With a touch of Harvard influence, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) yesterday launched its new quarterly magazine, Blueprint: Ideas for a New Century.

Andrei H. Cherny 97, former senior speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore '69, is editor of the publication; Elaine Kamarck, lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government, will serve as magazine advisor.

Cherny, who was first spotted by Democrats in Washington after he wrote a political column for The Crimson, comes to Blueprint straight from writing speeches for President Clinton, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and Gore.

Cherny said the purpose of Blueprint is "to find the next set of new ideas for American politics and the new policies we need to respond to the information age and the new economy."

Kamarck, who is director of Harvard's Visions of Governance for the Twenty-First Century Project, also worked as an aide for Gore.

The concept for the magazine is rooted in her 1989 piece "Politics of Evasion," which she wrote with University of Maryland professor Bill Galston.

"There are big trends in the electorate that are not the politics of the moment, but long-term demographic shifts," Kamarck said. "We want to develop a set of policies that applies to the future."

Each edition of Blueprint--billed as a "snazzy policy journal and substantive magazine" hybrid--will focus on one key issue, such as the economy.

Launched in conjunction with a Democratic youth conference, Blueprint will "offer a new, fresh perspective," Kamarck said. "We're looking at the post-Clinton era and what that means for Democratic politics."

The DLC has been an initiator of political thought and a contributor to the national arena in the past.

"The DLC gave Bill Clinton the ideas he ran on in '92: welfare reform, national service, community policing and the balanced budget," Cherny said.

Blueprint will be published in Washington D.C., but will recruit writers

from all over the country.

"We've seen throughout American history that ideas really do matter," Cherny said.

"There is a hunger for new ideas that respond to the world we live in.