, CLICK HERE!


Afternoon Breakout Sessions

NEW MEDIA PANEL
Moderated by former FCC Commissioner, Susan Ness
New media is changing the way we fundraise, get the message out etc.
It can make the winning difference in a campaign.
Technology and networking are changing so rapidly that we’re not all on the same page re our experiences and skills etc.
Panel:
Peter Daou – Kerry campaign. Hillary’s. UN. Clinton Foundation. Blogger. Daou report. Musician – on albums with Miles Davis and Diana Ross among others. Born in Lebanon and lived in Beirut - was conscripted into the Lebanese army at age 15.
Thomas Gensemer – Blue State Digital.
Deena Kaplan – Blip TV and Emmy award winning reporter.
Adam Conner – Facebook. His 91 y/o grandma just signed up for Facebook.
Susan asked Peter if he could give us an example of where the old media and new were tested in a head to head battle.
He noted that the health care reform battle was a good example of how the traditional media could still take on new media – they used talk radio, fox and the drudge report to whip folks up into a frenzy this summer.
They won the battle but will eventually lose the war.
It shows that we can still use old tools to get the message out.
Dina mentioned Tumblr and micro-blogging and Twitter with its 140 character limit.
SOne thing will remain constant – you will always need a cause, a message and a network to share it with.
Hillary understood the potential of new media early on – she brought Peter into her senate staff and then the campaign in 2006.
Internet campaign strategy was developed during the Kerry campaign – they invented things as they went along.
The Internet team was co-equal with finance and field work during the last election. First time for that.
Question – should you try to control the message when you’re getting comments on your blog?
No – you shouldn’t because you can’t.
This is a conversation on line – whatever the issue or candidate.
Get as much of your team out there as you can to push the message. Get everyone you trust out there tweeting etc.

Message needs to be
Clear
Crisp
Concise

Why should folks turn up to your blog / site if the conversation only goes one way - if you clamp down on comments?
Trolls are out there – it’s a fact of life. Folks can be mean thanks to anonymity. (NO KIDDING!!)
Stay focused on your issues and ignore the jerks when you can.
Facebook tempers the hate by making people use their real names.
Figure out who the influencers are in your target audience.
Read the blogs.
Comment.
Engage.
Follow folks on twitter – they’ll probably follow you too.
Take pictures and add them to your content.
Go after media for not doing their jobs re getting the word out re what’s happening to women and girls.
New media used as a springboard to traditional media.
Traditional media still sets the pace and decides what’s news.
Don’t just go to people when you need something.
Develop relationships.
Authenticity is the coin of the realm on Facebook.
New media has incredible diversity and provides context – allows new voices into the conversation.
Ten million can have a simultaneous conversation thanks to things like Twitter.

After things winded down, Peter Daou told Susan Ness that he's been on many, many panels like this, but this was one of the best yet. Susan did a great job and the audiance came up with some excellent questions.

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