There is one lesson I have learned that I hold above all others from my experience as a father, teacher, community organizer, and U.S. senator: We should never separate the lives we live from the words we speak. To me, the most important goal is to live a life consistent with the values I hold dear and to act on what I believe in.

The people I admire most are those who have the courage of their convictions. When I attended Barry Goldwater's funeral service, I think many Republicans were surprised. (Only a few Democrats went.) They enjoyed giving me a rough time -- they even gave me Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative to read on the plane. "Paul," they said, "read this -- we read this book at young ages, and it set us on the right path. We still have some hope for you!" I explained that I had read the book at a young age -- that's why I am a liberal! But I also told them that I admired Barry Goldwater for his political integrity.

I dedicate this book to, among others, Mike Epstein, who was my legislative director in Washington. Mike passed away from cancer at age sixty-three. He came to Washington almost forty years ago to work for Robert Kennedy at the Justice Department. Over time, he worked for Philip Hart, Frank Church, Robert Byrd, and Ted Kennedy, and as chief counsel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

During my first year in the Senate, Mike came up to me and said, "I've been observing you. I've been here for over thirty years, but I still believe in changing the world. You need a legislative director, and I'll do it."

Mike was more than just my legislative director. He taught me the Senate rules and the legislative process, and he taught me how to be an outsider effective on the inside. Mike passionately believed in public service. "I hate this shit," Mike said of his cancer. "There is so much more I want to do." He was right: There is so much to do.

We all read about how well the economy is doing. But how can we live in the richest, most privileged country in the world, at the peak of its economic performance, and still hear from Republicans, and too many Democrats, that we cannot afford to provide a good education for every child, that we cannot afford to provide health security for all our citizens?

And how can it be that even with this economic perfor-mance, one out of five children under the age of six is growing up poor? Among children of color, it is even worse: one out of every three. When we allow children, our most precious yet most vulnerable citizens, to be our most poverty-stricken group, it is a national disgrace, a betrayal of our heritage.

When my first grandchild, Cari Hannah, was born nine years ago, I grasped at age forty-six the core value that informs my liberal politics. I held her in my hands, and I knew what I hoped: that every infant I hold or you hold will have the same chance to reach his or her full potential.

If we do not make good our national vow of equal opportunity for every child now, when will we?

As Cari got older, I watched her with amazement. Every fifteen seconds, she was interested in something new. Little children experience all of the unnamed magic of the world before them. They are all beautiful, and they all deserve our support.

Sometimes, the only realists are the dreamers. Robert Kennedy once said, "The future will not belong to those who are content with the present." I think the future also will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines. The future will belong to those who have passion and are willing to work hard to make our country better. The future will belong to those, in Eleanor Roosevelt's words, "who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

In 1990, with the help of many wonderful people, I was able to defy impossible odds. Outspent by a margin of seven to one and considered a hopeless cause by the pundits, we won the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota. We didn't win by matching pollster against pollster, ad against ad, image maker against image maker. We won by including citizens in an inspiring grassroots campaign. Indeed, for many months after the election, Minnesotans ran up to me and said, "Paul, we are so excited. We helped you. And if you could win, anyone can!"

I had to think about that. I believe and hope this was empowerment. They were saying, People like us can win a U.S. Senate race. We do count in American politics.

The 1990 campaign is definitely where to begin this book. Maybe I'm willing to believe in the impossible because I beat impossible odds.

After ten years in the U.S. Senate, I have learned a lot about politics. My Jewish guilt tells me I should probably send out a refund to the students who took my American politics class, back when I was a professor.

This book is a personal account of my political journey. But most important, it is about you. Each chapter is a call for an active citizen politics that could provide an outside motive for change, to make our country better. It is a huge agenda to restore democracy and build a progressive politics, especially in these times.

George W. Bush is now president, and Republicans, for the first time in half a century, control the White House and Congress. The irony is that Bush was able to win the election by focusing in part on children, education, prescription drug costs, health care, and Social Security. He described his philosophy as "compassionate conservatism." He won, in part, on Democratic, progressive issues. But his "compassionate conservatism," while praising local volunteer efforts, says there is little that government can or should do about the most pressing issues of people's lives. This is a fine philosophy if you run your own corporation and are wealthy. It does not work for most of the people.

Moreover, the real Bush agenda is now coming into sharp relief: $1.6 trillion in tax cuts targeted mainly to the wealthy; privatization of Medicare and Social Security; an attack on federal workplace health and safety efforts, as well as on the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively; an assault on the environment led by a protégée of notorious Reagan administration interior secretary James Watt; excessive and wasteful new Pentagon spending, including on national missile defenses ("Star Wars"); and a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose. There is more, but this ought to be enough to galvanize progressives throughout the country.

Now is the time for progressives to thrust forward new ideas and new leaders. People yearn for a "politics of the center" --not "the center" so widely discussed by politicians and pundits in Washington but rather a politics that speaks to the center of people's lives: affordable child care, good education for children, health security, living-wage jobs that will support families, respect for the environment and human rights, and clean elections and clean campaigns.

I hope this book provides insight into how we can reclaim the politics of compassion, how government can be a force for good, and how we can improve the lives of our children, our communities, and our nation for generations to come. There is, of course, no guarantee of success. But politics is not about observations or predictions. Politics is what we create by what we do, what we hope for, and what we dare to imagine.