Remarks [As prepared for delivery] Release No. 0180.00 by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman Commencement Address Georgetown Public Policy Institute Washington, DC -- May 26, 2000 "Thank you very much, Dean Feder, for that kind introduction. I know that you're doing outstanding work here at Georgetown, but your presence and your health care expertise have been sorely missed in the Clinton Administration. "I want to single out two of today's graduates who have spent some time working with us at the Department of Agriculture. Alexis Weaver was one of our Woodrow Wilson fellows, and Kristin Braun, among other things, was a part of our successful outreach effort to secure passage of Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. We're grateful to both of them for their hard work. "As a father who is immensely proud of his adult children, I feel compelled to mention the parents and other family members who are here today. No doubt, it is your support financial and otherwise through the years that has made this day possible for your sons and daughters. "Since this is a sophisticated, intelligent group of future policymakers, I thought about talking today about some of the major policy challenges facing us at the Department of Agriculture. Perhaps, I thought, I would give you my thoughts about the new farm policy paradigm I believe we need to adopt in the coming years. Some people thought I should talk about what the soy program should look like. Or maybe I could discuss the burning issue of food biotechnology ...and the importance of balancing scientific progress with public health and safety concerns. -more- -2- "But all that seemed a little too heavy for a Friday morning before a holiday weekend. And then I realized that the most important things I could tell you are not about the nuances of policymaking. That you will learn by doing. My advice is much simpler, and I believe it's something you'll need no matter how impressive your credentials, regardless of the depth of your knowledge. "The first piece of advice is listen. Listen to your colleagues, and listen to your adversaries. Listen to your superiors and your mentors, but listen also to the waiter or waitress who serves your dinner or the man or woman who paints your house. Be on the lookout for your own elitism. A graduate degree doesn't mean you've cornered the market on good ideas. I've learned that the public is a lot smarter than the media often gives them credit for. "As a member of Congress, I made it a point to be very diligent about listening to the half a million people who had the power to renew or terminate my contract every other November. I used to go into the office on weekends, driving my staff crazy, to spend time actually opening and reading the mail. I wanted to get that sense of constituent sentiment without any filter. Sure, my staff could report to me on the mail. But reading it myself gave me a window into people's thoughts, and it absolutely influenced my decision-making as a legislator. "Of course, sometimes when you listen, you don't like what you hear. After I lost my bid for reelection in 1994, I couldn't help but think about an old line from Congressman Morris Udall: "The public has spoken... the bastards." "But it's not just elected officials who have to listen. Although I have the authority to issue new regulations as Secretary of Agriculture, nothing sees the light of day until it goes through an exhaustive public comment period. Last year, we came out with a draft rule that would establish a definition of organic food. And boy did we hear it from people. We received an unprecedented 275,000 comments, many of them quite critical. But we listened; we changed the standards; and now are working toward a revised, improved rule...one that can be publicly embraced...one that meets the very exacting standard of the organic farming community. "In any policy environment, no matter what the issue and no matter which side you're on, you have got to listen. The hot debate over biotechnology over the last few years is a case study in the perils of closed- mindedness...and closed ears. On one side, you had large seed companies and their advocates who just assumed that consumers would embrace genetically modified foods. Theirs was a kind of "if we build it they will come" attitude. They hadn't properly explained the enormous potential benefits of these new food varieties. They didn't listen to consumer concerns. "The anti-biotechnology activists haven't been much better, using the most outlandish rhetoric and tactics to make their case, destroying plots of biotech crops, accusing corporations of -more- -3- trying to "capture the evolutionary process and...reshape life on Earth to suit its balance sheets," as one advertisement put it. They didn't listen either. They were talking...and largely on their own behalf, not for any broad coalition. "The loser in this whole battle is, of course, the consumer, who is seeking out useful information about genetically modified foods...who wants to have its questions answered...but can't make an informed judgment amid the noisy spin. "I'm not trying to discourage you from conviction or advocacy. Nor am I advising you to be a prisoner of public opinion. Just be conscious of what other people are saying. Look for common ground where, at first, you thought none existed. You can be responsive without being a demagogue. You can have your finger on the pulse without holding your finger to the wind. "My second piece of advice is a corollary of the first. When you listen, you can't help but learn. Don't lock yourself into notions that your professional or intellectual course has already been charted, without any possibility of detour. Today's expertise may turn out to be tomorrow's afterthought. And the issues you have avoided at all costs may turn out to be a focal point later in your career. "Here I am, Secretary of Agriculture, and I tell you I was older than many of you before I knew the first thing about farm policy. The only background I had in food and agriculture came from having a Jewish mother who was always telling me: "Eat! Eat!" "It was only when I ran for Congress that I realized I had to get up-to- speed on farm issues. So I gathered a group of farmers together and very humbly explained that I wanted to learn more about their business, because it was so important to the local economy. And I explained that I was a novice, that I had never even pushed a tractor in my life. So one of the farmers spoke up and said: "Well, young man, the first thing you need to understand is: you don't push a tractor, you ride one." So I learned, and agriculture turned out to be the defining issue of my public life. "Learn as much as you can about a lot of different things. You don't have to choose between being a generalist and a specialist. You can be a jack of all trades and still master some. "Believe me, when I took this job, even with nearly two decades of experience on the House Agriculture Committee, I didn't know everything I needed to know. In order to better understand grain marketing, I had to learn more about rails and transportation. To be a better advocate for farmers in overseas markets, I had to become more of a trade policy specialist. I also had to brush up on food safety, which is an important part of our mandate, as well as hunger issues, since the Agriculture Department manages all federal nutrition programs. So I listened, and I learned. And five years into the job, I'm still listening and still learning. -more- -4- "The third lesson I want to impart is about friendships and relationships. Look around at your classmates, and remember that these are the people you will need down the line, whether it's for support on a key issue...whether it's to put out feelers when you're looking to switch jobs... whether it's in some fundraising effort you might be involved in. You have here a built-in network that you should continue to cultivate. "I remember the day in January, 1977 when I was one of several new members being sworn into the House of Representatives. And they line you up alphabetically. So there I'm standing with the rest of the G's. And I turn to one side...and there's a very earnest fellow named Gore. I turn to the other side, and there's this impressive, very youthful-looking guy from St. Louis named Gephardt. I used to tell the two of them well, I'm glad at least one of us made good. "Elsewhere in the class, we have a brilliant budget analyst from California, Leon Panetta, a fierce populist from Michigan, David Bonior, and a powerful, snappy speaker from Baltimore, Barbara Mikulski. "And I'm thinking to myself...I'd better get to know these folks. I did, and within 15 years, Gephardt and Bonior had risen to the top of the House Democratic leadership. And when I was on the short list to be Secretary of Agriculture, it sure didn't hurt that I had nearly two decades of friendship with both Vice President Gore and White House Chief of Staff Panetta. "Friendship is the oil that knocks the kinks out of the policy-making process. What compels people to join forces on a matter of public policy? Does the issue itself matter, whether or not there is agreement on goals and outcome? Of course. Does politics play a role? Quite often, it does. But as often as not, it's about the personal politics, the relationships. It's about whom you trust...whom you believe...who keeps his or her word. It may even be about who owes what favor to whom...who bailed you out when you had a problem...or who invited you to dinner when your family was out of town. "Right now you're probably saying to yourself: "Oh my God, I just spent the last two years of my life mastering quantitative methods, and this guy is telling me that success depends on how many backs I can slap." Don't get me wrong. Knowledge is power. There's no substitute for what you've learned here. But you need both. You need the knowledge and the substantive background, but you have to complement them with strong personal relationships. "Of course, it's easier to be friends with like-minded people. Building relationships with rivals can be more of a challenge. But I would argue that it's even more important. Because at the heart of great policymaking is the ability to build less-than-conventional coalitions. The person you're trying to beat today may be the key ally you need tomorrow. That's the key to success for members of any legislative body. So don't let your political adversaries become personal antagonists. -more- -5- "Over the last decade, I think we've lost much of that credo. More so than at any other time in my career, animosity and recrimination seem to be driving forces in the body politic. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the more contentious the public dialogue has become, the less successful we've been at solving the nation's most deeply entrenched problems. "Bob Dole and I sparred a lot over the years. We were both very competitive Kansas politicians. One of my first political experiences was my work for Senator Dole's opponent in his 1974 reelection campaign. Twice, Bob Dole was on his party's presidential ticket, and twice I did everything I could to defeat him. I even considered running against him for the Senate a couple of times. But we never let those political differences fracture the mutual, personal respect we shared. As fellow Kansans, it would have been irresponsible of us to bicker with each other instead of cooperating on those issues that mattered to our state. And you better believe that when I was nominated to be Secretary of Agriculture, it came in handy to have the Senate Majority Leader as a long-time friend from my own state. "That relationship continues. Senator Dole will join me next week at USDA for the National Nutrition Summit, where we'll recognize the role he played in building our federal nutrition safety net. And he and I are working with former Senator George McGovern on a joint effort to take what we know about fighting hunger at home and see if we can apply it abroad. "As a Congressman, I also made it a point to be on friendly terms with Republican presidential administrations. I remember taking my mother to the White House to meet President Bush. And the President shakes my mother's hand and tells her that he likes me and wishes that I would convert meaning from the Democratic to the Republican party. And my mother, without missing a beat, says: "Oh no, we're very happy being Jewish." "That story brings me to my final piece of advice you've got to have a sense of humor in this world. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a jokester or some sort of weird character. But you have to be able to appreciate the humor -- even occasionally, the absurdity -- of things that happen. It may make you better at your job, but more importantly, it will help keep your blood pressure down. I've seen too many people burn out from the heat of their own self-importance. It is possible to take your work seriously, without taking yourself too seriously. "How else but with a sense of humor -- or at least a sense of irony -- can you be a Jewish Secretary of Agriculture advocating for the pork industry? "A few years ago, when I was in Rome for the United Nations World Food Summit, I was greeted by anti-biotechnology protesters, all of them completely naked, who threw genetically modified soybeans at me. A few months later, I was in Montana, where an animal rights activist pelted me with rotting bison guts, also known, rather appropriately, as "offal." -more- -6- "Now, in the culture we live in, many people would consider these incidents grounds for legal action. But really, they were funny. To see it any other way would indicate a kind of joylessness that I believe handicaps people who are in important decision-making positions. "I'll tell you one other story. Every time the President gives the State of the Union Address, there's one member of the Cabinet who doesn't go to the Capitol with him, just in case something should happen. So one year, I was the one, meaning I was sort of President for a day. So I went up to New York that night to visit my daughter, and I got the whole treatment the codes, the doctors, the Secret Service and everything. So I'm watching the speech in my daughter's apartment, and when it's over the phone rings, and a Secret Service agent says: "Mr. Glickman, the mission is terminated." And then I spent the rest of the evening in a rainstorm trying to get a cab back to the airport. "Earlier this year, I was dared by Craig Kilborn, the guy who has the show following David Letterman, to be one of his guests. This was right after Hillary Clinton had appeared with Letterman, and Kilborn went on the air and said basically: forget Hillary Clinton...I'm going to get Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman on my show...as if I were the most obscure person on the face of the earth. And for a few nights in a row, he reissues this challenge and puts a picture of me up on the screen. "Now, I know a lot of people in public life who wouldn't dream of taking him up on the offer for fear that they'd just end up being fodder for this guy's smart-aleck routine. But I called him up, told him I'd be in L.A. the following week, and let's do it. And he and I had a good banter. His curiosity about agriculture was limited to questions about the difference between hemp and marijuana. But essentially it was harmless fun. "Now, this experience didn't help make any meaningful policy or anything. But I think that when you're able to laugh at yourself a little, it sends a message that you're approachable and accessible...that you're the kind of person people can easily work with. And it makes work -- and life -- a little easier and a little more fun. ***************************** "You've gotten the best possible training here at Georgetown for the work you're about to do. But don't substitute your expertise for what you know about people. It's people that produce white papers, budget analyses and GAO reports. Their quirks and their subtle biases all seep into the work they do. You must be just as astute an observer of these aspects as you are of the substance of your work. "Look at our President. I don't know that I've ever seen anyone who better combined a mastery of policy detail with absolutely uncanny people skills, whether he's dealing with a -more- -7- foreign head of state or a homeless family. You don't have to be the President or a politician at all for congeniality to work for you. "It may not always seem so, but this world of public policy is the real world. It isn't some parallel universe, some bizarre-o world, where different rules about human relations apply. So ultimately, the lessons for policymaking aren't very different than the lessons for life. Listen. Learn. Laugh. Be fair, kind and considerate of others. "These are some of the lessons that Robert Fulghum preached in his best- seller: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Now, I don't think you learn it all in kindergarten. It's not that simple. You constantly re-learn it throughout your life. Every day, you pick up more tips about human nature. Every day, you're reminded of the benefits of serving up more honey than vinegar. And eventually you become both a better person and a better professional. "Thank you very much, and the best of luck to all of you. # # #