A Bipartisan Invitation

A Bipartisan Invitation

The text of an invitation letter to a gathering at the University of Oklahoma next week where a group of Democrats and Republicans, will discuss issues they want the major-party candidates to address.



December 18, 2007

Thank you for agreeing to join us to exchange ideas about constructive ways in which we might help stimulate a meaningful debate during the current presidential campaign on the important challenges facing our nation.

Our political system is, at the least, badly bent and many are concluding that it is broken at a time where America must lead boldly at home and abroad. Partisan polarization is preventing us from uniting to meet the challenges that we must face if we are to prevent further erosion of America's power of leadership and example.

The next president of the United States will be faced with what has been described as a "gathering storm" both at home and abroad. Serious near term challenges include the lack of a national strategy to deal with our fiscal challenges, our educational challenges, our energy challenges, our environmental challenges, as well as the dangerous turbulence triggered by the current financial crisis.

In the national security arena, our nation must rebuild and reconfigure our military forces. We must develop a viable and sustainable approach to nuclear proliferation and terrorism and greatly strengthen our intelligence and diplomatic capabilities. Most importantly, we must begin to restore our standing, influence, and credibility in the world. Today, we are a house divided. We believe that the next president must be able to call for a unity of effort by choosing the best talent available - without regard to political party - to help lead our nation.

To say the obvious, the presidential debates thus far have produced little national discussion of these and other fundamental issues and plans to address them. If this pattern continues through this important national election, it will produce neither a national consensus for governing nor a president who can successfully tackle these threats to our nation's future. We understand the rough and tumble part of the political process, but without a modicum of civility and respect in our debates, forming a bipartisan consensus on the major issues after the election will be virtually impossible.

With these deep concerns in mind, we will meet over breakfast on the morning of January 7, at 7:30 a.m. at the president's home at the University of Oklahoma and continue our discussion until 11:00 a.m. From 11:00 a.m. until noon, we will hold a public panel discussion - open to students and the media - and conclude with a press conference on the OU campus.

In addition to the opportunity for each participant to make a brief statement at the public panel discussion, we hope to release a very brief joint statement - perhaps no longer than one page - of major shared principles. We will work on that proposed statement and circulate it in advance for your input so that a draft can be placed before us for discussion at the meeting on January 7. Please send comments to us as soon as possible about items and ideas that you feel should be included in our joint statement. Again, we will pool the ideas and prepare a brief draft which we will circulate to you before the meeting.

Hopefully most of us will arrive Sunday evening, January 6, in time for an informal dinner where we can begin our discussion. In deference to the busy schedules of the participants, we plan to make this a short meeting. We will be able to depart by 12:00 p.m. on Monday. Overnight accommodations have been arranged for all participants in an inn very close to the president's house at OU where our private meeting will take place. We are working to arrange private air transportation to and from Norman for participants. We have arranged a plane to originate in New York on Sunday afternoon with stops in Washington and Atlanta, arriving in Oklahoma by 7:00 p.m. The same plane will reverse this route on Monday.

Our hope is that our meeting will help begin a national dialogue on the critical issues facing our nation and the world. We understand that the news of this event will come out before January 7, but ideally we would like to get through the holidays before discussing it with the media. Approximately 15 of us have agreed to participate and we will send you a complete list in the next several days. We thank you for your plans to participate.

Sincerely,

David Boren
Sam Nunn