Despite its reliance on foreign oil, a gaping deficit and unpopularity abroad, the United States holds promise, former U.S. Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Monday.

“I believe we are still a great people,” Daschle said from the stage at the Lied Center at Kansas University. “The question is: How do we build an America that is as good and strong as the American people?”

His speech was the third annual Dole Lecture, organized by the Dole Institute of Politics.

The South Dakota native led Senate Democrats from 1994 to 2005. He lost in a 2004 re-election race and now is a colleague of Dole’s at the Washington, D.C., lobbying and law firm Alson & Bird. Daschle is also senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

After voicing his respect for Dole, Daschle listed the many challenges facing the U.S. The rich are getting richer, while the poor stay poor, he said. Health care costs are the highest in the world. America has the best universities in the world, yet educational performance, particularly among grade school students, is often mediocre. The reliance on foreign oil threatens the country’s security.

“Today these gaps – the gaps between our problems and our policies – are widening,” he said. “Our country needs to empower our people.”

Daschle said the U.S. needed to look to new fuel and energy sources to reduce the reliance on foreign oil. He said Americans needed to vote in political races as much as and more than young people vote for “American Idol.”

“As citizens, we choose the course our country takes,” he said.

Daschle answered questions from the audience about Iraq, his votes during the walk-up to war, and immigration.

He said progress has been made in Iraq, but he supports a strategic redeployment of troops that would have other countries beefing up their support for stability in the region. He supports deploying troops from Iraq to troubled areas in Afghanistan, he said.

Regarding the months to war, Daschle said he and others were told at the time that Iraq likely had weapons of mass destruction and the situation would only get worse.

“We had to make a calculation – one year after 9-11,” he said. “We wanted to aim on the side of safety. … We were hoping that we could avoid another 9-11.”

On immigration, Daschle said the U.S. needed to embrace immigration, do all it could to stop illegal immigration, and penalize and deal with the illegal immigrants already here. Those illegal immigrants should be required to pay back taxes, learn English and pay fines for coming to the country illegally, he said.

Marc Langston, president of KU Young Democrats, said Daschle was a good communicator.

“He has a pretty level head as a Democrat,” he said. “I don’t think people realize how hard (Republicans) worked to defeat him.”

Jeffrey Caton, a KU sophomore who also attended Monday’s lecture, said he’d vote for Daschle for president.

“I’d rather have him than Hillary (Clinton),” he said. “She’s too far to the left.”

Former President Bill Clinton delivered the first Dole Lecture in 2004, and Bob Dole spoke in 2005.