Edward Keenan: Mayoral debate reveals the ideas are all there — but what about the political will?
I’m back from a week in London, and back from a week in Los Angeles. It’s been a real trip: meeting with business and the public — and business and the public meeting with each other — and getting to share ideas with two of the world’s greatest communicators: Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York and Mayor Tomás Regalado of San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
There was a time, just a little while ago, when the American dream seemed to be in jeopardy. It was then when I thought that we had to get down to a bottom point — and then get down to it. And it was when I began to wonder what would happen if we didn’t.
And now we have the opportunity to take down the ceiling that has been around for two generations. We’ve never had one before. We’re the first country to have a two-thirds majority on a national bill to take our country down this road. This isn’t a political issue. This isn’t the war on drugs. This is about something much larger than that.
What we’re talking about right now is something that’s as big as any great civil rights, and many other, great political and social movements of the past have been about: the concept that everyone should have the basic right to health care. That’s what this is about.
Michael Bloomberg: We have to make sure that when we get into this world we don’t end up in a failed state on the other end. We have to make sure that we have the will to make this happen.
So how can we change that? Because I’m still convinced that we do need to get over this obstructionist wall. And that’s where you’re going to come in.
We may have to take you down, but we must make sure we put in the foundation — and that’s what we’ll do. We’ll pass a bill that is
