Nation-Building

I sent this to the DDF, but I'm posting it here to be sure we head this off before it takes on a life of its own. In a column on the MSNBC site, Howard Mortman writes

Howard Dean, Dr. Cocky?
Howard Dean has been riding high among the political and media wise men. Which means he’s due for the inevitable pundit-driven bruising.
What will pundits find wrong with Dean? Perhaps his cockiness. Let’s take that out for a spin. Three recent examples:
1) In his new TV ad, Dean talks jobs and health care. Then he concludes with this line: “That’s why I’m running for President, and why I approve this message.”
He approves of his own message? Wow, what a relief! How gracious. Let me give that construction a shot — I’m Howard Mortman, I’m writing a column, and that’s why I approve this paragraph.
.... [the other two items are his quotes about Graham and voting against the war]

I wrote Howard Mortman an e-mail that quoted the column and then said the following:

One provision of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law is that television ads must include "a statement that identifies the candidate and states that the candidate has approved the communication." Such statement-- '(i) shall be conveyed by-- '(I) an unobscured, full-screen view of the candidate making the statement, or '(II) the candidate in voice-over, accompanied by a clearly identifiable photographic or similar image of the candidate ..."

Clearly, it's absurd for you to ridicule Dr. Dean for simply complying with the law.

For your reference, the full text of the law is here: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ155.107I

I submitted the letter using the on-line form on the page with the column, and I also sent it to letters@msnbc.com and hardball@msnbc.com (Mortman is a producer for Hardball.)

Continue reading/discuss DDF: Explaining the "Approve" Language to Pundits ...

This will be the summer of short-term goals. The Dean campaign is like a powerful train, chugging determinedly up what is still a very gradual slope. We have a long way to go before we even start thinking about strategizing for the nomination, let alone the primary. But I think that some examination of long-term strategy is important, and so this will be the first in a semi-regular series called Looking Ahead that will analyze the General Election^[1].

I have argued before that the 2000 Election was a triumph for American democracy. Not the end result, but rather the process:

In the end, Bush was uniquely positioned to win, and Gore uniquely positioned to concede (in possibility the greatest concession speech in history). I cannot even conceive how they would have acted had the roles been reversed. I imagine Bush would not have been nearly as gracious, and that the Republican grassroots would have erupted in low-intensity PR warfare. It would have been the Clinton era of GOP activism but ten times worse. And I simply don't see Gore as having been able to make the tactical decisions necessary to win (count the overvotes, demand a statewide recount not just in Miami Dade). Gore tried to keep the federal courts out of the fray, at first, and thus lost significant traction to Bush (who brilliantly went straight to the Circuit courts even as GOP PR minions were accusing Gore of trying to make a federal issue out of something clealrly a states-rights issue. Hypocrisy can often be a brilliant tactical weapon).

But again, the essential point was that the system worked. The Constitution held up, there was a clear line to be drawn and the Supreme Court in the end drew that line. You can argue that the SCOTUS was partisan, but the fact remains that it was the SCOTUS that was partisan and not some military tribunal. Scalia is better than Musharraf, and if you disagree, you are hopelessly ignorant of the basis of American freedom.

Many will point to the Electoral College as the root cause of Gore's loss - but as the link explains in detail, the purpose that the EC serves is critical to ensuring that the Office of the Presidency remains committed to the interests of the entire nation, rather than that of a specific (and highly populous) region. Disagree as you might, the Electoral College will nevertheless remain for the 2004 election - and this is the reality which we need to strategize for.

This poses a dilemma for Dean supporters in states such as Texas which are certain to have a plurality of votes for Bush. Even if 49% of the states' voters could be persuaded to vote Democratic, the entire slate of electoral votes would still go to Bush (keep in mind that each state is free to determine whether their electoral votes are winner-take-all or not). my vote for Dean in Texas 2004 (just like my vote for Gore in Texas 2000) is a wasted vote.

I solved this dilemma in the 2000 Election by vote swapping. The idea was to use the Internet for "vote-swapping" between Nader supporters in swing states like Michigan, Oregon, etc. and Gore supporters in Republican-dominated states like Texas, Virgina, etc. Gore supporters would vote for Nader and Nader supporters would vote for Gore. That way Gore would not lose Electoral College votes to Bush (and Nader supporters would be assured their support for third-party politics will not give them a President opposed to their agenda, ie Bush). And Nader would get the 5% of the popular vote he needed to fund Greens 2004. Everyone would have won^[2].

The idea was first promoted in an article in Slate, and was quickly implemented by netroot activists, establishing the vote-swap sites Vote Exchange and Nader Trader^[3]. This was, I believe, the first time that The Internet played such a direct role in manipulating a national election, and should be considered a historical event. Vote-swapping is the ancestor of Meetup and blogs and Howard Dean TV.

In the end, as many as 10,000 people swapped their votes (including me). Given that the election was lost in Florida by a margin of just a few hundred, this was a painfully close-but-no-cigar outcome. The Internet could literally have delivered the election to Gore - if only there had been Meetup back then!

Looking ahead then - what about 2004? How do we harness the millions of votes that Dean supporters in states like Texas, Virginia, etc want to cast but will ultimately be negated? If Nader runs again in 2004 - the Green party holds their convention in June in Milwaukee - then vote-swapping with Nader supporters will definitely be an option. But even if Nader doesn't run, or the Greens don't field a candidate, there still is a lot of good that GOP-captive Dean supporters can do with their otherwise nullified votes. Specifically, we could support the Libertarian Party candidate (usually Harry Browne), with an eye towards building an alliance and luring libetarians away from a GOP that pays mere lip service to their ideology anyway (traditionally, American liberals and libertarians have actually always had more in common). And that translates directly into a vote for Dean.

Vote-swapping is a way to reclaim the power of a single vote - and to spend the "vote capital" in more diverse ways than mere direct election of your candidate. We in states such as Texas have a lot of thinking to do as to how to invest that capital - to change its value from zero to something net positive.

I support Howard Dean. But in Texas, I can't help him by voting for him.

UPDATE: The perception of vote swapping as illegal is completely wrong. In fact, members of Congress engage in vote-swapping on a routine basis. And though one vote-swap site was shut down in California, the state explicitly admitted that there was no legal wrongdoing. Most of the responses critiquing vote-swapping clearly did not understand the concept, I refer you back to the Slate article. The point is that my vote for Dean, which is wasted in Texas, can be transferred to another state where it can actually help Dean.


^[1]That Howard Dean will win the Democratic nomination is an axiom, of course :)
^[2]Note that vote-swapping was immune, from the perspective of the Gore supporter, to cheating by either a Nader supporter or a Bush supporter masquerading as a Nader supporter. Even if the other person in the swing state lies and did not cast their vote for Gore as promised, the net effect is the same as if there was never any trade.
^[3]All these sites are now offline. A third site, Vote Swap 2000, was closed down by the FEC. And a fourth site, Vote Auction, was also set up for people to directly sell their votes. Despite FEC regs and federal law prohibiting the outright selling of votes, keep in mind that this is what happens on a practical level every time a PAC makes a donation to a candidate.

Continue reading/discuss Looking Ahead: vote swapping ...

Joe was just interviewed on Fox. He was great, and you could tell from the bags under his eyes that he's running just on Diet Pepsi these days! He plugged Meetup and did a spectacular job faced with some mildly hostile questioning. The anchor tried to characterize Dean as a far-out liberal, and Joe deftly said that Dean is someone who can't be easily defined in terms of worn-out left/right labels. He turned around a question about Dean's stance on the war to say that Bush's pre-emptive war doctrine is contrary to the bipartisan policies of the last fifty years. The footage that aired while he was speaking included lots of shots of the website, plus very good shots of Dean. Well done! I'll post a transcript if and when it becomes available.

Continue reading/discuss Trippi on Fox ...

This is critical. You may not understand how critical. It's huge. It's clutch. It's a necessity.

If you do only one more thing in the next week, register with MoveOn and, next week, vote.

I'm not kidding. If you only do two things, register with MoveOn and get all of your Dean supporting friends to do the same.

Now. Not tomorrow. Not Wednesday.

Now.

This post will be continuously redated so as to stay up at the top.

Because it is that necessary.

Continue reading/discuss Register for the MoveOn Primary ...

The CW's coming around. In the full transcript, the talking heads say they think money will be an obstacle for Dean, but they all see the race as Kerry-Dean (as we have for a long time).

SCARBOROUGH: ... you should take [Dean] seriously because he’s passionate, he knows what he believes in, ... he is the best Democratic candidate out there.
....
BUCHANAN: ... do you think Howard Dean has got a chance? I mean, if he-let me say this. If he can upend Kerry in Iowa and then again in New Hampshire, Kerry’s cooked. ...
....
SCARBOROUGH: ... You look at Kerry, he’s stiff, he’s tentative, he’s reading scripts from Teleprompters. You look at Dean, he’s looking right into the audience’s eyes, he’s on fire, and I think he’s going to win. He may win Iowa, he may win New Hampshire, ...
....
PRESS: ... I think Dean is going to surprise them in Iowa. He’s going to surprise them in New Hampshire. I think people are looking for a new face. I think this guy can win. He can prove us all wrong.

Continue reading/discuss "Buchanan and Press" on Monday ...

Under the media spotlight, simple mistakes by normal human beings are often inflated to epic proportions. Given that the Democratic nomination race is so competitive, there is even more pressure - and Dean still labors under the burden of the (false, inverted) conventional wisdom that he was "mean" to Kerry. So it's entirely understandable why Dean publicly retracted and apologized for his dismissal of Graham's campaign - even though this throws oil on the fire to some degree:

Dean said, "Bob Graham is a wonderful, decent human being, but at this time he's in single digits in all the states you can't be in single digits in. I have enormous respect for Bob Graham, but at this point he's not one of the top-tier candidates. I think that's widely recognized."

He added, "That's not to say he couldn't get to be one."
...
Later in the day, in a telephone call to The Associated Press, Dean said, "I regret having made the remark, and I regard Bob Graham a good friend. My remark was not intended to be dismissive of his chances."

Naturally the Graham campaign issued a defensive retort, "With all due respect, Bob Graham created twice as many jobs when he was governor of Florida than there are people in the state of Vermont." Fair enough. This is a grueling race and there are just some hits we are going to take. The alternative is to try and monitor/pre-vet every utterance of Dean, but that would sap the vitality out of his speeches. Our candidate is a straight-talker - and the occassional black mark is a small price to pay for the benefits that brings us.

Continue reading/discuss Dean regrets slighting Graham ...

It's critical that all the Democrats make the case that this country can't afford Bush's tax giveaway to the rich. Class welfare for the tonied elite is bad for AMerica, but the Democrats have to present an alternative to stave off the inevitable "tax and spend" caricatures that follow. As we all know, Dean has proposed a health care initiative that is well-documented and which will bring a measureable benefit to working-class Americans - but now Edwards has stepped forward with an equally compelling alternative - middle class tax cuts.

The plan, previewed by Edwards' advisers, starts by getting the government in the business of matching retirement plans such as 401 (k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts. Under his proposal -- open to people earning less than about $50,000 -- the government would match or nearly match individual contributions up to $500, much like what many companies do for their employees.

The plan also includes a tax credit of up to $5,000 for first-time house buyers with moderate incomes. The exact cap has not been determined.

To encourage more savings, Edwards would cut capital gains taxes to families earning less than $130,000 a year. They would pay no taxes on the first $1,000 of capital gains, and their rates would be reduced by about half beyond that. The lower rates applies only to stocks held for at least three years and gains of up to $10,000 per family.

Those same families would pay no taxes on their first $500 of dividend earnings.

Reversing Bush's tax cuts, Edwards would increase capital gains taxes on people earning more than $350,000. That would ensure that investment gains of the wealthy would be taxed at the same rate -- 25 percent -- as middle class incomes.

He also would repeal the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts as they apply to the top two income brackets -- those earning more than $240,000.

Those changes to Bush's plan on dividends and capital gains would save the government $300 billion over 10 years, aides said. Edwards' tax cuts would cost half that, leaving the rest to pay down the federal debt. He said he will find money elsewhere to improve health care.

In contrast, Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean would repeal both Bush tax cuts, including provisions that benefit the middle-class, and spend the money on reforms that guarantee access to health care. They say health care reform would be a boon to the middle class.

Gephardt has pledged to follow up health care reform with a child tax credit and reductions in the estate tax and taxes on married couples, all geared to the middle class.

Dean has not decided whether there will be any money left after health care reform for middle-class tax cuts.

(aside - note that Dean is rightfully acknowledged as the gold standard against which all other Democrats' plans are compared to. This is a significant victory in its own right).

The question is, what brings maximum benefit to the working class? health care or direct money returned via tax cuts? The other question is, which idea will sell better to the moderate voters in the general election - many of whom are increasingly swayed by the classica conservative argument that the government should be restrained (let's not underestimate the simple effective power of the GOP meme that "it's your money" among large swathes of the American public) .

UPDATE: all those non-Dean candidates look alike to me, apparently. Fixed.

Continue reading/discuss Edwards proposes middle-class tax cuts ...

The link takes you to the official blog, where you can find Quicktime and RealVideo versions. My mini-review: it rocks! He strikes the perfect mix of the intensity we know from his rally speeches and the professorial seriousness of his interviews. Among those who aren't familiar with Dean already, it's guaranteed to provoke the reaction, "I want to know more about this guy."

Continue reading/discuss The First Commercial! ...

What's remarkable about this exchange is its Tucker Carlson, the Republican, who comes across as the guy who's impressed by Dean (although he does absurdly call him an "unrepentant leftist"):

CARLSON: The Democratic Party's collective nervous breakdown continues. Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, an unrepentant leftist, will unveil the first of the television ads of campaign 2004 this week in Iowa. Dean is spending more than 10 percent of his entire Iowa budget on the spots, a sign that Dean believes he can generate the momentum necessary to win his party's nomination.

And he could be right. Sober Democrats shiver at the thought. The Democratic Leadership Council describes Dean's politics as, "defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist interest group liberalism here at home." That's a perfect description and apparently precisely what many Democratic primary voters are looking for in a candidate. I can't wait to find out.

BEGALA: This is a very risky tactic. We are seven months from the Iowa caucuses. Most candidates are putting out position papers, putting out their issues. He's beginning with advertising seven months before the caucuses. I'm very doubtful that that's going to do him long-term good.

CARLSON: Particularly in Iowa, where it's not clear how much television advertising helps you in the first place. But it says something about Dean's support. I think he probably has the most committed, the most active, the most aggressive supporters of any candidate, apart, of course, from Al Sharpton. And it tells you something that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) candidates, like Dean and Sharpton, are the ones getting the most grassroots support. So it's something (ph) about the Democratic Party, I think.

BEGALA: They get grassroots support, but they don't get mainstream support. I don't know. Howard Dean should come on this show and debate you as to whether he's mainstream or far left, because I think you'd be surprised.

That sounds like an invitation!

Continue reading/discuss Crossfire Monday ...

This is from Dean reader Sam Krishna - He wrote it up and asked me to post it. I think it's a terrific way to get people thinking and brainstorming about these issues. It's kind of long, but pick out what catches your eye and expand on it. You know the campaign is watching - maybe we can come up with some good ideas.

--------------------

Shifting from strategic to tactical issues, we know from the Clintons that the Republicans will attempt to win using a scorched-earth strategy masterminded by Karl Rove and executed by Marc Racicot . If you are the nominee, what will you specifically do to address the following "Republican siege" issues (organized into five specific blocks):

Homeland Security/Sept. 11 issues:

(1) How will you neutralize or score political points on Bush's shameless use of Sept. 11 to further his political goals?

(2) As a follow-up, what plans do you have in place to counter-rally the GOP convention that's scheduled for the week before Sept. 11? What plans do you have in place to point out the policy failures that led the Administration to *not* do everything it could to protect this country from the Sept. 11 terrorists? Do you have specific contingency plans in place to schedule a counter-event on Sept. 11 since Bush *will* celebrate the Sept. 11 anniversary in NYC (just 8 days after his acceptance speech on Sept. 3)?

(3) What is your ad strategy to show how "tax cuts = homeland security cuts"? Given the widely publicized criticism from FDNY and NYPD on federal funding cuts for first-responder technology, what strategy do you have in-place to take advantage of that fact? Specifically, what is your ad strategy for highlighting how lost tax revenue could have been used for making Americans safer? Will you hire/solicit professional FDNY and NYPD personnel who worked Sept. 11 to speak in ads about this issue?

(4) What is your ad strategy to highlight the Bush policy failures of Afghanistan and Iraq? Will you highlight the number of Americans who have died in vain if there are no WMDs discovered in Iraq?

(5) What is your ad strategy for highlighting the Bush policy failures fragmenting NATO? If so, what is it? Specifically, is your campaign willing to say that Bush's policies are designed to destroy NATO (which protected us for 50 years from the Communist threat)? Are you willing to imply that NATO's destruction makes the U.S. less, and not more, secure? If so, how will you tie NATO's fragmentation to Homeland Security failures?

The Conservative Media:

(6) The Republicans have FreeRepublic.com (and its Freepers), Rush Limbaugh, Newsmax.com, Fox News Channel, the Wall Street Journal, and majority editorial control of most of the mainstream news outlets. In 1992, Bill Clinton's campaign had "the Stephanopoulites" (headed by George Stephanopolous) to fight back by rebutting and pre-butting every single Republican charge in the press corp. What kind of response plans do you have in place to deal with Fox News? Do you have plans to hire a "Fox Response Team" to be available 24/7 to make sure to answer every single lie coming from Fox News hosts? Have you hired designated hitters to counter-punch Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Shepherd Smith, Rita Crosby, Brit Hume, and Tony Snow? What kinds of plans do you have in place to destroy the credibility of the Fox News Team in the minds of the casual conservatives who watch Fox News, but don't know/realize it's an active PR unit of the GOP?

(7) Do you have a formal policy to answer every charge coming out of the Bush campaign and parroted by the Republican echo chamber? Do you have a specific strategy and tactical unit in place to do everything it can to undermine Bush's credibility on

(a) National/Homeland Security
(b) Economy
(c) Health Care
(d) Education (specifically un-funded No Child Left Behind and legislation cutting college Financial Aid)

If so, what is your advertising strategy on these four issues? Bush's policy effectiveness pretty much ends with Rose Garden signings, so what will you do to show that on TV?

Puppet Issues:

(8) What is your ad strategy to imply Bush answers to Tom DeLay, Republican Congressional Majority Leader, and not to Americans?

(9) What is your ad strategy to show Karl Rove running the Bush Policy Unit? What kinds of strategies are you planning to neutralize Karl Rove's profile at the White House?

(10) What are your plans to deal with any political/policy decisions that come out of Grover Norquist's weekly meetings? What are you doing now to deal with Norquist's coordination issues?

(11) Bush will raise at least $250 Million for the general campaign for himself. Now, it's a given that you're not going to raise that much money. What is your ad strategy to say that Bush is bought, paid for, and owned by his big donors, and not the American people?

General questions:

(12) What is your ad strategy to imply that "tax cuts = service cuts"? What are you doing and saying specifically to solidify in the voters' minds that every time tax cuts are signed into law, there is massive service hemmorhage?

(13) What is your ad strategy to hammer the question "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" home in the typical voter's mind? Are you looking into using clips of Ronald Reagan asking that question from 1980? Given the Republican genuflection of Reagan, are you making plans to judo-throw the Bush campaign with their own man?

(14) What plans do you have in place to deal with the Christian Right? Given how monolithic a voting bloc they are, what are you planning specifically to minimize or neutralize their effectiveness during Campaign '04? Are you willing to show how "un-Christian" the Republicans really are?

(15) What is your ad strategy to neutralize any "October surprise" issues that the Republicans will try to throw at you? Given how the GOP controls the machinery of government, how are you prepared to deal with any spurious investigations or charges that erupt during the last 30 days of the general campaign?

(16) Democratic voters are currently disgusted with their national (read Congressional) party leaders over how deferential they have been towards Bush for the last two years. They are also confused enough by Republican propaganda to actually think voting for Bush might be a good thing. What is your coordination strategy for DNC, DLC, and Congressional leadership to give Democrats as a whole "rhetorical spine" in the mind of the average voter?

The "Are you prepared to win?" questions:

(17) If you win the general election, the GOP will start to undermine you the moment after Bush hangs up for his "concession phone call" on election night. Do you have plans to keep your tactical response unit working after you win? Given that the Republican will manufacture scandal to keep you off-balance, what plans do you have in place to specifically answer every single charge they level at you starting around 11 PM EST, November 2, 2004?

(18) If we have a repeat of Election 2000, what are you specifically planning to do to make sure we aren't "out-thugged" by paid GOP congressional staffers in the disputed states?

Continue reading/discuss How Will Dean Deal With the Republican Siege? ...

This is the question the journalists and some campaigns have been asking. One of them was quoted as asking derisively "why does Joe Trippi waste so much time talking to obscure bloggers?"

Well with the MoveOn.org Primary, Bloggers have an opportunity to influence this election and change the electoral process in a profound way.

If you are a Blogger who supports Howard Dean -- it is time to blog the importance of supporting Howard Dean by urging your readership to register for MoveOn.org's Presidential Primary and further urge your readers to vote for Howard Dean in the MoveOn Primary. If you have 50 readers or 10,000 readers your post could make the difference in this Primary -- particularly if all Dean supporting blogs act in unity and begin to carry this message.

If you are an independent Blogger who has no stake in Howard Dean's candidacy, MoveOn's Primary is an historic moment in the history of the grassroots Internet. To point this out and to urge your readership to register and to participate no matter who they vote for is equally important.

Blogs can influence this election, and further the cause of citizen participation in choosing our next President -- by sounding the clarion call to the nation's first Internet Primary. A Primary that because of its impact in terms of grassroots organization and large number of small contributions, can change the entire dynamic of the current Democratic Party Nomination Process.

This is truly an historic moment. Blogs can influence this election right now and do so in an historic way -- come together for a few days -- advocate to your readers that they participate in this moment by voting in the MoveOn Primary.

And I humbly request that a campaign that understands the reasons Blogs exist and should be supported -- is a campaign that can at least ask that the Blogs that support Howard Dean say so -- and ask their readers to consider supporting him in the MoveOn Primary.

Respectfully
Joe Trippi
Campaign Manager
Dean for America.

Continue reading/discuss Can Blogs Influence the Election? ...

Three of the frequent contributors to the Dean Blog - Joe Rospars, Matt Singer, and Ezra Klein - have all ditched their respective old blogs and teamed up to create the badly-named Not Geniuses group blog. They are too modest to have announced it, so I'm taking up the cause. Drop by and congratulate them on the new digs!

Joe, Matt, Ezra - just promise Dean Nation you won't forsake us !

Continue reading/discuss are indeed geniuses ...

The folks over at MoveOn have released the details behind their endorsement process. This has been presented as a very important event by the campaign. According to the website, "You will be sent an email with a unique one-person/one-vote link. Voting will take place Tuesday, June 24th 12:00 am to Wednesday, June 25th 11:59 pm (Eastern time.)" The detail further:

In most presidential primary processes, pundits, pollsters and wealthy donors determine the outcome long before the actual primaries. By the time the rest of us cast our ballots, the nomination is typically a done deal. The MoveOn.org PAC Primary will allow hundreds of thousands of voters to speak out now, adding their weight to the campaigns of their choice. Voting in the MoveOn.org PAC primary starts Tuesday, June 24.

If you are already on the MoveOn mailing list, then you are already a registered MoveOn Primary voter -- but you can register here just to make sure. All registered MoveOn Primary voters will be emailed a unique link that will allow them one vote. Do not forward your link to anyone else, as that will allow them to change your vote. There is no way to vote more than once using your unique link.

The Washington Post writes on the endorsement:

Michael Cornfield, a political scientist at George Washington University, said the group's endorsement could be a boon, especially for the party's more liberal candidates. He estimated the group raised $2.4 million during the 2000 election, when its membership was about one-third its current size. He said the group now might raise more than $10 million.

"This could put [Howard] Dean or [Rep. Dennis] Kucinich even with [Sen. John] Edwards in one fell swoop," Cornfield said. "I would say that's fairly significant -- if it happens."

If you have signed up yet to vote, please do so!

Continue reading/discuss MoveOn Endorsement Details ...

The details of how to register to vote in the MoveOn primary--and give us a chance to win the backing of millions of grassroots activists--just came out.

Register to vote in the MoveOn Primary by clicking on the link below:

http://www.moveon.org/pac/reg/

Voting begins Tuesday, June 24. You will be sent an email with a unique one-person/one-vote link. Voting will take place Tuesday, June 24th 12:00 am to Wednesday, June 25th 11:59 pm (Eastern time.)

MoveOn writes:

"Everyone who is already on a MoveOn mailing list will receive an email 'ballot' to vote in the primary. In other words, people who are already MoveOn members do not need to register to vote in the primary. This registration page is so that new people who are not already MoveOn members can also participate in this process."

The winner of 51% of the votes in the MoveOn Primary will receive the endorsement of the 1.4 million member organization. It is extremely important that we win this. Register today, and tell everyone you know-- and vote for Dean on June 24th.

http://www.moveon.org/pac/reg/

This is the moment--get every Dean supporter involved--engage new people--open your email list. This endorsement could change the entire campaign. We just learned that Kerry sent out an email to his list asking for people to register to vote...this is our chance for the grassroots to literally completely transform the Democratic primary, and but we need all of your help.

Continue reading/discuss TODAY is Critical---Register to VOTE in MoveOn ...

Joe Trippi sacrificed himself upon the Altar of Dean. not exactly blood sacrifice, but rather the water-balloon variety - and raised $107 in the process (at $1 a throw, he takes birthday masochism to a whole new level!):

Trippi's birthday was Tuesday, but he was traveling, so we didn't get the chance to show him the true depth of our devotion to our fearless leader until today. After two days in California, two long flights, a day in New Hampshire and a long drive, he came back to the office to find that we'd planned a special birthday party for him. Boy was he surprised.

We charged $1 per throw at the dunking booth. We raised $107, and it was a great chance to demonstrate the, er, power of our feelings for him.

If Joe is willing to risk pneumonia - we can surely risk a reduced caffeine intake. Pool your coffee money, or forgo your daily scone, and donate to the campaign before the fundraising deadline (June 30th).

By the way, the campaign has listened to our complaints and added a "specify your own amount" box to the donation page. So donate whatever amount you can - because June Is Critical!

Continue reading/discuss taking one for the team ...

Nice little article in The American Prospect about the Dean campaign's relationship with Meetup. It's nice to see discussion of Meetup penetrate to the major political analysis magazines. It's unique in that it draws analogy to MoveOn.org and EBay as a measure of the potential of the phenomenon, which is the real herald of the transformative power of the Net on politics:

To political reporters, the Meetup phenomenon seems brand-new. And to the extent that the Internet is involved, it is. But if you've ever spent any time in the political precincts of the left -- where issue-advocacy, community-service and identity-based groups have flourished while support for the Democratic Party has withered -- you can see that the Meetup phenomenon is in fact drawing on and replicating the social dynamics of nonprofit and movement-based organizations that have, over the past three decades, become the dominant means of civic participation by people on the left.

To the extent that any presidential candidate will be able to tap into the power of the Internet, I will hazard a prediction: None will be able to mobilize the kind of support that Dean has generated (and will continue to generate over the coming six months). The Internet, as a technology, is perfectly suited to the people who make up the "Democratic wing" of the Democratic Party and its Green and independent sympathizers. While such businesses as Amazon.com and eBay may have made Americans more comfortable with online donations and helped Dean become the first presidential candidate ever to raise more than $1 million online, in the end it is the group MoveOn.org that more accurately gives a picture of the energy fueling Dean's online rise. Founded in 1998 via an e-mail sent to about 300 people by screen-saver millionaire Wes Boyd, the group today has 1.4 million people registered. Last fall and winter, it mobilized millions of people in thousands of anti-Iraq War protests throughout the world; it also sparked a massive online letter-writing campaign to Congress.

(The article is also cross-posted to Common Dreams)

Continue reading/discuss Tapped on Dean Meetup ...

Sam Hemingway, columnist for the Burlington Free Press (VT), profiles Dean on the Washington Journal. Mainly in talking-head format interspersed with biographical Powerpoint slides and the occassional video clip and photo stills. However, it's quite a broad survey of Dean's campaign and would make a great introduction to a potential supporter.

 Washington Journal profile

Continue reading/discuss Washington Journal profile (6/15/2003) ...

Via ABC's The Note, here is a transcript of Dean's ad in Iowa that debuts tomorrow:

They feature a simple, medium shot of a white-shirted Dean in front of what appears to be a very powerful tractor, some hay, and a barn.

"I'm Howard Dean. It's time for the truth."

He steps forward.

"Because the truth is that George Bush's foreign policy isn't making us safer."

"His tax cuts are ruining our economy and costing us jobs, and too many Democrats in Washington are afraid to stand up for what we believe in."

Cue the zoom.

"Well I believe it's time to put our people back to work. To provide health insurance for every American. A time for Democrats to be Democrats again. That's why I'm running for President."

"That's why I [a]pprove this message. I'm Howard Dean, and it's time to take our country back."

It wouldn't be The Note without some snarky comments about Dean's delivery style, but they do admit it's an effective ad. The campaign also promises it on Howard Dean.TV for those of us not in Iowa.

Continue reading/discuss Transcript of Dean's Iowa Ad ...

With Wesley Clark's recent comments about WMD and the mutual admiration society of Graham and Dean last week, it's time to ponder the Veepstakes again. Vote on who you want to see as Dean's veep, and why. if your preferred choice is not listed, choose "other" and then use the comments to tell us who they are.



Some of the issues to keep in mind for Veep: who can deliver national security? the black vote? Florida?

Continue reading/discuss Veep poll ...

full of sound and fury, signifying everything!

Continue reading/discuss open thread ...

A new feature is starting at The DeanBlog called IssueWatch. Each will focus on a single issue important in the 2004 campaign. There is no better place to start with for Dr. Dean than health care for America.

>”A just-released Congressional Budget Office study shows that nearly 60 million Americans lack health insurance at some point during the year.”

>”The number of uninsured is soaring at the rate of nearly 1 million people every year.”

>”More than 40% of uninsured adults postponed seeking medical care last year alone.”

I personally know a bit about the health care crisis. Let me talk about a situation that is going on right now here in Oregon as an example. I am one of thousands of low-income Social Security disability recipients who lost prescription drug coverage this year with two weeks written notice. There was no transition plan. There was no help of any kind here in Oregon for those who faced losing their prescription medications, equipment, and supplies. People died because of this disaster right in my neighborhood. I’m personally back to having to deal with regular migraines and vertigo caused by the brain stem injury I received in the act of random violence that put me on disability over a decade ago. That had been completely controlled by medications for almost 8 years. The entire population of mentally disabled individuals on SSDI here in Oregon lost their medications as well. As I live in Section 8 housing for disabled and elderly individuals, I have had to watch too many sweet and decent people who never hurt anyone in their lives disintegrate before my eyes. They lost their ability to carry out the activities of daily living one must perform to function in society as their medications ran out. Many have lost their housing in the wake of this disaster.

Even if those in Oregon have no empathy for this situation, and only want to discuss costs, this makes no sense. This is a population that must now receive its treatment at emergency rooms and through hospitalizations. Oregon will most certainly be paying double or triple what the costs of these programs were through the increased cost of paying off all the extra emergency room and hospitalization costs. It’s far cheaper to have disabled individuals living at home with their health conditions stabilized through standard office visits, prescription medication, and at-home treatment.

What’s happening here in Oregon is just one example of many sad stories documenting the declining health care infrastructure in this country. Howard Dean has an answer to the deteriorating health care situation in our country. His plan is called “Health Care for America.” He explained it this way in his speech announcing the plan…

“First, and most important, in order to extend health coverage to every uninsured child and young adult up to age 25, we'll redefine and expand two essential federal and state programs -- Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Right now, they only offer coverage to children from lower-income families. Under my plan, we cover all kids and young adults up to age 25 -- middle income as well as lower income. This aspect of my plan will give 11.5 million more kids and young adults access to the healthcare they need."

"Second, we'll give a leg up to working families struggling to afford health insurance. Adults earning up to 185% of the poverty level -- $16,613 -- will be eligible for coverage through the already existing Families and Children Health Insurance Program. By doing this, an additional 11.8 million people will have access to the care they need. "

"Many working families have incomes that put them beyond the help offered by government programs. But this doesn't mean they have viable options for healthcare. We'll establish an affordable health insurance plan people can buy into, providing coverage nearly identical to what members of Congress and federal employees receive."

"To cushion the costs, we'll also offer a significant tax credit to those with high premium costs. By offering this help, another 5.5 million adults will have access to care."

"Third, we need to recognize that one key to a healthy America is making healthcare affordable to small businesses. We shouldn't turn our back on the employer-based system we have now, but neither should we simply throw money at it. We need to modernize the system so employers will have an option beyond passing rising costs on to workers or bailing out of the system entirely. Fortunately, we have a model of efficient, affordable and user-friendly healthcare coverage: the federal employee health system."

"With the plan I've put forth to the American people, we'll organize a system nearly identical to the one federal workers and members of Congress enjoy. And we'll enable all employers with less than 50 workers to join it at rates lower than are currently available to these companies -- provided they insure their work force. I'll also offer employers a deal: The federal government will pick up 70% of COBRA premiums for employees transitioning out of their jobs, but we'll expect employers to pay the cost of extending coverage for an additional two months. These two months are often the difference between workers finding the health coverage they need, or joining the ranks of the uninsured."

"Finally, to ensure that the maximum number of American men, women and children have access to healthcare, we must address corporate responsibility. There are many corporations that could provide healthcare to their employees but choose not to. The final element of this plan is a clear, strong message to corporate America that providing health coverage is fundamental to being a good corporate citizen. I look at business tax deduction as part of a compact between American taxpayers and corporate America. We give businesses certain benefits, and expect them to live up to certain responsibilities."

"I believe this plan is sensible and that it can pass Congress -- but most importantly, I believe that it is the right thing to do. When my wife, Judith Steinberg, and I graduated from medical school, we took an oath in which we pledged to practice our profession with conscience and dignity and to always make the health of our patients our first consideration. With this plan, and in my campaign for the presidency, I will make the health of all Americans my first priority. Our country has waited too long, and we must do better.”

(Thanks to the DeanForAmerica website for much of the source material.)

Continue reading/discuss Issue Watch – Health Care For America ...

We have the success of 3200 people rallying for Gov. Dean in Austin, the Wisconsin State Party Convention success of the past few days -- and the aggressive move of being the first to go on the air in Iowa begins on Tuesday -- already the other campaigns and the press are trying to figure out what all this means -- if anything.

The final two weeks of June are now critical -- everything you have helped us build depends to a large extent on how disciplined and focused we all are on the final two weeks of this month -- and the first Meetup that follows on July 2nd.

There are four things we must do -- and we have just two weeks in which to do them.

1. Get the word out about the MoveOn.org primary to everyone in the Dean campaign. We need everyone to write Move on at info@moveon.org and tell them how important it is for MoveOn to endorse Howard Dean. And we need everyone to join MoveOn and do it now.

2. June 23rd is going to be the official launch of Gov. Dean's campaign for President -- we want to use this day as a demonstration of the netroots and grassroots across the nation. This is not just about Gov. Dean and the people who attend in Burlington, Vermont -- it is about you. It is about the thousands who attend Meetups, post on Blogs, table and leaflet and organize everyday to take our country back. And the only way to demonstrate to the press and others in a way that they will get it -- is for everyone to make sure they are counted by using our organizing tools on our website It does not matter if you are attending one of the bigger events that day, or watching a stream of the Celebration with a few friends at home, or for that matter -- watching the stream at home by yourself -- its important that you sign-up and attend and make sure you are counted among those who celebrate with us on the 23rd.

3. There are only 15 days left before the fundraising report deadline of June 30th. There is no way to understate this -- we just put $300,000 on the air in Iowa -- its risky -- but it makes the 30th even more important -- please do everything you can to help raise money over the next two weeks -- we have to outdo what we all accomplished last quarter. We need to get the Meetup Challenge moving in a final push for the next two weeks and we need as many to contribute as possible whatever you can afford.

4. We need to make the July 2nd Meetup as large as possible -- because we have a plan we want to discuss with all of you at those Meetups. So we need those who have not joined Meetup to do so now as well.

There is a lot to be done -- we need everyone's help -- but if we succeed at these four things we have the opportunity to really move our campaign forward in a big way.

To do it we need to stay focused on what is important -- and for the rest of this month --- these are the most important ways you can help Gov. Dean and this campaign.

Please cut and past this post and send it to all Dean supporters that you know or are aware of -- send it to your friends -- but send it on to someone.

This is our time -- we need to seize it.

Thank You for Everything that you have done.

Joe Trippi
Campaign Manager
Dean for America.

Continue reading/discuss The Rest of June is Critical ...

Today on ABC's This Week, they had a "day in the life" of John Kerry. It was a pretty fluff piece, but had him at the Wisconsin Convention. They also had footage of Dean giving his speech at the convention. This would be a good thing, but for some reason, the room was full of red lights and the good doctor looked positively demonic - he was a harsh shade of red throughout the clip. So even though Stephanopolous talked about his straw poll win, the image most viewers got was of this satanic politician. We have to be more careful with stuff life that. Red lighting does not flatter our candidate.

Continue reading/discuss Demonic Dean ...

See the full article. Excerpt:

Former Gov. Howard Dean appears to be shedding some of the liberal tendencies that have won him national attention as he now expands his support for the death penalty.

In his 11 years as Vermont’s governor, his position on capital punishment “evolved” from staunch opposition to limited support, Dean acknowledges.

Now, on the stump for the Democratic nomination for president, Dean has extended his endorsement of a death sentence for those who kill children or police officers to include those who commit terrorist acts.

Continue reading/discuss Dean on the Death Penalty ...

"The way [Bush] raises money shows what kind of trouble democracy is in this country," said Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and a Democratic presidential candidate. "My guess is that he'll raise as much as all the Democrats put together, and he'll be able to do that because he's the president and he is able to sell access."

If history is any guide, it is doubtful that these kind of criticisms will have much influence on voters. "It's an issue that's very intense for a very small number of voters," Dr. Dean said.

Continue reading/discuss Dean on Bush's Fundraising ...

For those who don't get the e-mail update from the National Journal's Hotline, this just came out:

DEAN WINS STRAW POLL

--Former Vt. Gov. Captures Both Categories over Kerry--
MILWAUKEE - Former Gov. Howard Dean was victorious in a straw poll of Democratic activists at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention. Dean beat eight competing Democrats in both categories -- delegates and alternates, and official guests.

John Kerry was second to Dean in the delegate count (126 to 33). Kerry also was second to Dean in the guest count (77 to 17).

Dean's combined total of 203 topped Kerry's combined total of 50. Paper balloting took place on Friday and Saturday during the state convention. Dean's campaign spent a lot of energy organizing straw poll voting and other visible signs of support at the convention. Dean's convention speech also was well received. Dean, Kerry and Kucinich personally attended the convention.

Official attendance at this year's Democratic convention was pegged at about 1,162, according to a state Democratic Party spokesman. That's down from last year's estimated attendance of some 2,000 - numbers spiked by Al Gore's appearance and campaign organizing around a gubernatorial straw poll.

This year, the Democratic National Committee actively discouraged attendees from voting via mailings and handouts to activists. The DNC contends that straw polls sap energy and resources from campaigns. WisPolitics.com and The Hotline staged the straw poll to take the temperature of activists in what likely will be a key attleground state next year.

"We view straw polls as just one indicator of early popularity and organization,'' said Jeff Mayers, editor and president of WisPolitics.com. "Dean's victory in this straw poll doesn't mean he'll win the Wisconsin primary on Feb. 17, 2004. But it means he's off to a good start in the state.''

"Despite the monkeypox-like hysteria created by the DNC, nearly a third of the total attendees participated in the straw poll,'' said Vaughn Ververs, Hotline's editor. "The results were representative of the feeling among the delegates. Had all the attendees voted, the overall results likely would not have been different.''

The two online news organizations also do scientific polling and extensive interviews to gauge candidate support. To see more on the state Democratic convention and the Wisconsin primary, go to http://www.wispolitics.com/ and look in the upper left-hand corner of the page.

STRAW POLL RESULTS
--Combined total: Dean (203), Kerry (50), Kucinich (27), Graham (19),
Edwards (18), Gephardt (10), Moseley Braun (5), Lieberman (4), Sharpton
(2), various write-ins (14).

--Delegates/Alternates: Dean (126), Kerry (33), Kucinich (16), Edwards
(10), Gephardt (8), Lieberman (3), Graham (3), Moseley Braun (1),
Sharpton (1), various write-ins (7).

--Official guests: Dean (77), Kerry (17), Graham (16), Kucinich (11),
Edwards (8), Moseley Braun (4), Gephardt (2), Lieberman (1), Sharpton
(1), various write-ins (7)

HOTLINE NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS:

If the race goes down to Kerry-Dean in Wisconsin ...

Dean, Kerry and Kucinich were the only three candidates to address the convention Friday night and the results of the straw poll reflected the atmosphere of the crowd. Dean had the earliest and largest presence on site, with a boisterous afternoon rally in front of about 200 supporters.

Dean campaign posters hung everywhere and novelty pill bottles reading "Prescription for Change" littered tables throughout the complex.

Kerry arrived Friday evening to a modest, but enthusiastic, reception in front of the hotel and his campaign had the second largest presence in terms of branding. Kerry had the air of a national candidate, with crews from ABC News and "60 Minutes" trailing his day in the state. Look for footage of Kerry riding a Harley as part of George Stephanopoulos' "Day in the Life" series kicking off Sunday morning.

Bob Graham's camp turned in the most surprising performance of the convention with a well received speech delivered by Graham daughter Gwen Graham Logan, whose delivered a heart-felt case for the Florida Senator leading into Father's Day weekend. Graham Logan turned out to be the belle of the ball, greeting and charming delegates well into the early morning hours. Look for much more of her on the campaign trail.

Kucinich received modest support among the delegates while other candidates were modestly represented. Gephardt supporters hung scattered posters and passed out stickers, as did Lieberman helpers. Perhaps the most under-represented of all the major candidates was Edwards despite the fact that his wife was slated to speak to the convention on Saturday. Asked about the lack of show for Edwards, one supporter quipped: "Well, there's a candidate running for mayor of Milwaukee with a lot of signs up but he's never going to be mayor of Milwaukee, so that's how that goes."

The DNC letter urging convention goers not to participate in the straw poll had a clear impact upon some delegates. The letter, signed by all nine presidential candidates, was sent to delegates last week and included in packets distributed at the convention. Upwards of half of all delegates approached by the Hotline to participate in the poll cited the letter in their refusals. But while the campaigns ostensibly agreed, two staffers of a major candidate were seen casting votes.

Continue reading/discuss HOTLINE REPORTS: DEAN WINS STRAWPOLL ...

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean all appeared at the convention, getting a jump on Wisconsin’s new, earlier primary date that promises to make the state a major player in deciding who will get the Democratic nomination.

Kucinich, Dean and Kerry all touched on the war, labor rights, Bush’s tax cut package and the need for universal health insurance.

“I want my country back, Mr. President, and I want that country now!” a red-faced Dean shouted to delegates...."

"...Dean said Republicans clearly can’t be trusted with money because they’ve run the country into a deficit trillions of dollars deep.

He said Bush’s tax cut plan should be shelved and the money spent instead on universal health insurance, schools and infrastructure.

Democrats must clearly define themselves and stand up to the administration to combat questions of whether the party has become indistinguishable from the GOP. “If you make me the nominee of this party, I will make you proud to be Democrats,” he said...."

http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_10790862.shtml


and from Blog for America...

From the Road: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Another state. Another rally. Another great crowd! This afternoon it was the Wisconsin Democratic state convention. Even before he addressed the convention delegates, Gov. Dean had the delegates on their feet. We held a rally outside of the convention center and 400 people showed up. The weather was perfect and so was the Gov's speech. It's great to watch the Gov. and the crowd feed off of each other. By the end of the speech, the crowd was roaring and the Gov. was waving a giant American flag. All this and he hadn't even given his speech at the convention yet!

I was a little worried (although now I wonder why!) that maybe the Gov. gave his best speech at the rally and wouldn't have anything left for the convention, afterall we had gotten up at 5:00am. But, was I ever wrong! He went into the convention hall with the 800 plus delegates and gave a speech that was even better than the one he gave earlier in the day. After his speech we were walking around the hotel and a woman came up to the Gov. and told him that his speech was electric and that "all the energy left the room when he did." I can tell you, that she was not the only person to feel this way.

The Gov. spent a great deal of time signing autographs and taking pictures with supporters. (I have to admit that while he was doing this, I was eating barbeque that I got from Sen. Feingold's hospitality suite).

Thanks Wisconsin. Your primary is on Feb. 17 so we'll be back!!


(Are people interested in seeing photos of what we do on the road? If you are let me know and we'll post them on the blog)


Posted by Kate O'Connor at 01:41 AM

http://www.blogforamerica.com/

(Kate, the answer to that question is yes. If you think you can go to Wisconsin without having the obligatory snapshot of you in a cheesehead hat being passed to the four corners of the globe via broadband, you're mistaken.)

UPDATE (Aziz): Check out other first hand accounts of the Wisconsin rally over at DU.

ANOTHER UPDATE (Adam again) First the Dean part that obviously was second in this article then... well... you'll see why we have to close with it...

From the Capital Times...

Contrast that scene with the arrival of Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who is one of Kerry's rivals for the presidential nomination. Dean waded into a sea of several hundred supporters as a stereo blared the Elvis remix of "A Little Less Conversation." Stepping up to the podium, Dean gave a rousing speech touching on the price of U.S. imperialism and Republican tax cuts.

"You have the power to take this country back!" he shouted several times, before grabbing the American flag behind him, pole and all, and holding it behind his head.

"This flag belongs to everyone," Dean said."

NOW... from the category entitled "You've got to be (expletive deleted) kidding me..."

"It wasn't George W. Bush's "top gun" landing on an aircraft carrier, but U.S. Sen. John Kerry's Harley ride along Lake Michigan had the Democratic presidential candidate looking like "the Terminator."

After giving a speech before a few dozen veterans, Kerry, of Massachusetts, stepped onto a borrowed black and chrome Harley.

"It's cool out here. I'm going to put a jacket on," Kerry said, finding a good excuse on the generally warm day to zip up his leather bomber jacket. He donned shades, and chatted with a campaign advance man who shouted "Go!" His caravan was preceded by a top-down convertible with a camera crew...."

http://www.madison.com/captimes/news/stories/50929.php

You can't write this stuff, folks. You just can't do it.

Now here's a belated birthday present for Joe Trippi - special delivery from Boston! For the campaign director who thought he had everything, a spread of Dukakis riding a Harley, or was that Kerry riding in a tank, or was that... oh... never mind... Joe will know what to do with it.

Continue reading/discuss Coverage of Dean at Wisconsin Democratic Convention ...

I'll resist the temptation to reproduce the entire article here and just excerpt the part that refers to our man:

Democrats said that at least two of their presidential candidates, Mr. Graham and Dr. Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont who built his campaign on a platform of opposing the war, have a lot riding on whether the administration, as both men have suggested, manipulated intelligence about biological and chemical weapons in Iraq.

At first, Dr. Dean aggressively challenged Mr. Bush's credibility on the issue. But he has since held back as pressure on the administration has built in Congress. "Howard Dean said for a long time that the president didn't make the case for war in Iraq," said Steve McMahon, one of Dr. Dean's senior advisers. "Now the question is, was the case the president made based on facts or ideology?"

Some of Dr. Dean's supporters said he would be vindicated if no weapons were found.

The article implies that there's still some question as to whether intelligence was manipulated. Former and current intelligence agents are already saying that Bush's people "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" and worse. Why is not every single Democrat in Congress signing Henry Waxman's letter calling for an explanation of the bogus nuclear evidence, insisting that the upcoming hearings be open, and joining Dr. Dean in demanding, "What did the President know and when did he know it?"

Continue reading/discuss NY Times on Weapons Deception and the Democrats ...

So the news is out on the Associated Press and the zonk board, and my email inbox is full of excited supporters talking about it. It's true. The Dean campaign has, in fact, bought an ad in Iowa that will start airing next week. From the Associated Press story:

Breaking the political ice, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean will air the first ad of the 2004 presidential campaign next week, party officials said Friday. The 30-second ad, scheduled to run in most Iowa markets beginning Tuesday and ending July 2, will cost the campaign more than $300,000, according to Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The ad features the former Vermont governor looking into the camera while he delivers an abridged version of his stump speech, including criticism of President Bush's foreign policies, a brief description of his health care plan and his assessment that the Democratic Party has abandoned its traditional values, the officials said.

....

The goal is to introduce Dean and his message to Iowans before better-funded candidates get a chance to define themselves or borrow from his campaign themes, said the officials who have seen the ad and were familiar with Dean's strategy.

You can read the full article here.

Continue reading/discuss Dean Buys First Ad in Iowa ...

Congratulations to MoveOn.org and Meetup.com for winning Webby Awards (in the Politics and Community categories, respectively) !

Continue reading/discuss Meetup and MoveOn both win Webby Awards ...

The campaign, in a bold move that hints at his success at 2nd Q fundraising, has bought the first television ads of the 2004 race, to air in selected markets in Iowa.

The 30-second ad, scheduled to run in most Iowa markets beginning Tuesday and ending July 2, will cost the campaign more than $300,000, according to Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. It is an unusually large ad campaign for this early in the election cycle, a risky move for a little-known, low-financed candidate trying to seize the initiative.

The ad features the former Vermont governor looking into the camera while he delivers an abridged version of his stump speech, including criticism of President Bush's foreign policies, a brief description of his health care plan and his assessment that the Democratic Party has abandoned its traditional values, the officials said.
...
The broadcast purchase is large enough to ensure that the average Iowan will see Dean's ad nine times a week through July 2, officials said, adding that the campaign may pour more money into the buy in the next two weeks.
...
The goal is to introduce Dean and his message to Iowans before better-funded candidates get a chance to define themselves or borrow from his campaign themes, said the officials who have seen the ad and were familiar with Dean's strategy.

This is a really aggressive and saavy initiative for the Dean campaign and I think they deserve high praise. Of course, the article mentions that Democratic candidate Babbitt bought early ads in Iowa in 1987, but his campaign fizzled. These ads are not a guarantee of anything, but taken together with Dean's far more comprehensive and grassroots-supported campaign, I think it will definitely play a role in his success. I continue to predict victory in Iowa.

Continue reading/discuss Howard Dean Buys First Campaign Ads ...

What campaign slogans do you want to see the Dean campaign adopt? How would you craft a phrase that would capture the essence of Dean's candidacy and the vision and promise that a Dean Presidency holds for the future of this country?

Continue reading/discuss open thread: campaign slogans ...

Courtesy of the official blog, here are audio and video links to Dean speaking at the Austin rally:

 High-bandwidth Quicktime (41 MB)

 Low-bandwidth Quicktime (6 MB)

 MP3 audio (18 MB)

Continue reading/discuss audio and video: Austin rally ...

I've been scouring google today in search of news on our candidate. Rather than full-blown peices on Dean, it seems that the pundits have decided to name-drop Dean while talking about other candidates. Hmmm... What do you folks think that means? Here is a small sample:

LINK - Staffers working for U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina (who supports Edwards) sport Dean bumper stickers.
LINK - Buried at the bottom of today's column, NY Post reporter John Podhoretz issues a correction, stating he mistakenly identified Dean as the the man who said that Bush's exaggerations were worse than Watergate. The quote should have been attributed to former Nixon staffer John Dean.
LINK - The Wisconsin Democratic Convention starts today, and Dean will be there! Can one of the good folks at Wisconsin for Dean please provide some information for folks who'd like to attend? We briefly covered this in an earlier post, but would love an update if anyone has it. Right now it looks like the Rally page on DeanForAmerica is bogged down due to traffic, so let me repost the info: There's a public rally at 4:30 pm and the convention begins at 8:00pm. You must register in order to attend the convention. It's only $20.00! Call 608-255-5172. Also, this Reuters article explains why Wisconsin is an important primary state, and the only candidate to rate a mention is our own Howard Dean.
LINK - Gov Dean was in New Hampshire yesterday to kick off his "House Call" healthcare campaign, and he visited Lamprey Healthcare. This brief article essentially states that his message resonated very well with those in the medical community.
LINK - Today, Slate takes a critical look at the candidacy of Bob Graham, and he appears to defend Dean. Hey William, are you on the bandwagon or is it too early for you to declare your support? We'd love to have you.... =)

Continue reading/discuss Google bits ...

Hot off the presses from Vermont:
One of the region's most popular streets soon will be the backdrop for a big political announcement. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean will officially kick off his presidential campaign on Church Street on June 23. Dean will speak at a platform on the corner of Bank and Church streets, campaign organizers said.

The city is planning to shut down Bank Street for about two hours around noon, and the campaign said much of the center of the block between College and Bank streets will only be accessed by people with tickets to the event.

Go get your tickets, folks! As soon as we know where you can get them, we'll post the info.

Continue reading/discuss Dean to officially announce his candidacy on Church Street in Burlington, VT ...

Daily Kos continues his series analyzing the best-case scenario for each of the major candidates to win the nomination. Last week it was Edwards, this week it is Kerry (and stay tuned for Dean next week). It's clear from the analysis that Kerry's only real obstacle is Dean. But I think that the basic assumption that Dean is finished if he loses Iowa and New Hampshire is wrong - given the immense grassroots network that we are building, it's entirely possible that a re-doubled effort post-loss in NH and IA at the grassroots level could pull off a surprise upset on Super Tuesday. What matters most is number of delegates, not the early wins. And remember that Clinton lost both IA and NH in 92.

Continue reading/discuss How they could win: Kerry ...

I wanted to post this so everyone can see what the independent press can do for the Dean movement. In several comments, we've addressed writing letters, and several meetup groups have discussed reaching out to the independent newspapers in larger markets. This article is a direct result of that kind of bridge-building.



As you're reading the article, keep in mind that the Austin Chronicle is a traditionally liberal paper. But also keep in mind that they publish weekly from deep in the heart of Bush Country (although it's true that Austin is more liberal than the rest of Texas, it's also home to many Bush backers). I'd encourage all Austinites to write thank you letters to the Chronicle praising their positive coverage of the event. And meetup folks, it might be a good idea to start reaching out to your local indies, since many active voters read those types of papers.

Continue reading/discuss independent Austin Chronicle covers Dean rally ...

Apparently there is an attempt to put up billboard up in Manchester, NH attacking Gov. Dean for his stance on medical marijuana. The billboard is being sponsored by The Medical Marijuana Project which claims according to the article:

Dr. Dean, despite his liberal leanings, effectively killed 2002 Vermont legislation to legalize marijuana use when prescribed by doctors to comfort seriously ill patients. A handful of states have such laws, although federal law outlaws marijuana for any purpose.

The interesting place is where they wanted to put the ad:

[The group's spokesman Aaron] Houston spotted an empty board at the busy corner of MacGregor and Bridge streets near Catholic Medical Center. “Advertise here,” it beckoned — with a phone number.

He was told by the broker that the space is only rented on a yearly basis. Although the primary is only seven months away, Houston said the group was so eager for the space, it offered to rent it for a year.

But several phone calls later, Dahn Cohen, the project manager for Elbes Associates of Manchester, which owns the billboard and the renovated mill building to which it is attached, told Houston he doubted he could rent the board to the group. Houston said Cohen did not give a clear reason.

Now, the punch line. After what Houston considers a run-around, he found out a major tenant in that building is Dean’s New Hampshire campaign headquarters.

Houston is “highly suspicious” that the Dean campaign convinced the owners to reject the ad.

Both Cohen and the Dean camp deny it. “We had no input on this at all,” said Dean spokesman Dorie Clark

Now actually when I was flyering at one of the peace rallies earlier in the year for Gov. Dean, I came across a "gentleman" who was flyering for some medical marijuana group - he was very vocal to me about his disapproval on the governor's stance. He must have seen these grades:

While Dean got an F+ and Bush an F, it didn’t surprise us to see Dennis Kucinich as the medical marijuana advocates’ favorite.

The Ohioan received an A for his unabashed support of medical marijuana as “an act of compassion and expression of humanity” for the terminally ill.

John Kerry got a C; Bob Graham a C-; Dick Gephardt and John Edwards both got Ds; Joe Lieberman a D-.

Update: Gov. Dean's stance is clarified in an article in The Nation (March 31, 2003) which states:

"[Dean] cannot stand state initiatives that seek to legalize medical marijuana. 'I hate the idea of legislators and politicians practicing medicine,' he says. Should the feds be busting medical marijuana clubs? 'Depends on the circumstances,' he says. 'In general, no.' If he were president, Dean adds, he would force the Food and Drug Administration to evaluate medical marijuana, and he would be prepared to accept its findings."

Continue reading/discuss City billboard becomes a bone of contention ...

The events happening now make it as good a time as any to assess Dean's position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think what concerns some Dean supporters is not so much the nuances of his position but rather the perception that he has aligned himself with AIPAC. Here are reading materials for that discussion:

1) The statement on the official site. Excerpt:

... the Palestinian Authority will have to fight terrorism and violence on a consistent basis to create the conditions necessary for a viable peace process. The Israeli government will work to improve the living conditions of the Palestinian people and will ultimately have to remove a number of existing settlements. These issues and others from the right of return to the status of Jerusalem will all be elements of a final agreement negotiated by the parties.

2) An article in Forward Magazine. Excerpt:

Asked if his appearance at the [Americans for] Peace Now event should be read as a signal of his views on the Middle East, Dean said, "No, my view is closer to AIPAC's view."

3) A critical article from Common Dreams. Excerpt:

In November, Dean paid his first-ever visit to Israel on an excursion that was organized and paid for by AIPAC. He was apparently unperturbed at his sponsors’ close ties to a government that engages in a pattern of gross and systematic human rights violations and blatantly violates a series of UN Security Council resolutions and other international legal principles. During his visit, Dean did not meet with any Palestinian leaders or any Israeli moderates.

4) The Truthout interview. Excerpt:

Of all the Arab people, the Palestinians are most likely to be able to maintain a democratic state. Many Palestinians have lived in democratic states, including a million Israeli Arabs. Women among the Palestinians play a larger governmental role than any other Arab society.

But we've got to stop the terror. You can't get the Israelis out of the West Bank if, all of a sudden, a bomb goes off and kills 26 kids at a bar mitzvah. Of course they're going to go back. You stop the terror by changing our oil policy and confronting those who are funding the terror, and then you begin the process of moving out and ultimately dismantling the settlements, and setting up the states side by side. But the key is the terror, and the key to stopping the terror is America.

Continue reading/discuss Dean on Israel and Palestine ...

Yesterday, Gabriel asked for some responses to that nasty ol' Nation article. Well, we've got some. They're over at the Dean Defense Forces website.

Check us out if you haven't yet.

Continue reading/discuss DDF Covers the Nation ...

When tens of thousands of people who have never participated in politics are organizing locally, you can tell that something extraordinary is happening in America.
We need your help to take this movement to the next level. This week, Moveon, one of the most powerful grassroots organizations in the country, announced that it will endorse a democratic candidate and throw its considerable energy behind electing the next president. Moveon.org has over 1.4 million members--and as many as 2 million people in its activist network. You can affect the outcome of this endorsement process, and bring hundreds of thousands of new people into the Dean campaign. Please join Moveon today:

http://www.moveon.org/keepmeposted/

This will allow you to be part of the moveon endorsement process. If Moveon joins forces with the Dean for America movement, we can become unstoppable.

Moveon's forceful opposition to the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War, the Bush tax cuts, the recent FCC developments, and unfunded mandates like “No Child Left Behind” make them a natural partner for the Dean campaign. Let’s show our grassroots strength to Moveon, so we can work with them to take back America in the largest grassroots campaign in presidential history. Join moveon so they will join us.

Please share this message with Dean supporters, and soon-to-be Dean supporters, everywhere.

Continue reading/discuss Join Moveon for Dean ...

Doctor Dean has the credibility to address the charged issue or abortion from a medical perspective. For years, we've known him to be the strongest supporter of a woman's right to choose. But perhaps surprisingly, one of his rivals hasn't. During his first three terms in Congress, Dennis Kucinich compiled a consistently pro-life voting record, earning a 95-percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee.

Ahead of his presidential run, Kucinich changed his stance; he now claims to be pro-choice. But as David Enrich notes (in the National Review, of all places) Kucinich's historical opposition to choice should cost him votes in Iowa and New Hampshire -- and his recent flip-flop may undermine his credibility. Dean meanwhile is then insulated on the left...

Continue reading/discuss Dean's Choice ...

Dems Fight to Focus on Bush's Credibility
RON FOURNIER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush, elected after casting Al Gore as a serial exaggerator and borderline liar, is now being accused of stretching the truth about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

It is an irony that Democratic rivals would like to convert to a campaign issue - a broad attack on Bush's credibility...."

"...Even if they make all the right political moves, Democrats concede that character attacks may not work as well on Bush as they did against Gore in 2000.

"I think it's going to be a pretty hard sell right now," said Tricia Enright, communications director for presidential candidate Howard Dean. "I don't see the case being made by a broad range of Democrats, and that's what it will take to gain steam."

Dean and his presidential rivals are doing their part. Keying off the Bush administration's failure so far to find the Iraqi weapons, the candidates are trying to make an issue of Bush's trustworthiness.

Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused Bush of "a pattern of deception and deceit." Other candidates have tried to build the issue into a consuming Watergate-style controversy.

"The question now is going to become, 'What did the president know, and when did he know it?' " Dean said...."

"...The candidates say Bush has fudged the facts on issues well beyond Iraq, including:

_ Education. While the president promotes his "No Child Left Behind" legislation, state and local officials struggle to pay for the standardized tests and other requirements of the 2002 law. "What kind of education plan tries to add by subtracting?" Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri said.

_ Tax cuts. Bush said all families will get a break, but the $350 billion bill he signed excluded many low-income families from a child tax credit. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts said Bush was "leaving 12 million children behind."

_ Deficits. Bush pledged to bring fiscal sanity to Washington, but he "brought back the era of big and bloated government," Gephardt said.

_ Foreign affairs. Bush promised in 2000 to have a "humble" foreign policy, but many allies feel bullied by Bush's moves on global warming, trade and Iraq. "Our country is viewed with increased hostility," Graham said.

_ Homeland security. State and local leaders complain they have not received enough money from Washington to prepare for future attacks. "We should not cede this issue," said Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina...."

It's not a great story. Still LOTS of the corporate media "but Bush is such a nice man this can't be true" BS. It's a step in the right direction though. We know the real story though, don't we?

Let's put an exclamation point beside that point. Finding Bush lies are EASY. Finding the last time Bush told the complete truth about ANYTHING is MUCH more difficult. Your assignment, if you should choose to accept it, is to try to figure out the last time Bush actually told the complete truth about anything regarding public policy in a speech or public appearance.

Good Luck... you'll need it. The last complete Dubya truth I could come up with was when he told one of those kids playing t-ball on the south lawn they made a good play, and that doesn't even count according to the guidelines I set up.

Continue reading/discuss Bush Lies FINALLY Featured ...

I'm sure it's not a coincidence that this came out the same day Dean drew more than 3200 people in Austin. As Deanyboppers know, Dean is a big proponent of wind power. Excerpts:

Remember the guy in "The Graduate" who tells Dustin Hoffman, with heavy emphasis, "Plastics"? This column is sort of in the same vein. Psst, kids, there's money in wind. If I were a fresh graduate looking for something useful and profitable to do with my life, I'd sure take a close look at windpower.
....
Politically, of course, the problem is we have an administration largely populated by oil and gas people with a vested interest in keeping out renewables, and a Congress that responds only to big money donations. And there ain't no bigger money than oil and gas money. The countervailing forces are the common sense of the American people and the competitive advantage that will go to nations with cheap, renewable energy. If Denmark suddenly becomes an economic powerhouse, you'll know why.

As long as we're on the environment, the Pew Oceans Commission Report released last week is grim indeed: The oceans are being fished out at an appalling rate. Many countries subsidize their fishing fleets, and the result is a disastrous level of overfishing. I know the Bush Administration doesn't like multilateral treaties, but this is a perfect example of why it's wise to keep your relations with other countries in good working order -- rather than punishing old allies for failing to encourage you in a war to stop weapons of mass destruction that can't even be found.

Continue reading/discuss Molly Ivins on Wind Power ...

picked this up from the new Blog For America - it's an important issue which (like fiscal responsibility) is often wrongly attributed to the GOP. But the Republicans have stomped all over states' rights as much as anyone (ahem, the 2000 election comes to mind). Dean here has made a pledge that he didn't need to make, but which again sets him leagues apart from the others (on both sides of the aisle) in making the comitment. The article has a nice Q&A with Dean on the topic after the summary lede:

Stateline.org: Most states currently have horrendous budget problems, and all the experts say the situation is not likely to change anytime soon. If you were president, what would you do about this?

Dean: There are some things I want to do to help the states. I divide the states into two categories: those states which are suffering because of the Bush tax cuts and the recession, and those states which are suffering because of recession and their own irresponsible fiscal policies during the ‘90s. There were some states that embarked on enormous irresponsible tax cuts, in some cases actually borrowing the money to pay for those tax cuts. Those are states we’re not going to simply just bail out without asking something in return. They’ve got to get their fiscal house in order and demonstrate to the federal government that we’re not simply subsidizing irresponsible financial policies. Those states which are simply victims of the Bush tax cuts will be helped by undoing those tax cuts and fully funding things like special education and other obligations that are things like No Child Left Behind. That will help the states a lot.

Rolling back the Bush tax cuts will fund our share of special ed which I intend to fully fund in the first year of my presidency, and fund huge unfunded mandates like No Child Left Behind which middle-class taxpayers are basically backfilling.

I’ll help all states to get their fiscal house in order, but states like New Jersey for example, which had an enormous tax cut—borrowing the money to get the tax cut--- have got to get their own fiscal house in order from what went on in the ‘90s so they are partners. Those states that have simply been victimized by the Bush tax cuts, we can undo the Bush tax cuts, and we should. They’ve been very bad for the country’s economy and very bad for driving up local property taxes and state taxes. And then what I’m willing to do for all states is to fully fund state mandates. Fully fund special education, which we can afford to do if we roll back the Bush tax cuts. Fully fund the No Child Left Behind bill—although that needs to be altered for educational reasons. And look at the other unfunded mandates that the federal government has foisted on the state government and start to fully fund those.

The other piece is Medicaid. I intend to use Medicaid as the basis of half of my health care plan, and the match rate is going to be substantially increased. The states will administer the program but they will be held harmless in terms of money with much higher match rates.

Stateline.org: How would your policies toward the states differ from those of the Bush administration?

Dean: You’ll not see an unfunded mandate. Now, the question is, what is an unfunded mandate and how do you define one? You will not see us ordering policies on education in particular, in terms of disability rights—no, that’s not true—in terms of programs for people with disability or children or any other group of people—without funding. You will not see that from a Dean administration. If we ask the states to do something, or the municipalities to do something, we will fully fund it otherwise we won’t ask you to do it.

Stateline.org: Is there anything you'd like to add?

Dean: In general, how would (my policy toward) the states differ from (that of) the Bush administration? You know I respect what the governor is all about. The only thing I would like to add is that every candidate will talk like this. We’ve done it. When we put in our education testing, every school board had their test paid for by the state. Have I ever as governor pushed an unfunded mandate down to the local government? Probably. I’m sure there are some times that I have. But I intensely dislike the notion of the federal government telling us how to run programs and not paying for them. You will not see that in a Dean administration. And that’s about it. Thank you.

Continue reading/discuss No Unfunded Mandates If Elected President ...

Thomas Friedman has an interesting article in the NYT today, that introduces the term "neoliberals" for the kind of Democrat that can beat Bush:

I don't think Democrats can win the presidency with a single issue. You win the presidency by connecting with the American people's gut insecurities and aspirations. You win with a concept. The concept I'd argue for is "neoliberalism." More Americans today are natural neolibs, than neocons. Neoliberals believe in a muscular foreign policy and a credible defense budget, but also a prudent fiscal policy that balances taxes, deficit reduction and government services.

Howard Dean isn't mentioned even once by name, but his presence and his stand on the issues pervades every paragraph. It's so Dean-centric and resonates so strongly with Dean's approach to reframing the debate that I have to wonder if he is being deliberately coy.

Continue reading/discuss Read My Lips ...

The Annie E Casey foundation has come out with it's annual report on children's issues, and Vermont not only ranks high, but continues to improve. Some hilights:

- Vermont had the lowest teen birth rate in the country in 2000 - 10 births per 100,000 females ages 15 to 17, compared to 27 percent for the nation
- About 12 percent of Vermont children lived in poverty in 2000, compared to 17 percent nationally
- 7 percent of Vermont teenagers were high school dropouts - compared to a national average of 9 percent
- In 2000, the child death rate in Vermont was 13 out of 100,000 children ages 1 through 14; the national rate was 22
- The number of children in extreme poverty was 4 percent, compared to a national average of 7 percent
- The report said only 7 percent of Vermont children lack health insurance - compared to a national rate of 12 percent

The report rightly credits Dean's Dr Dynasaur Program with improving the lives and health of Vermont's children. In addition, current Vermont Governor (and Republican) James Douglas gives credit to his predecessors, "Governor Dean and all previous governors, all previous legislatures have had a commitment to improving the lives of Vermonters, and for that we are grateful. We've succeeded, at least in relative terms."

UPDATE (Aziz): Vermont is in stark contrast to Texas, which ranked dead last:

AUSTIN -- Texas again ranks worst in the nation with the highest percentage of uninsured children and near worst in teen pregnancy and high school dropout rates, according to new child poverty data released today.

The 2003 Kids Count Data Book compiled by the Annie E. Casey Foundation of Baltimore shows Texas lagging behind most other states in a range of indicators of child welfare.

Texas ranks 50th with 22 percent of its children lacking health insurance compared with 12 percent nationally.

"Texas already has the highest percentage of uninsured children in the nation," said F. Scott McCown, executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which participates with a Texas Kids Count program.

"As it stands, the 2004-2005 state budget will mean that even more poor children, and more children in low-income families, will go uninsured," he said.

This spring, legislators cut nearly $10 billion from the upcoming state budget without raising taxes. But advocates for children, the elderly and disabled complained that the cuts were made at the expense of needy Texans.

Continue reading/discuss Vermont rated high on children's issues ...

Howard Fineman - of all people - offers a bit of advice to the Democratic candidates, Dean included. He states that the fiasco over WMD could be framed to suggest that Americans are much less safe now than before we intervened in Iraq. He takes Dean's question ("What did he know and when did he know it?") and reframes it as "What did he do and when did he do it?” Fineman frames this in the context of another possible attack, if indeed Iraq had WMDs and they are not found. Let me elaborate by quoting more of the article:

The kitchen table issue with swing voters is elsewhere: on the issue of security. The president has argued, in essence, that we took out Saddam as a matter of self-defense and that doing so made America a safer, more secure place. What evidence is there for that? Not much. Indeed, one of Donald Rumsfeld’s earlier explanations for the lack of WMDs was disconcertingly in the other direction. He said that the stuff might have been spirited out of Iraq altogether. Not the kind of notion that would have made voters feel safer. He quickly ditched that argument. Where is the connection to al-Qaida? Sure there might have been one, but no real evidence of it has yet surfaced — and we know al-Qaida is dedicated to attacking us in the homeland. What about radicalized youths in the Muslim world? The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s spawned a generation of deadly radicals, including Osama bin Laden. Are we doing the same a generation later?"

Security will be an issue in the 2004 election, but I must admit that I agree with Fineman. Are we safer? That's a good question. Saddam and his sons, for all we know, are still on the loose and possibly coordinating attacks against our soldiers in Iraq. Osama bin Laden has not been found, and our government has essentially abandoned Afghanistan to an international coalition of peacekeepers who are barely able to control anything besides Kabul. In addition, IF Iraq had WMDs before the war, and we do not find them, who possesses them at this time? Were they spirited away to another country, or perhaps sold off to terrorists outside of Iraq? These are all questions that our administration must answer, and I believe they can be equally applied to 9/11 - although I wouldn't want to see any candidate try to capitalise on that tragedy in order to garner votes (do you hear me, RNC?).

Just some food for thought...

Continue reading/discuss Are you safer today than you were before Gulf War 2? ...

Today's online edition of the BBC features a somewhat glowing profile of our candidate, but unfortunately they tag him with the "dove" label. *sigh* Anyway, the article is pretty good overall, and considering the BBC's readership numbers in the millions, this could go a long way towards giving our candidate more exposure. Here are some higlights:

Until the debate about Iraq began, Howard Dean was just another long-shot Democrat hoping to unseat President Bush. But his stringent opposition to the military campaign has put him firmly in the spotlight. And though the war is over, his criticism continues: "If we set a standard, other countries will follow it, and I assure you that sometime in the next three or four years, another country somewhere in the world will attack its neighbour using as its justification the Bush pre-emption doctrine," he said. "Pre-emption should only be used in an immediate threat to the United States, and this was not it," he added.

The article goes on to describe some of his accomplishments in Vermont, including extending health care benefits to almost all Vermonters and his strict policy of fiscal responsibility. They briefly touch on the DLC's attempt to pain Dean as an elitist liberal, and they go on to explain why he doesn't fit into that box. The BBC does nail it when they describe why Dean is more than a one-note candidate:

But those criticisms do not seem to matter to the increasing band of supporters, who are attracted by his calls for Democrats to develop backbone, to stand up for their real values, and not merely imitate Republicans. It is an arduous process, and one wonders what keeps candidates like Governor Dean going. "I think that what drives me to keep going is the knowledge that if this country fails then a beacon for the world is lost, and this country is headed for failure under this president."

They rightly ask if the Democratic Party has the courage to nominate Dean. What they don't mention is that it's up to us to get him nominated, and that's the message I'd like to send to everyone today. It's our party and our country and Dean supporters are more involved than ever before. We're going all the way, and we're taking out country back!

Continue reading/discuss The BBC gets it... kinda ...

Jonathan Cohn, who wrote TNR's first cover story on Dean, is now talking up his political courage in the TNR Primary for being willing to stand up and talk about irresponsible Democrat Governors who supported risky tax cuts in the '90s.

My only problem? He gives Dean a B for standing up to some of the most powerful political insiders in the country.

Continue reading/discuss Another Profile in Courage ...

From The Hill, the newspaper of the US Congress, comes a great mention of Dean and his college campus strategy. Kudos especially to Students for Dean organizer Michael Whitney for getting his name in print! :)

taking the course
Howard Dean’s college strategy pays off

Nearly every presidential election has what campaign consultants call a “novelty” candidate. In elections past, Ralph Nader, Ross Perot and former California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) fit the description.

Ex-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) may be this year’s novelty candidate, but Dean is showing signs of moving away from the political fringe. And if he pulls it off, he will have used the same strategy perfected by another novelty candidate, former Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.), who ran for president in 1968.

A poll published recently by Harvard’s Institute of Politics suggests that “campus kids,” as the survey labeled them, could be the deciding swing vote in the 2004 election. Like McCarthy more than 30 years ago, Dean has been busy tapping colleges across the country for volunteers.

During the spring, he built a nationwide network, known as the Dean’s List, that now has links to 175 colleges and universities.

“Most candidates ignore students or put them to work in the mailroom,” said Michael Whitney, who is a Dean organizer.

Novelty candidate? grrrr.

If you're a college student and want to see how you can get organized for Dean, drop by the SFD Forum and register!

Continue reading/discuss Howard Dean's college strategy pays off ...

Moveon.org, an extremely important grassroots organization with over 1.4 million members, sent out an email today to its membership, starting a “candidate engagement process” which could lead to an endorsement. Dean recently placed in the top three candidates in a poll of Moveon members (Kerry and Kucinich were the other two). A Moveon endorsement would be extremely meaningful for the Dean campaign—they have a substantial, active membership, and a strong grassroots base.

(1) Tell Moveon of your support for their endorsement process:

http://moveon.org/pac/jun

(2) Tell Moveon what questions you think are most important to ask a presidential candidate. They will ask the most popular questions of the candidates. Go to the following site:

http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=258A

And vote for the best questions or add your question.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE A MOVEON MEMBER FOR YOUR VOICE TO COUNT.

Moveon's opposition to the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War, their complete opposition to the Bush tax cuts, and their strong stand against the recent FCC developments make them a natural partner for the Dean campaign. Let’s show our grassroots strength to Moveon, so we can work with them to take back America in the largest grassroots campaign in presidential history.

Continue reading/discuss Important Moveon Poll ...

I've been remiss in not posting this earlier... Reader Amanda Tempel sent me this link a few days ago. It's a list of openly gay politicians who have endorsed Howard Dean for President. They also have a webring that members of the online gay community can join to show their support.

The latest endorsement comes from Minnesota State Senator Scott Dibble:

"I am excited to add my support to electing Howard Dean as our next President. We are fighting for the soul of our country. In just a couple of years, we've seen unprecedented retreats on civil rights and civil liberties. Economic opportunities and justice have been deliberately eroded. We're witnessing the unprecedented squandering of international goodwill, and an unprovoked war justified by fabrications.

Howard Dean was the only candidate clearly articulating the foolishness of the current administration's war adventure, and the only one decrying a deficit-ridden tax cut designed only to benefit the wealthy. Howard Dean practices a politics of passion and conviction - a quality I especially appreciate from the state that gave this country Paul Wellstone. Howard Dean is standing up as an unabashed Democrat, fighting for values we share as Americans. He is the only candidate that is offering real proposals on health care, on the economy, on advancing civil rights for all, and on making health care available to everyone. His politics are built on the tough principles of pursuing what is possible, as his record as Governor of Vermont shows-signing civil unions into law and dramatically expanding healthcare coverage. His campaign is built on the energy of an amazing, unparalleled groundswell of grassroots support…again, carrying on a proud Wellstone tradition.

Howard Dean is the only candidate that can build on Democratic principles of fairness, inclusion and opportunity, to help Americans take their country back."

The folks at Out for Dean are asking the Dean Nation (that's us!) to notify them if we learn of any other politicians who can be added to the list.

While targeting the gay community is a no-brainer for the Dean campaign, I'd like to add a personal statement here. Reaching out to the gay community doesn't mean just reaching out to homosexuals. It also means reaching out to their families and friends, many of whom would like to see equal rights extended to our gay friends and relatives. Speaking personally, I've watched too many of my friends waste away in hospitals dying of AIDS, and seen the look of despair on their partner's faces when they were denied visitation rights. It's simply not fair to deny a gay couple something everyone else takes for granted. I've also seen too many of my friends denied access to health care just because they don't fit into the traditional family model. This again is not fair, especially considering that many companies are now extending insurance benefits to common law marriages and straight, live-in partners. And these same couples would gladly pay the marriage tax penalty (just like they do in Vermont) to be considered equal under the eyes of the law.

I know many couples who'd jump at the chance to legalise their unions. This should be common sense. The definition of the American family has shifted over the past few decades, yet our laws do not reflect that. Across the country, there are thousands of gay couples who are currently being denied the same benefits (and penalties) that everyone else enjoys. I believe that denying same-sex couples equal rights is tantamount to saying their relationships are not valued, are not normal, and are not worthy of recognition. Bills like the "Defense of Marriage Act" are designed not to protect the institution of marriage (which, if you ask me, isn't really threatened), but to deny one simple fact: modern families consist of more than a husband, wife, and 2.5 kids. DOMA not only denies the phenomenon of the shifting American family, but it also prevents recognition of many legitimate unions.

Put simply, denying a significant segment of our population these rights is just plain wrong, and I (as a friend of many lesbians and gays) welcome the progressive idea of civil unions.

Continue reading/discuss Out For Dean ...

An incredible week for the Dean campaign is reflected in Daily Kos' Cattle Call for this week. Dean is in 2nd place, behind (surprisingly) Gephardt. Kerry drops to third place. And the conventional wisdom about Graham's campaign seems to be solidifying into certainty that he's gunning for Veep.

Continue reading/discuss dKos Cattle Call: Dean in 2nd ...

Several months ago, a little internet company named Meetup emailed us and asked for a brief plug on the DeanBlog. The rest is history. Meetup has transformed Dean's campaign in exactly the way that the resident visionary (Joe Trippi, happy birthday!) predicted - the potential for teh Internet to radically alter politics is profound and still remains barely tapped.

Let me introduce konspire2b - a content distribution system that essentially turns the classical napster/kazaa p2p model on its head. Rather than specifying search terms and waiting for search results, then opening a connection and trying to download a file, you actually "subscribe" to a content channel and the content is delivered automatically to you. The main page has a clear and concise explanatory chart of how it works.

The point is, that this is essentially a file-sharing blog system - with unlimited bandwidth (if you're more interested in the technical discussion, see the Slashdot article).

This is a revolutionary tool for a political campaign for distributing content. Some of teh files that could be sent out over the KonspireForAmerica channel might be:

• Meetup host materials
• audio files of Dean stump speeches
• photos from events
• large PDF files for mass printing
• Word and Excel forms and documents
• Dean-inspired music
• video files

Note that this service would completely supercede the existing proprietary software requirements of HowardDean.TV - the konspire client fits on a floppy disk, uses HTML as its user interface, and runs on all operating systems and all web browsers. The HTML GUI means that the channel and the new BlogForAmerica could even be integrated into a single service.

This is a revolutionary model for campaign distribution of content. Its bleeding edge technology, but if the campaign embraces and supports the technology, it could be as mutually beneficial a relationship as the arrangement with Meetup. And it has the same potential to amplify the power of Dean's message, and the unity and organization of the netroots.

Continue reading/discuss konspire2b ...

Most of you have probably seen this critical article "Dean's No Wellstone" from the Nation magazine. It's clear that it presents a one-sided take on Dean. David Corn's earlier profile is much better. The article does, however, raise several points from Dean's record that I'm not familiar with. Could we tackle these as a group and figure out what the story is behind each of these positions? I've separated out the points from the article.

* As governor of Vermont, Dean targeted for elimination the public-financing provision of the state's campaign finance law--a law similar to the one Wellstone pushed in the Senate.

* In February 2002, Dean said his big donors are given special access.

* While Wellstone fought for people on welfare, Dean said some welfare recipients "don't have any self-esteem. If they did, they'd be working" and scaled back Vermont's welfare program, reducing cash benefits and imposing strict time limits on single mothers receiving welfare assistance.

* Dean advocated sending nuclear waste from his state to the poor, mostly Hispanic town of Sierra Blanca, Texas. Wellstone called the proposal "blatant environmental injustice" and fought to delay the measure in the Senate. It ultimately passed but was later determined unsafe.

* Just last year, Dean proposed deep cuts in Medicaid, which were blocked in his own legislature.

* Dean has said that a constitutional amendment to balance the budget "wouldn't be a bad thing" and that the way to balance the federal budget is "for Congress to cut Social Security, move the retirement age to 70 and cut defense, Medicare and veterans' pensions."

* In the name of fiscal conservatism, Dean's final-year Vermont budget also cut portions of the state's public education funding.

* Dean supports the death penalty and as governor was embraced by the NRA.

* Although he opposed the war on Iraq, his policy on the Middle East is closer, he says, to AIPAC--the American Israel Public Affairs Committee--than to progressives calling for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories.

Continue reading/discuss Answers to Points in the Nation Article ...

The Dean Campaign has officially launched its new blog-- just in time for Joe Trippi's birthday!

Read our birthday message to Joe and find out his age by going to the new blog at www.blogforamerica.com.

And who is going to be the first person to comment? Anna?

Continue reading/discuss BLOG FOR AMERICA ...

For Immediate Release
June 10, 2003

Howard Dean today blasted the Bush Administration for once again undermining wilderness protection, this time by opening the Tongass National Forest up to logging and road building.

“There they go again. The Bush regime has demonstrated a pattern of hostile behavior toward wilderness protection. They claim to be implementing the roadless rule, but when you take a closer look you see that they are doing so in a way that undercuts the rule’s effectiveness. It’s as if the President’s passion for clearing brush on his Crawford ranch has turned into an Administration-wide obsession with clear-cutting national forests,” Dean said. “Worse yet, they are again attempting to undermine environmental protections through a series of bogus ‘settlements’ that are meant to shut the public out of the decision-making process.”

Dean was referring to the fact that the Administration’s latest plan is part of a settlement between the Justice Department and Alaska. Similarly, in April, Interior Department Secretary Gale Norton entered into a legal settlement with Utah in which the Department agreed that the Bureau of Land Management no longer has the authority to create Wilderness Study Areas.

“As President, I will fully implement the roadless rule finalized under President Clinton. We should be expanding our protection of the wilderness areas we have remaining, not clear cutting them,” Dean added.

To join environmental supporters of Dean, click here.

Continue reading/discuss Dean Slams Bush Administration's Latest Anti-Environmental Action ...

 Democratic Candidates at Iowa Picnic

Continue reading/discuss video: Iowa picnic ...

You Own It.

Continue reading/discuss Open Thread ...

A message from HQ directly to you:

Greetings -

My name is Michael Whitney, and I am an intern with the Internet Team up here at Dean HQ in Burlington, Vermont.

As you know, the campaign is organizing a series of Declaration Celebrations on June 23 across the country in support of Governor Dean's candidacy declaration for President of the United States. While NYC is having its own rally, we're trying to bring students to Burlington for the main rally to showcase the tremendous support the student community is lending to Governor Dean.

I'm looking for a student (or several) from the NYC/Downstate and Boston areas interested in organizing about 45 students to take a bus to Burlington from Sunday, June 22 to Monday, June 23 for NYc and just 6/23 for Boston. If you know of any students in your area that would be interesting in being the Downstate or Boston organizer, please let me know as soon as possible. This is the perfect opportunity to show the media, the Democratic Party, and the nation that Howard Dean is our generation's candidate. We need as many students as possible to show their support by coming to Burlington. For more information about what's happening in Burlington that weekend, please visit
the front page of www.studentsfordean.org/june23.php.

If you or someone you know is interested in helping out with this project, please contact me at michael.whitney@american.edu, or call the Burlington office at 802.651.3200, x141.

Thank you for your help.

- Michael Whitney

Continue reading/discuss Raising the Call ...

News 8 Austin had a reporter covering the Dean visit to Texas. You can visit the website and watch the video coverage of the report. As always, there was a focus on how the campaign is revolutionizing politics with techonology:

"The Internet is critical to us. You know you've got a lot of more conservative media than you used to have and they are all pulling for the Republicans, but we can get around this through the Internet and through direct talking to people like this,” Dean said.

Camera crews are following Dean and capturing all his speeches and rallies. Then, they will be played in their entirety on the Web site. Another link on the site called meetup.com allows Dean supporters to meet up with each other in their own cities and towns to help with organizing the campaign and help get the word out.

It's old-time, grassroots politics using new technology.

Continue reading/discuss News 8 Austin Covers Dean Visit ...

Gabriel continues to update his post on the Austin rally - see below and stay tuned. But I just want to reflect on what Austin means. The symbolism of Austin is beyond merely being Bush's backyard - Austin is the seat of power, and the epicenter of Bush's political power (even though the town itself is liberal). All of Bush's political roots trace through this nerve center - which Dean completely and utterly dominated on Monday night. This is the event that, in histories about the 2004 election yet to be written, will be identified as a proverbial turning point.

The Austin rally has drawn a lot of attention within the Blogsphere - for example, Carl with a K's analysis of just what the number 3,200 really means:

In 1999-2000 when I began work on Senator John McCain's campaign... getting people to show up for an impromptu political rally outside of New Hampshire was near impossible... unthinkable even.

Things slowly changed as the campaign progressed and AFTER New Hampshire it was not uncommon in South Carolina for the campaign to be greeted by screaming McCainiacs numbering in the 1500-2000 range. That's an important point to understand. McCain's momentum flowed from state to state as he did better. There is no way we could have flown to Nashville (Gore's hometown) and been welcomed by 3,000 supporters even if it had been the day after New Hampshire at the height of his popularity.

It becomes more clear each day that this campaign is different from any other insurgent candidacy of the past. Doctor Dean has a national support network ready at any time to turn out for him and get the job done. That's something the Gary Hart's and John McCain's of this world were never able to harness let alone 6 months before a vote was taken.

Keep in mind that the campaign itself expected a turnout of 300 people (which would have been nothing to sneeze at). Byron at The Burnt Orange Report also weighs in with a detailed first-person account:

Finally, a little after 9 PM, Howard Dean arrived to wild applause, and he immediately lunged at the people at one side of the stage to shake their hands. State Representative Eddie Rodriguez (D-Austin) welcomed Howard Dean to east Austin and his district; just elected last November, he spoke about how his first legislative session was one of the worst ever for Texas: how gay rights were attacked, abortion rights were attacked, and thousands of children were knocked off of health insurance coverage. Rodriguez said that he did everything he could to stop Republicans--including going to Ardmore, Oklahoma, for a week with 50 other House Democrats; at that remark, he received wild applause. Finally, Rodriguez introduced Howard Dean by giving him his endorsement (I believe the first endorsement of a state representative in Texas for Dean).
...
Finally, Glen Maxey took the microphone and reminded people to give money and sign the ballot petition and pledge card. Dean, however, instead of walking off the stage, almost dove into the crowd in front of the stage and started shaking hands. He did that for about five to ten minutes until someone told him that he needed to stop and talk to the television cameras so that he'd get on the 10 PM news. I got home just around 10 PM and Dean got decent coverage on the major networks.
...
Dean has lots of support in Austin, and throughout the state of Texas. Democrats in Texas got swept last November, and many of the candidates on the Texas Democratic ticket worked to play up their conservative or pro-Bush credentials in order to win the support of independents, moderates, and conservatives. What happened? The undecideds voted for the real Republican, and lots of Democrats didn't bother to vote. Many of us in this state are looking for a Democrat to support for President that will unabashedly, unashamedly support the principles of our party. We see that candidate in Howard Dean.

That 3200 was just the tip of a vast iceberg in Texas. But what does it all mean? what does it all really mean? as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. See for yourself.

Continue reading/discuss Austin is Dean Country ...

My friend Karl (yes, that's what Carl with a K means) writes on his website something that I think is worth repeating here. It's a reflection on the grassroots support that Gov. Dean has found all around the nation. Karl puts it all into a bit of perspective by drawing comparisons to his previous efforts working on Sen. John McCain's campaign for the Republican nomination for president in 2000.

While I'm only 25 years old, I'm both a political activist and a former staff member of a major Presidential campaign. In 1999-2000 when I began work on Senator John McCain's campaign ... getting people to show up for an impromptu political rally outside of New Hampshire was near impossible... unthinkable even.

Things slowly changed as the campaign progressed and AFTER New Hampshire it was not uncommon in South Carolina for the campaign to be greeted by screaming McCainiacs numbering in the 1500-2000 range. That's an important point to understand. McCain's momentum flowed from state to state as he did better. There is no way we could have flown to Nashville (Gore's hometown) and been welcomed by 3,000 supporters even if it had been the day after New Hampshire at the height of his popularity.

It becomes more clear each day that this campaign is different from any other insurgent candidacy of the past. Doctor Dean has a national support network ready at any time to turn out for him and get the job done.

Continue reading/discuss Worth Repeating ...

Derek writes from deep in the heart of Texas:

Howard Dean spoke at Plaza Saltillo in East Austin Monday night. One thing is certain: Dean has MOMENTUM. A crowd estimated at 3,200 -- reported to be the largest turnout for any candidate outside his home state -- came to hear him speak. Glen Maxey, his Texas campaign coordinator, hoped to raise $10,000 during the event, but this threshold was crossed at least 20 minutes BEFORE Dean took the stage. The total amount raised will easily exceed $15,000.

Dean is a quick-witted and passionate speaker. I think he will do very well debating Bush and speaking with voters.

* When a crowd member yelled out, "Give 'em hell!", Dean replied "I don't give them hell, I just tell the truth and they think it's hell."

* Speaking of Texas' recently-ended legislative session, Dean said (paraphrasing): "In my state, we balanced the budget without raising taxes and without kicking 100,000 kids off health insurance. So take that, Governor Perry!"

UPDATE: The AP article

The physician took on President Bush in the president's own state -- blasting the war in Iraq, deficit spending and the latest round of Bush-backed tax cuts.

"If you say 'you have a choice, you can keep the tax cuts or you can have health insurance that will never be taken away, you can keep the tax cuts or you can fully fund special education so your class size doesn't expand,' ...people are going to choose jobs, health care and education because they didn't get the tax cuts," Dean said.

UPDATE 2: Additional stories in the Austin American-Statesman and the Daily Texan (the paper for which I was a columnist in my previous life.) To try to put a crowd of 3200 showing up to see Dean in perspective: I saw Clinton speak in public in Austin at the parallel point in his first campaign (June of 1991) and the crowd was about 75 people.

UPDATE 3: Excellent coverage on News 8 in Austin. Here's a direct link to the Windows Media file.

Continue reading/discuss Austin Rally Report ...

We're seeing the titanic shift of the conventional wisdom from "Dean can't win" to "Dean will win." There were two small but significant events yesterday (besides the phenomenal Austin rally.) First, Hardball's Chris Matthews predicted on Charlie Rose that Dean will get the nomination. Second, Lou Dobbs on CNN's Moneyline quoted Dean in the exchange below.

DOBBS: This is reaching what Howard Dean is really putting in stark epic proportions, saying that this is bigger than Watergate. What do you think?

JAMES WOOLSEY, FMR. CIA DIRECTOR: Oh, I think that's ridiculous, Lou. People need to stand back a little bit and look at the facts here ....

The facts are, Mr. Woolsey, that John Dean (the Watergate guy, no relation to Howard) has written"To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked." And Ho-Ho is the man heating up the oil in the skillet.

Continue reading/discuss The CW Starts to Shift ...

On the heels of the Austin rally, ABC's influential The Note has this to say:

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Howard Dean might win both Iowa and New Hampshire; Howard Dean is the only major candidate in the race who talks like both a governor AND a real person from outside Washington; Howard Dean is really using the Internet to fundraise and organize (It ain't just hype … .); Howard Dean connects regularly with Democratic audiences in a way that the others can do only sporadically; Howard Dean has a long record of policy thoughtfulness and a capacity to connect it to the real lives of real people that governors do best (and is, dare we say it, Clintonesque) ; and he evinces real anger at George Bush's polices.

The dirty little (not-so) secret of political strategists of both parties is how hard it is to get people interested in, and emotional about, politics. Howard Dean is doing that, and he is bringing new (and young) people into the process. In a crowded field, that is a good thing.

Continue reading/discuss The Note Gushes ...

The TNR Primary (in the form of Jason Zengerle) sees fit to blame Dean for trying elbow Bob Graham down to the minors. Now, as people have noted here and elsewhere, Dean and Graham have typically been rather kind to eachother. This isn't a one-way street as Zengerle would have us believe.

So why would Dean say that he's the only major candidate running for President who opposed the war? Maybe it is because the media, TNR included, constantly makes it sound that way. Chris Matthews feels like picking on an anti-war candidate -- does he go after Graham? Kucinich? Sharpton? Mosely Braun?

No. He attacks Dean.

Eliot Spitzer is saying anti-war Dems can't win. Who does he single out?

Hmmm. Dean again.

And yet, Dean is the one who gets blamed for simply acknowledging what the media already decided.

Maybe the media should own up, instead of attacking, when they're responsible.

Shame on Zengerle and shame on TNR for attacking Dean but not the rest of the media.

Continue reading/discuss And they blame the Governor ...

From a review of the Iowa picnic by Slate's William Saletan:

Dean is far and away the most interesting player in the race. Not since Clinton have Democrats seen a talent like this. Here's Dean on the federal budget:

When Ronald Reagan came into office, he cut taxes, we had big deficits, and we lost 2 million jobs. When Bill Clinton came into office, he raised taxes without a single Republican vote; we balanced the budget; we gained 6 and a half million jobs. George Bush has already lost 2 and a half million. I want a balanced budget because that's how you get jobs in this country is to balance the books. No Republican president has balanced the budget in 34 years. …You had better elect a Democrat, because the Republicans cannot handle money. … We're the party of responsibility, and they're not.

When you hear Dean talk like this, you wonder why no one else can make the party's case so simply. If more Democrats spoke this way, maybe they'd control a branch of government.

Success is beginning to warp Dean a bit. He told the Iowa crowd, "People inside the Beltway have said that because I told the truth early, that I'm unelectable. [But] it may be because I told the truth early, that I may be the only one who's electable. We have got to stand up for what we believe, regardless of the polls." Dean has been using that third sentence for months. But the first two are new. He's no longer speaking as freely, because he's become a major player. He's worrying not about the beginner's problem of getting attention but about the advanced problem of projecting electability. That kind of calculus is the opposite of what attracts people to Dean. A principle you advertise as an asset to your electability feels like no principle at all.

P.S.: No politician who's truly foreign to the Beltway talks about "the Beltway."

Continue reading/discuss Saletan wowed by Dean ...

Minnesota Public Radio reports on Gov. Dean's trip to the state. Gov. Dean vowed that the campaign will do everything it can to win the state:

"I have every intention of trying to win in Minnesota. We're going to work our you-know-whats off to win in Minnesota."

While there, Dean invoked the memory of the state's late senator, Paul Wellstone:

Dean presented himself to the audience as a Wellstone Democrat.

"We've got to fight back and stand up for what we believe; that's what Paul Wellstone was all about. Even though I didn't know Paul well, I think that there are a lot of people in Minnesota who, having known Paul as well as they did, believe in the same kind of message that I'm pushing for, which is it's time for Democrats to be Democrats again," he said.

The legacies of Paul Wellstone, Hubert Humphrey, and Walter Mondale are at least part of the reason why Dean and other Democratic candidates could be stopping by Minnesota early and often in this campaign.

The entire article can be viewed by following the link above.

Continue reading/discuss Dean hunts for money in Minnesota ...

As you may have noticed, Haloscan has had many outages and problems in the past few months. Given the Dean Blog's massive growth, I think we have outgrown such an unreliable service. I've added Squawk Box as an alternative comment system which I encourage everyone to use, and if it works out well, we will dump the Haloscan comments. I'll upgrade the Squawk account to Pro if it looks like people prefer it and it works smoothly. For now we will still have the Haloscan link available as well. If anyone knows how to extract archived comments from Haloscan en masse, please let me know (in the SQ comments :)

Continue reading/discuss SquawkBox comments ...

In light of the recent dust-ups between Dean and the DLC, and their assertion that he is going to be another McGovern, I think it germane to examine what exactly McGovern did and how we can keep from falling into that pit. On that note, I stumbled across a fantastic article in Dissent Magazine that accuses the DLC of being McGovern-like. There's a lot of interesting stuff in here about coalitions and the type of constituencies that need to be brought together, plus some arguments that we could make for Dean's viability through his gun views. Read it and discuss.

Continue reading/discuss Will The Real McGovern Please Stand Up? ...

megablogger Kos of The Daily Kos signs on to the Dean campaign as a technical advisor. Bringing prominent political bloggers into the fold is a brilliant move, to help keep the campaign tuned and on the leading edge of the Internet grassroots phenomenon. Kos still has not endorsed Dean as a candidate, but that is a separable issue from his ability to assist the campaign as it makes history and takes politics back to the people. Kudos to Kos :)

Continue reading/discuss Kos joins Dean ...

I like to pick out great comments from the open threads and highlight them for the rest if Dean Nation. The DeanBlog's heart and soul is in the comments section, not the main posts, and I hope that by spotlighting realluy great comments, I can encourage more people to participate. The featured comment this time is by regular commentator Jumbo:

The buzz is building, but its a nice steady build. This isn't a bubble waiting to burst, it's the tide rising. The beauty of this race is that we're in a field of 9 with no annointed front-runner. This is similar to the Republican primary in 2000. And the Democrats in 1992. In such a situation unlikely candidates can rise to the top. Dean has already risen to the top-tier. Gephardt and Kerry are the closest thing to incumbents and their Senate votes have already handcuffed their rhetoric. Besides, being a part of the current Democratic side of Congress is nothing to be proud of; if not an out and out liability. Dean has experience in the executive branch, a proven track-record of accomplishment, and an unmatched ability to clearly and effectively communicate his vision to the people. Unlike some of his rivals, Dean is greater than the sum of his positions on the issues. He's a doctor and a scientist who believes in facts, evidence, and logic. He is consistant, practical and straight forward both in his speeches and in his general view of the world and America's place in it. Strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire are very important. People like to vote for winners and sucess in primaries often builds on itself. However, its in places like California and New York that Dean is really generating a strong and comitted following. The high-delegate states are the real key to victory in the primaries. All in all I think we're doing just fine. I think we've seen the worst of the Dean backlash already (see Tucker Carlson's lame attempt to prove some kind of point out of a slip of the tongue) and unless there are a long list of disgruntled nurses who Dean fondled back in the 80's (oh God, please no bimbos this time) Howard looks fairly untouchable and his popularity will only go up as more and more people learn about him.

Continue reading/discuss featured comment: Jumbo ...

Governor Vilsack's annual picnic is a stealth event in Iowa politics. Gephardt is favored toory win by the conventional wisdom, so losing Iowa becomes a major setback. And Kerry and Edwards both need Dean to lose there regardless of their own showings. So the absence of all three from the picnic, and the chance to mingle with hundreds of party activists from across the state, is a major surprise and a tactical blunder of immense proportion.

The candidates who were there - Lieberman, Kucinich, Graham, and Dean - took the opportunity to stay on message about Bush and the Credibility Thing. And Dean took the lead - in keeping the Bush bashing restrained (!):

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean revived a Watergate-era phrase to raise questions about whether Bush withheld information from Congress: "The question now is going to become, `What did the president know, and when did he know it?"
...
Dean, the former Vermont governor, warned against attacking Bush too harshly.

"I think we ought to take a measured approach to this," Dean said. "Somebody's credibility is on the line, and I would prefer it to be a Republican president's."

Graham's soundbite was much more aggressive - cementing in my mind the idea that he's angling for the Veepstakes. Lieberman stood by his pro-war position, but did support Congressional investigations. And Gephardt, speaking from Washington, critiqued all such critique of Bush - demonstrating that when it comes to Iowa, he's in the wrong place and saying the wrong thing.

All in all, this was a home run for Dean. I've predicted before that Dean will win Iowa, and given his recent surge in the polls and his position on issues such as the war and (ugh) farming subsidies, I think that Gephardt, Kerry, and Edwards see the writing on the wall. Or, if they don't see it yet, they will.

UPDATE: Nonpartisan for Dean, in the comments, relays the following quotes:

1) Tom Vilsack, after Dean's speech, to Dean (half in the microphone): "Great lines about the balanced budgets. Tremendous job."

2) (the bigger story) Bob Graham, after describing himself for ten minutes in ways identical to Dean: "Recent Democratic presidents have been able to talk directly to the American people -- and I want to thank Governor Dean, because he's been doing just that."

Continue reading/discuss Kerry, Edwards ditch the Iowa picnic ...

We got momentum. Thinks look great in Iowa, New Hampshire. Things are looking up nationally.

Tell us your thoughts.

Continue reading/discuss Open Thread ...

Two stories.

The first, we're within three points of Kerry in New Hampshire. It's 25-22, a statistical tie, with Lieberman running third at 10 percent. At this rate, Kerry and Dean will be the only two contenders landing delegates in New Hampshire. Zogby's report on the poll is available here.

The second, Washington state chair is heaping praise upon Dean in today's Olympian:

[Democratic State Chair Paul] Berendt hasn't endorsed anyone but says: "My heart is with Dean. My leanings are toward Dean. I think Dean is talking about some issues that need to be back on the agenda of the Democratic Party. He may not win the nomination, but he will have a powerful influence on the debate.

"I personally think that the candidate who will beat Bush will be one who challenges his policies and ideas."

Continue reading/discuss Sunday Brings Good News ...

Predictably, John Kerry gave the keynote address at this morning's Massachusetts State Democratic Convention. And as expected, he bused in hundreds of (mostly young) supporters from across the state to waive signs as he spoke. The big surprise? That it was wise he did so -- because otherwise Kerry would not have been so warmly received. The overwhelming majority of Massachusetts delegates were quiet during Kerry/s address. No delegate-led chants. Few signs. It seemed to me -- and the delegates I talked to -- that the Massachusetts rank and file aren't sold on their hometown Senator...

Importantly, MassforDean was out in full force, wearing lab coats and giving out literature on Governor Dean. Inside the convention, the group had a booth with campaign literature. Volunteers also played videos of Dean's recent speeches and signed up supporters -- including my State Representative!

UPDATE:

Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, right, greets supporters outside the Massachusetts Democratic state convention, Saturday, June 7, 2003, in Lowell, Mass. Supporters of Kerry's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, hold signs at left. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer) (via Yahoo.com)

Continue reading/discuss Massachusetts for Dean! ...

By request, a thread linked to an article on religion and the Democratic presidential race. The article does not mention Dean, but the issue is relevant to his candidacy as well.

UPDATE (Aziz): the author of the article notices the open thread. Her comment is insightful and points out a real weakness that Democrats have to overcome - hostility to religion from the far left. Excerpt:

First of all, the article does not recommend Democrats pander to Christians (or any religious group, for that matter), but urges them to draw connections between policies they already endorse and concerns that religious individuals already hold. Secondly, way to miss the entire point of my argument, Dean supporter. "Those who cling to the mythologies of the Middle Ages while ignoring the reason of the modern secular society"??? Hmm, I wonder why it is that many religious individuals don't feel at home in the Democratic Party.

You can count on the GOP exploiting this hostility in the primaries.

Continue reading/discuss Dean and Religion ...

Too bad the Scots can't vote here. Excerpts:

"I would go to the ends of the earth for Howard Dean," Darinda Sharp, a graduate politics student at George Washington University, declared. "When I first saw him on television last year I was amazed by his ability to articulate his vision. In fact, the fact that he has a vision impresses me."
....
On Wednesday Mr Dean’s supporters met in Washington and 231 other towns and cities to spread the Dean gospel and, just as importantly, raise money. At the Visions Cinema Bistro, more than 100 Dean backers turned up.
....
Some party officials hoped victory in Iraq would knock his campaign off course; if anything he appears stronger. "Their problem is that we’re not disappearing," says his campaign manager, Joe Trippi.
....
"Dean is a real person," says Mr Trippi. "There are four or five programmed candidates and we don’t need another one."

Continue reading/discuss Great Press in Scotland's National Newspaper! ...

As usual, when there's big money lobbying going on in the halls of Congress, Tom Delay is involved. It's notable that only Dean has had the resolve to critique DeLay for his involvement in the GOP's latest impropriety involving the Westar energy conglomerate :

The head of the Democratic Party asked the attorney general on Friday to seize records of leading Republican lawmakers regarding more than $55,000 in political donations by an energy conglomerate that was seeking favorable treatment from Congress.

The request followed news reports Thursday on internal documents of Topeka, Kan.-based Westar Energy about campaign donations and the company's desire to get "a seat at the table" of a House-Senate conference committee on the Bush administration's energy plan.

The Westar documents said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Senate Banking Committee chairman Richard Shelby and Reps. Joe Barton of Texas and Billy Tauzin of Louisiana had requested the contributions from Westar. A DeLay fund-raising organization collected $25,000 of Westar's contributions.
...
Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, also urged an investigation of the four members of Congress, saying that if DeLay and other lawmakers did agree to sell political access "they should be prosecuted for violating bribery laws."

That's exactly the kind of language that we need nowadays - lest deterrent lose its teeth. The other candidates, all Senators, are presumably too entangled in Congressional decorum to be able to take on DeLay. But not Dean.

Continue reading/discuss Dean takes on DeLay ...

Dean Defense Forces, fire up those word processors! Remember: be nice and emphasize the positive. It's from the AP regional wire, so look for it in papers all over the Northeast:

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean cannot win the presidential election because he opposed the war in Iraq, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said Thursday.

"The American people will not elect somebody who opposed a war that they supported," Spitzer told the Press-Republican of Plattsburgh. Spitzer also said Dean won't win the Democratic nomination.:

UPDATE: Dean camp says Spitzer's analysis is off base

"It's becoming clearer every day that the conventional wisdom of going to war with Iraq may have been wrong," said Ethan Geto, Dean's New York campaign director. "We are facing a possibly more unstable situation in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, al Qaida is again on the warpath and American soldiers are being killed almost every day in Iraq."
....
"Howard Dean is not an isolationist and he is not a pacifist," Geto said. "Governor Dean believes that the United States should in many instances exercises its military power around the globe to protect global stability and most importantly U.S. national security interests."

Continue reading/discuss AP: NY AG says Dean can't win ...

Dave from Seeing the Forest has an excellent post detailing his opinion on who comprises the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party". While I know we've gone over this repeatedly, I think Dave is offering a new perspective and a great response to those who'd club Dean for borrowing Wellstone's famous phrase:

Being in the Democratic wing is about being an opposition party and standing up for the people of the country and the interests of the nation instead of cowering before the Bush intimidation machine, allowing the right to persue their radical agenda to take the country back to the 19th century. That's what it's about, not about being a leftie. And it's about getting it. Checking in with weblogs is getting it. Reading BuzzFlash is getting it. Understanding what the grassroots are talking about is getting it. THAT is why Governor Howard Dean is doing so well with the grassroots, and THAT is why Dean can use the phrase "from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

Continue reading/discuss What does "the Democratic wing of the Democratic party" really mean? ...

Howard Dean will be campaigning vigorously in several states over the next few weeks.

He'll be in Mount Pleasant, Iowa this Sunday June 8. This event is open to the public. Tickets are available by calling (515) 244-8702. more details can be found here.

On Monday, June 9, Dean will be in Austin, Texas for a rally and a fundraiser. The rally begins at 8pm and is free and open to the public (donations will be encouraged due to the upcoming second quarter fundraising deadline). For directions and information, visit Dean for Texas.

On Friday, June 13, Dean will appear at the Wisconsin Democratic Convention. This is a biggie, folks. If you're a Wisconsin resident, it's very important to show up and support Dr Dean, because your presence will be influential in opening people up to Dean's candidacy. There's a public rally at 4:30 pm and the convention begins at 8:00pm. You must register in order to attend the convention. It's only $20.00! Call 608-255-5172. You can also sign up and get more details on this event here.

On June 20-21, Minnesota will host the Democratic National Committee's annnual summer meeting. Democratic bigwigs in attendance will include the head of each state's Democratic Party. Dean will appear on June 20. I may be mistaken, but no details are provided about public attendance. Are there any Minnesota residents out there who can provide this information? Regardless of whether the public can attend, it might be a good idea to start organising a public reception for Dr Dean in front of the convention hall. Minnesota for Dean, are you listening? Here is where I found the info.

update Also, June 23 is the big Declaration Celebration! Howard Dean will formally annouce his candidacy in downtown Burlington, VT. As this happens, people across the nation will hold Declaration parties. To find an event in your area, visit action.deanforamerica.com. The official declaration and public rally will take place in downtown Burlington, VT and as soon as we have the exact time and location, we'll post it.

Friday June 27 is Texas Bush-Whack house party night! One of our goals is to raise at least $30,000 (before matching funds of course) or more for Dean before the second quarter fundraising deadline. For information on attending or hosting a Bush-Whack Party, please email info@deanfortexas.com or visit our website. update I forgot to mention that Dean will make an appearance at the Bush-Whack parties via a conference call. Sorry 'bout that!

If you know of any upcoming Dean appearances that are not posted here, leave them in the comments! Thanks!

Continue reading/discuss Upcoming Dean events in your town ...

Two items of note crossed my inbox today, I would encourage everybody to take a few minutes to look at both of them.

UPDATE: I've stricken out the appeal to ask Kucinich to resign his candidacy. The campaign released an important notice about petitions on the official blog and the healthy debate fostered by having a large field of candidates, and I think it obsoletes this section. The importance of having a free and open field is critical to our democracy, we don't ever want to suggest that a given person has no right or is unsuitable to run for any elected office - Kucinich may be a long shot, but that puts him in good company, and he's the only one wo should be concerned with whether or not to run. --Aziz

First: There is a petition that has been established that praises Rep. Kucinich for his progressive ideals, but encourages him to end his campaign and support the grassroots movement behind Gov. Howard Dean, MD. A letter explaining it follows

Dear Fellow Dean Supporters,

A recent Associated Press article mentions that Representative Dennis Kucinich will decide this month whether to continue his
presidential bid. Rep. Kucinich is a politician of great compassion, an American who understands that the dismantlers of
government, people who seek to "starve the beast," are starving "we the people." In a time when Senator Santorum promotes bigotry in my church and my country, Representative Kucinich's vision of social justice makes me proud to be a fellow Roman Catholic and American.

Sadly, after spending decades in the political wilderness, Representative Kucinich is on the verge of again becoming a martyr
for progressivism. The press and GOP, after humiliating him for his impassioned defense of Cleveland, have tasted blood. They are
deriding his faith as "New Age" and mocking his vegetarianism. If Jerry Brown was Gov. Moonbeam, Kucinich will become Rep. Stardust.

When they are done, Kucinich will have come no closer to becoming President and will have been caricatured to the point of being
politically inviable in his own congressional district. We the people will be without one of our more powerful voices in congress.

Representative Kucinich entered the election to start a social movement. We now know that Dean's 32,000 grassroots army is that
movement. With Kucinich in the House and Dean in the White House, we will take back our country.

So please join us in encouraging Rep. Kucinich to return to the people's body of government, the US House of Representatives, by
signing our petition.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/791929708

Sincerely yours,

Maurice Fiasco

The other item came to me from Brendan Fitzpatrick of New York For Dean. It is about the Newsday article in which NY's own AG, Democrat Elliot Spitzer, says Dean can't win. You may have seen the article below on it. Brendan's e'mail follows:

I've been reading the thread in New York for Dean and looked at the newspapers and really feel we need to respond to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

For those of you out of New York, or who just haven't heard, there were comments in the paper today from our state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. He said Gov. Dean is unelectable because the governor was in opposition to the war in Iraq, and a Democratic candidate cannot win if they oppose a war the polls show the majority of americans support.

We need to mobilize and let Attorney General Spitzer know that his assessment is off base.

Please email him immediately by going to http://www.oag.state.ny.us/online_forms/email_ag.jsp, and make the following point:
- I am a new yorker, I vote and support Gov. Dean.
- He is the most electable candidate, PRECISELY because he stands up for what he believes.
- We won't win with Bush lite, we will win by presenting a clear choice, and Gov. Dean is the strongest democratic alternative to bush.
- Further, with every day that passes, the conventional wisdom for going to war seems to be more and more in question.
- Therefore, a candidate like Gov. Dean, who opposed a pre-emptive war because there was no credible case that iraq posed a direct and immediate threat to u.s. security, is becoming MORE electable.
- It is up to the people of NY to decide who is electable, not you.

Only together can we spread the message that rank and file voters like us are tired of compromising with Bush. We want a candidate that is ready, willing and able to stand up for what he believes.

Please use these talking points as a guide. The more you can put your own feelings about the Attorney General's attack on Gov. Dean in your own words the better.

Please forward this email on to other New York voters who might feel the same way.

Again, you can email Attorney General Spitzer by going to http://www.oag.state.ny.us/online_forms/email_ag.jsp

Thanks!
Brendan Fitzpatrick

So start your weekend off right, and show the amazing power of the Grassroots Movement supporting Howard Dean!!!

Continue reading/discuss Take Action ...

I received this email from the great folks at MoveOn, and would encourage all residents of the Dean Nation to participate in this project. I see potential in this idea, in that we can reach out to MoveOn's many members who may be unaware of the good Doctor.

Dear MoveOn member,
It's time to think big. We need your help.

Over the last few months, we've worked on a number of issues: tax fairness, media consolidation and the FCC, right-wing judges, the continuing situation in Iraq, and tactical nuclear weapons, to name a few. On each issue, we've played a powerful role, and on some, MoveOn members may have made a critical difference.

There are so many important issues, so many attacks on core programs and policies, that we could easily spend the next year and a half without coming up for air. But we don't want to fight a series of skirmishes, winning some and losing others, gaining an edge bit by bit. MoveOn now has close to 1.4 million members in this country. We want the whole enchilada: a nation based from the bottom up on fairness, freedom, diversity, and democracy.

That's why we're kicking off a process that will bring MoveOn members, policy analysts, political leaders, and visionaries together to chart a course for our work. Together, we can contribute to a vision for the United States that really reflects the American people, rather than the views of corporate special interests or right-wing ideologues. We'll use the results of this process to develop a call to action and a pragmatic guide for our future work together.

The process starts today, and the first step is to hear from you. We really want to know what stirs you to action, what you're concerned about, and what gives you hope.

We're gathering this information with a twist: rather than fill out an online survey, you'll be paired up for a phone conversation with another MoveOn member, and you'll report back on what your partner has to say. It'll be fun. And together we'll work to start a national discussion about America's future. It won't take more than an hour of your time.

update Removed the link. This is another personalised email (thanks, Luke!). I didn't realise that because of the way my browser doesn't cache certain things. Oh well, make sure to check your inbox if you're a MoveOn member, and if you're not then go sign up!

Continue reading/discuss An American Agenda: The Great MoveOn Interview ...

I cede the floor to our wonderful, gracious, intelligent, witty, and fiesty readers! What's on your mind today? If you're a newbie to Deanistan, are there any issues you'd like to see addressed by either the Dean campaign or the Dean blog?

Continue reading/discuss By popular demand, it's time for an open thread... ...

Right now Care2, an environmental organisation, is currently running a presidential preference poll. Care2 has over 2 million members, so if there's any possibility that we can bring Dean to the forefront of this poll, that's a huge constituency we can tap! Care2 claims to be the largest online environmental action network, so let's introduce them to the candidate who has a proven environmental record.

"I think it is fair to say that the record of the Bush Administration on environmental matters is fatally flawed." - Gov. Howard Dean, MD

Go over there and vote, and if for some reason the link doesn't work, click on Care2's main page and the poll is on the bottom right hand side. Here are the current results for the Care2 poll.

Continue reading/discuss Care2 presidential poll ...

Great article. Excerpt:

Mr. Trippi: We've had candidates who've been able to energize before and really mobilize people the way Howard Dean can. What was lacking was the Net and the tools being mature enough for people actually using them to self organize around that candidacy.

[You also need] a campaign that doesn't put command and control on it, and understands there is something lost in not being able to control every nuance of the organization, but there's a lot gained in having people energized and out there working every day and self organizing. That's sort of our philosophy.

Continue reading/discuss WSJ: Dean Online ...

Liberal Oasis does a great job describing the latest DLC-CAF flareup, and fills in some more history on McGovern, to follow up on an earlier thread:

Part of the problem is that DLCers fear the ghost of 1972, where the liberal, anti-war George McGovern was trounced by Richard Nixon. And Republicans, giddy at the prospect, are feeding the DLC fears. But the McGovern story is not exactly a failure of liberalism. McGovern won a bitter primary, and the right-leaning Dems never got over it. That led to a divisive and comically mismanaged convention, depriving McGovern of a typical bounce. And McGovern, in an attempt to appease his intra-party opponents, hastily picked a VP candidate who was more moderate, Sen. Thomas Eagleton. It was soon revealed that Eagleton had received electro shock therapy treatments for depression. A media frenzy ensued. Eagleton was eventually dropped, but the damage was done. The missteps and the bloodletting were too much to overcome.

The lesson is not that a message rooted in liberal principles is a sure failure. The lesson is that if everyone stands strongly behind whoever the nominee is, there will be no repeat of '72.

And do a good background check.

Continue reading/discuss Dean is Not McGovern, Part II ...

The Dean campaign contnues to innovate online - check out their new (beta?) feature, which allows you to schedule your own Dean-themed events (not just Meetups). Check out the FAQ for more information.

Continue reading/discuss Action.Dean For America.com ...

Note that the direct URL for campaign donations has changed (though the shortcut still works) - the campaign is using a different provider for collecting and processing online donations. One quibble I have with the new version is the fixed donation amounts. It's not clear how we "add a penny for the internet" anymore. Also, the old link to the donation PDF form that you could download and print, to mail in with a check, is no longer online (or at least, I couldn't find it).

What I would like to see is the option to make a donation via PayPal for an arbitrary amount. A PayPal option would be an enormous asset (and the netroots could help promote the PayPal donation link much more easily and directly).

Continue reading/discuss URL for online donations update ...

For everyone who thought that no one would be able to beat Joe Lieberman in "The TNR Primary" (I have to put it in quotations - I feel weird saying "The The New Republic Primary"), take a look at the standings, because Dean is.

Continue reading/discuss And We're Up With The TNR Primary ...

The two stoies that Gabriel highlights demonstrate exactly why we need more people over at DeanDefense.org. Every time we do something that is good. Every time we unite Democrats in search of a hopeful future. Every time we demonstrate that we're really going to bring about change, doubters will tell us it is not possible.

We have to fight back. Join us. Visit the blog, take action, and join the listserv. Email ddf -at- deandefense.org with the subject 'Subscribe'. And when you see stories like these, drop us an email to make sure we know.

United, we win.

Continue reading/discuss DDF Call to Action ...

The DLC wrote a patronizing "drop Dean" letter to the Campaign for America's Future meeting. I'd say the letter is much more likely to energize Dean supporters than convince the CAF people that Dean can't win. However, it was referred to in a Washington Post story, which calls for a DDF response to the WP. Excerpts from the DLC letter:

We agree with you that congressional Democrats failed in the 2002 midterms to lay out a clear vision for the country. In our view, they ignored the dominant issue of security, and tried to change the subject to a laundry list of old, tired, unconvincing promises that turned off the very voters we need to win. Our party's nominee cannot afford to make the same mistake in 2004, by setting forth an old, tired vision -- or by ignoring the country's legitimate, immediate concerns about the need to make America safe.

That's why we will continue to send out warning signals that the party needs to face some enduring problems about how Americans perceive us. We cannot regain the White House if we raise new doubts in Americans' minds about Democrats, or if we deepen, rather than rebut, the lingering doubt that Karl Rove and company exploited in the midterm elections: that too many Americans don't much trust us to protect them against terrorists and other threats to our national security. We're not convinced that your panel on "Next Stages for the Peace Movement" will reassure the country on this count.

Continue reading/discuss DLC slams Dean again in CAF letter ...

Click for the Call to Action blog with the main results: Dean up from 6 to 11 while Kerry down 20 to 14. Besides the main results, note the following: among voters with ANY opinion about a particular candidate, Dean and Kerry have by far the highest favorable/unfavorable ratio: 3.67 and 3.87. This is evidence in my book that the race is between those two. Because Dean is still largely unknown in Iowa (58% have no opinion), boosting him from 3rd place to 1st place is just a matter of getting the word out!

................Favorable....Unfavorable....No.Opinion....Ratio:.Fav/Unfav
Lieberman......58%............28%.............14%...............2.07
Gephardt........59%............23%.............18%...............2.57
Kerry..............54%............14%.............32%................3.86
Sharpton........13%............53%..............34%...............0.25
Edwards.........28%...........16%..............56%...............1.75
Dean..............33%............9%...............58%...............3.67
Graham..........28%...........11%..............61%...............2.55
M..Braun........14%............7%...............79%................2.00
Kucinich...........6%...........2%................92%...............3.00.

Continue reading/discuss Huge Dean Surge in Iowa! ...

Dean will be officially announcing his candidacy on the 23rd of June in Burlington, VT. And the campaign wants to have locally-organized events across America.

Go to Burlington, one of their five campaign organized rallies (Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Twin Cities, and New York), or organize a local event at their Declaration site.

Also, we got a little more than 20 days left. Get those checkbooks out and give what you can spare.

Continue reading/discuss Official Declaration of Candidacy ...

I have not previously exploited my posting privileges on this site to push the campaign to encourage Dean to take a stand on a particular issue. Now I've found a case that seems to me to be just irresistible, and I'd like to hear everyone's opinions. From the Washington Post on Saturday:

The State Department has ordered Foreign Service officers in many nations to begin face-to-face interviews with millions of visa applicants who previously have not merited such scrutiny, a step that will result in months-long backlogs, according to officials and documents.

The rules, formally issued in a cable sent to 221 embassies and consulates Wednesday, have prompted strong objections from business, education and tourism groups. The groups say that longer delays in obtaining visas will discourage foreign nationals from visiting the United States at a time when the economy is still struggling.

The heightened scrutiny will be applied to about 90 percent of visa applicants from countries in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, with general exceptions for diplomats and people 16 and younger or 60 and older. The rules will not affect citizens of Canada and 27 other countries -- most of them in Europe -- who are not required to obtain U.S. business or tourist visas, and who make up about half of the 35 million people who visit the United States each year.
....
"This is probably going to add a lot more time to the process and could bog the system down very seriously," said Randy Johnson, vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "These are businessmen coming in to make deals with American businessmen, as well as workers coming in to help our economy. . . . If it's going to take six months or more to get a visa, why would anyone bother?"
....
But many in U.S. diplomatic circles strongly opposed the new rules, in part because applicants already must wait three months or more for visas in many locations. The cable announcing the policy change warned that the additional interviews must be handled "using existing resources" and without offering overtime hours to employees.
....
But many Foreign Service officers complain that they are already overburdened by their workload. Some fear that increasing interviews will only increase the chances of mistakes.
....
Business and tourism leaders said that while they applaud the goal of improved security, the State Department could cause serious economic damage if it does not provide sufficient staff to handle demand. Higher education groups have expressed alarm that the rules could reduce travel by instructors and students from overseas.

This meshes perfectly with themes Dean has already articulated. Bush is failing to fund a new homeland security initiative, in a manner that will plunge the economy further into the toilet, decrease international educational exchange, and further inflame the attitudes of people around the world towards the United States. Don't you think they could have spared a few million from that tax cut to increase overtime hours at embassies to handle this?

Plus, it appears that large groups--business, education, and tourism--are firmly against it. Could you find a better issue for Dean?

Continue reading/discuss A Perfect Issue for Dean? ...

From The Forward, a progressive Jewish paper:

The new policy director of the presidential campaign of former Vermont governor Howard Dean spent a number of years toiling for Israeli and American Jewish philanthropies.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, a veteran of the Clinton administration's policy shop, worked in 2002 as the New York director of the New Israel Fund, which funds projects promoting peace, women's rights and social justice in the Jewish state. From 1997 to 1999 he lived in Israel and worked with Israeli not-for-profits and "a handful of minor politicians," providing them with strategies for reaching out for support and funds in the United States, he told the Forward in a telephone interview. Among the groups he helped were the Van Leer Institute, the Jerusalem Foundation, Peace Now and the Center for Educational Technology.

Ben-Ami, who grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side as the son of an Israeli, worked for Clinton from 1992 to 1997 on welfare reform, education, women's issues and AIDS policy. He bristled at the idea that Dean might be perceived as a more liberal politician than his former boss.

"I took a long time to research and get to know the field and felt there's only one candidate putting forth an alternative for the Democratic Party," Ben-Ami told the Forward. Noting that Dean is a fiscal conservative who "implemented welfare reform following the Clinton model," he said, "it's a big mistake...if people take a simplistic, left-right, single-word label and attach it to Howard Dean."

Continue reading/discuss The Policy Director ...

Let us know about your experiences in your area at the June 4th Meetup. We'd love to know how it went. Thanks.

Continue reading/discuss Open Thread: Reports from the June 4th Meetup ...

Alternet takes some time to grill the good doctor on the environment. Chief among the revelations contained is that Dean (gasp!) drives an SUV! The interview is great, with Dean exhibiting both his righteous and goofy sides, and putting out some truly substantive policy proposals, among them

- Making CAFE standards the same for the SUV fleet as for the regular fleet,

- Labeling genetically modified foods,

- Buying a hybrid SUV for his next car

And this charming story:

personally I'm a recycling madman. I always go through the office and if I see something like a piece of white paper that should have been in the recycling I make a big scene in front of the hapless staff member. On April Fools' Day, one of my longtime aides had a bottle in the wastebasket – and those bottles are 5-cent returnable bottles in our state – and I said "What is this?" and yanked it out of the can. But it had a long string attached to it and I kept pulling the string and it had about 12 recyclable items attached to this string (laughter) and they knew it was enough to do me in.

It should also be noted that Dean's embrace of sites like Alternet.org and Commondreams.org is an attempt to get the more liberal aspects of our party back into the fold, the Nader-ites and the people who would otherwise be Kucinich supporters. Follow that up with work to reach the moderates (shame that the DLC and Dean have such bad relations) with sane fiscal policy and balanced budget proposals and we'll have ourselves a "Big Tent" campaign.

Continue reading/discuss Alternet Interview with Dean ...

CBS News has a pretty good article on the Meetup phenomenon. The reason that I flag it among all the other great articles on Meetup is the title:

Howard Dean's Internet Love-in

Classic.

Continue reading/discuss Classic ...

UPDATE: I'll keep modifying the date of this post so it stays on the page as we near the Meetup date.

Continue reading/discuss open thread: meetup planning ...

Nice article based on interviews with Dean supporters in Wisconsin. Choice bits:

Just who are these people?

"We're not the screaming minority, we're the wired plurality," Schmidt maintains over coffee at a Middleton cafe. And Dean's critics, she says, "are going to figure that out sooner than later."
....
Schmidt, a former IRS tax law specialist who moved here from St. Louis four years ago with her husband, says she personally was attracted to Dean's campaign because he's a fiscal conservative, favors national health care and is one of the few politicians who's willing to talk about issues of "death and dying," such as the need for individuals to have living wills.
....
"Kerry may have more money than God," she jokes. "But one thing he doesn't have - and Dean definitely has - is grassroots support."
....
Dean also happens to be a dynamic speaker, she says, a fact that state Dems are about to discover next week.

What they'll find, she says, is that Howard Dean isn't a protest candidate, he's a man of substance with some very important things to say.

"And then they'll understand," Schmidt says, "why his opponents are scared."

Continue reading/discuss "Wired Plurality" article in Wisconsin paper ...

Reader Eric Moberg sends us a link to the Deantalk Forum. He writes, "I will be working on improving it over the next few days. The idea was to create something that would be easier to use and less obnoxious than the ad-supported forum that is currently linked from your site (Okay we get it! Heh - Anna). If you could give it a little publicity for a kick-start or a link from your site that would be great. Thanks, and let me know if you have any questions or suggestions."

We think Eric has done a GoodThing (TM). You can use the forum as a guest or register as a member, and the interface is highly intuitive. Thanks, Eric!

UPDATE: There also are very nice forums at Students for Dean that are highly recommended. And the original Dean Forum is now ad-free :)

Continue reading/discuss Deantalk.com ad-free forum ...

Click here for a full-page PDF of the figure. Thanks to Theresa for the numbers pre-May 26. Coming in a week or so: growth by city and state.

Continue reading/discuss Updated Meetup Stats Figure ...

The Kansas City Star explores the Dean/Meetup phenomenon in this article posted earlier today, and rightly concludes that the internet has the potential to revolutionise the political process. They credit the Dean campaign for it's efficient and innovative use of the internet.

Deanblogger Yoni Cohen, co-founder of Students For Dean, is quoted often (YEA!) as the reporter tries to get a grip on the importance of this movement. "For establishing a national organization, to keep everybody networked and helping each other out, the Internet has been an amazing tool," Cohen said. Campaign manager Joe Trippi expands on the concept of netroots, adding "It's not your father's presidential campaign. We still wrestle with it from time to time. The challenge is, you can't put an order out, `Make these 10 phone calls today.' Things happen that you can't plan for... You've gotta be willing to let go, which is scary, let me tell you, `cause I'm doing it."

The article also asks some tough questions, the main one being how to stay on message via thousands of independent supporters. I feel the Dean campaign has begun to address this by issuing agendas for each meetup. For all you hosts, you can grab it here. They've also got videos you can play via laptops at the meetups. These things are just the beginning, and I'd ask that if anyone has ideas of other types of tools that you'd like to see provided, leave it in the comments 'cause you know the campaign will read them.

I suppose the real test will be this: what will be manifested from this movement? How much of an effect will the netroots have on this campaign? Most certainly, the answer lies in our hands. It's up to us to ensure that our party changes, that our leadership changes, and that our country becomes what we all envision it to be. I think that's one of the underlying messages we keep hearing from Howard Dean (once again proving that he "gets it"): he'll lead the charge, but we've got to provide the fuel to that proverbial fire. It's important for those of us who participate at this level to engage others to do so, and meetup is a fantastic way to accomplish our goals.

By the way, current meetup membership has surpassed 31,000. The article - again, issued today - lists a total of 27,000. Astroturf? I think not.

Continue reading/discuss Netroots, baby, netroots! ...

Jonathon Cohn, in a pair of somwhat-schizophrenic posts on TNR Primary, praises and slams Dean. The slam deals with the attacks Dean made toward Kerry in New York, but the praise, well, the praise is great:

First, Dean endorses a number of important, but highly underappreciated, policy ideas here, including so-called "card check" registration for unions.

[...]

The second, more important thing to note about the interview is the broader message about domestic policy that Dean sends. In These Times is a magazine of The Left. But in the interview, Dean actually passes on a few opportunities to pander. He reiterates his commitment to balanced budgets and opposition to single-payer health care reform--two stances that are highly unpopular with liberal Democrats. And when pressed about corporate greed, he offers this: "I think it's less productive to worry about how much rich people have than to worry about how much middle-class and working people have ... Rather than attacking executive salaries, which I do agree are a real problem, I want to build a middle-class safety net, so that people in the middle class in this country can be sure they'll have health insurance, can be sure they'll have opportunities for their kids to go to college." This is exactly the kind of uplifting, middle class populism that Bill Clinton deployed successfully in 1992--the kind that just might work in 2004. Dean has always had the policy pieces to wage this kind of campaign; now it looks like he may have the vision, too.

Dean is currently in second over at TNR's Primary, only 0.3 behind Lieberman (2.7 to 3.0). Gephart and Edwards haven't done anything gradeworthy this month, yet, apparently. Bob Graham is floating a D average and John Kerry's one grade is an F.

Continue reading/discuss TNR Primary ...

"The same people who are claiming Dean is too far left to be elected also claimed JOHN McCAIN was too liberal to be President."

If someone comes at you with a "McGovern" line, come back with the rubbish the far right threw at McCain in the 2000 Republican Primaries. Make it clear the people making these charges against Dean will claim ANYONE who is not a card-carrying member of the neo-conservative right will be called a left-wing extremist. Completely turn the discussion into an indictment of those making the false claim.

Continue reading/discuss THE one-liner to end all "Dean electability" discussions in Dean's favor. ...

A UPI article with an overview of the Democratic field makes the Dean-McGovern comparison:

The first medical doctor to make a serious run for the presidency, Dean is firing up grassroots liberals with red-meat speeches attacking President Bush's Iraq policy and promising universal health care. A good comparison can be made to George McGovern in 1972 who capitalized on liberal opposition to Vietnam to win the 1972 Democratic nod. Dean should do well in the early New England contests, but will have to win big states to prove his electabilty. After all, McGovern lost by the greatest popular vote margin ever.

I've been thinking about why Dean is not McGovern. First, McGovern was a soft-spoken old guard Democrat, a good guy, but not one to inspire, about a 3 in charisma on the 1-to-10 scale, according to my father. I would rate Dean an 8 or 9.

Second, McGovern's campaign was focused largely on his opposition to the war. This is understandable because Nixon, despite being a paranoid guy who surrounded himself with reptiles like Kissinger and didn't have the courage to end the war in 1969, wasn't such a bad president overall. The opening to China and the arms controls overtures to the Soviets are achievements he deserves credit for, and on the domestic front he didn't get in the way of a lot of good things, like the creation of the EPA. In contrast, on every front Bush is easily the worst president since Harding, and Dean's campaign reflects a vision which encompasses much more than just the war.

Third, part of the reason McGovern lost is that American progressives were demoralized and fragmented after the events of 1968: the asassinations of RFK and MLK, Jr., and the tumultuous Democratic Convention in Chicago. This time, we're energized, confident, and determined to end the reign of the Bush cabal and take back America. And we will.

Continue reading/discuss Dean is not McGovern ...

Meetup is looking sure to break 30,000 today. Absolutely phenomenal numbers. I'm not completely sure I agree with Aziz's projections of 100,000 by July, but 50,000 is looking very, very realistic.

If you haven't signed up to meet up yet, get on up and do it.

If you have signed up, well then, go tomorrow night and get some money for Howard. This is the last meetup before the end of this fundraising quarter and Dean will need the money. Try to get an average of even 5 bucks committed from everyone at the Meetup. Or, even better, you'll have donor cards and can take the money tomorrow night.

Keep the folks excited. No matter what the Times, the DLC, or anyone else in the Beltway says, we're growing faster than anyone can imagine. Let's keep gettin' it done.

Continue reading/discuss Meetup ...

I've been very remiss in not posting this link earlier. Richard of the SF4Dean Meetup group has been in contact with the people at HowardDean.TV andteh campaign and are planning a coordinated Media Network to consolidate all the various Dean media resources that people are developing, and organizing a coordinated response and archive of future appearances. Below is Richard's email explaining the concept in more detail:

Establishing the Dean National Media Network of Creative Talent

I had a long conversation with Nicco (webmaster, video) at DeanForAmerica about 10 ten days ago. One of the things they still need, among many things, from the Dean supporters are PHOTOS from venues where Dean appears, preferably mixing with people vs just on a stage.

There is also a need for coordination of video assets that are avail all over the web -- so more people (and city-sites) know about them, and to push more media out showing Dean in action. Moving broadcast quality video, DVD quality and even quicktime media fluidly from city to city is important and requires coordination. There are asset management issues, there are general questions like "I shot this video and I don't know where to send it"...

Third, there is a need to identify pro video photographers in Meetup cities who can cover Dean at local appearances -- wherever he might be -- then get that video fed back to the Campaign and to State/Regional/City sites.

Fourth, a number of creative folks in LA, SF, NY and elsewhere have been developing targeted ads to introduce Dean to their city's various communities of people. We also need more people, and want to identify who these people are in each Meetup city.

Such as: Video Photographers & Editors, Ad Producers, Still Photographers, Designers, Illustrators, Flash Animators, Writers, Copywriters, Creative Directors, Music Composers, Production Artists/HTML Builders, and any other creative personnel.

For all these reasons, I discussed with Nicco that having a single place for compilation of these resources would make coordination of these creative efforts much easier -- and speed up the whole process of message creation and distribution thru web, DVD, print, broadcast media.

Nicco stated the Dean Campaign itself is not that coordinating place, largely due to the boundaries that need to be maintained between "Campaign" and grassroots volunteers.

Therefore, SanFranciscoForDean took on the task to coordinate Media talent in forming a National Media Network. Meetup is right upon us. What we're asking Dean Supporters in all Meetup cities across the country to do is: At your Meetup meeting, specifically ask and solicit within your Meetup group: Who are the professional crreative media personnel who would volunteer their services for Dean in these areas: Video Photographers & Editors, Ad Producers, Still Photographers, Designers, Illustrators, Flash Animators, Writers, Copywriters, Creative Directors, Music Composers, Production Artists/HTML Builders, and any other creative personnel.

The intention is not that all of these people come together on a national project. The intent is to be able to share media assets -- and ideas that work -- so that appeals to take a look at Howard Dean are targeted for different voting segments.

PLEASE HELP AND SUPPORT THIS COORDINATION EFFORT by having your Meetup Group coordinator gather this information and post it
to the SF website here: http://www.sf4dean.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=8&t=32

Thanks very much!
Richard Hoefer, SF4dean.com Media Committee

(note to Richard: get a dedicated blog to this effort set up and send me an icon, and I'll link to it from the Dean Blog directly)

Continue reading/discuss the Dean National Media Network ...

Lots of familiar material in this long article. Points I hadn't seen before:

Dean describes himself as an anti-ideological pragmatist. “I’m not an ideologue,” he said in an interview with In These Times. “I think the great problem with this president is that his is an ideological administration. Facts don’t matter to them. I’m a complete pragmatist. I really believe that people who have ideologies that can’t be bent and are insensitive to the facts can’t govern.”
....
More significantly, Dean—along with Kucinich and Dick Gephardt—strongly advocates making it easier for workers to organize unions, both at home and abroad. “I’ve recently concluded that we ought to allow card check in this country,” Dean says, referring to employer recognition of a union simply when a majority of workers sign membership cards. “It’s the only way to unionize places that pay substandard wages that you can’t support a family on.”

Dean embraces unions as vehicles for bringing poor workers into the middle class. “My attitude toward unions is, at a time when the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger and bigger, at a time when the unions in my view have been much more responsible than they were in the ’70s and ’80s when they were mostly interested in protecting high-wage industrial jobs, they’ve really gone out of their way to recruit the people who need the help the most,” he says.

Dean rejects privatizing social security, and he argues that the federal government should give refundable tax credits to low-income workers to invest for their retirement. He also proposes drastically revamping the existing pension system. “Pensions shouldn’t be controlled by corporations,” he says. “They should be independent, controlled by trustees. Corporations would appoint half of them, and labor would appoint half of them.” This would keep corporations from looting pensions, and workers could remain in the same independent pension fund as they change jobs.
....
Despite his criticism of corporate behavior, Dean rejects the rhetoric of “class warfare.” “I think it’s less productive to worry about how much rich people have than to worry about how much middle-class and working people have,” he says. “I believe that as long as rich people are around, they’ll find ways to get around the rules other people have to follow. That’s one of the costs of living in a capitalist system. The thing to do is concentrate on the 90 percent of people who don’t have what they need and make sure they have it, and not worry about the people who make $500,000 a year. Of course, it’s obscene, but so what?”

“Rather than attacking executive salaries, which I do agree are a real problem, I want to build a middle-class safety net, so that people in the middle class in this country can be sure they’ll have health insurance, can be sure they’ll have opportunities for their kids to go to college,” he says. Beyond raising the minimum wage, he’d expand fringe benefits subsidized by government, much as he did to some degree in Vermont, including expanded child care, affordable housing, and health insurance.

Continue reading/discuss The In These Times Profile ...

This Q&A session is meant as a companion to the LA Times profile. All the candidates will get their turn. Not much new here, but very valuable as promotional material for supporter recruitment. Some of the highlights:

Q: What will be America's greatest foreign policy challenge in the next 20 years?

A: Undoing the damage to international relations caused by the Bush administration's recklessness.
...
Q: Would you explicitly require that anyone you nominate to the Supreme Court commit to uphold the Roe vs. Wade decision that guaranteed a legal right to abortion?

A: I would appoint federal judges based on experience and merit. I would not employ litmus tests, and I would not ask prospective nominees how they would vote in any particular case. However, I would review a nominee's writings and professional record to ensure that they share my basic view of the Constitution. I believe that the Constitution guarantees Americans certain fundamental rights, including the right to privacy. The men and women I appoint to the bench would share that outlook.

Continue reading/discuss LA Times Q&A ...

Carl with a K does a typically fantastic job of bringing video coverage of Dean to Dean Nation - this time at the California Teachers Association:

Governor Howard Dean, MD knocked the socks off of nearly 1000 members of the California Teachers Association on Sunday. He was very impressive, displaying a great deal of knowledge on a variety of education related issues.

:: Governor Dean Addressing CTA Convention (6/1)
Dial-Up | High Speed

Karl also has a lot of photos and additional video of Dean addressing supporters outside the convention that are highly recomended. Kudos to Karl also for being recognized as a celebrity :)

Continue reading/discuss video: California Teachers Association (6/1/03) ...

This is the profile that we wanted the NYT to run! A really fantastic analysis of Dean by the LA Times, it does a very solid job of introducing Dean to an audience that may be unfamiliar. There is a lot of information that I hadn't ever heard before, such as how Dean got involved in politics:

BURLINGTON, Vt. — The Lake Champlain waterfront had all the charm of a junkyard when a young physician named Howard Dean moved here from New York in 1978. But Dean and others wanted a place to go bicycling, so they formed a group to buy up land and clean up the abandoned barges and boxcars littering the lakefront.

The effort, built on private donations, grants and volunteer labor, produced a nine-mile-long recreation area with splendid views of New York's Adirondack Mountains. It also launched the political career of a now-54-year-old Democrat who hopes to be the first president elected from this remote state.

Dean vaulted from the Citizens' Waterfront Committee to state representative to lieutenant governor — to a 5 1/2-term governor who extended health coverage to all Vermont children and signed the nation's only state law legalizing same-sex partnerships. He became known equally for his incisive mind and his occasionally sharp elbows.

"The more I did, the more I realized that I could effect change," he said on a stop home between trips to Iowa, California, South Carolina and other key primary states. "I realized that you could change the world by more than one life at a time, which is what you do in medicine."
...
Dean, a wrestler as a youth, has hiked the 270-mile Long Trail in Vermont's Green Mountains and canoed the state's Connecticut River. He has a listed phone number and neither smokes nor drinks — not even coffee. His wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg, dislikes politics, maintains a medical practice and vows to continue working as a doctor if her husband is elected president.

There are many other personal details in the article, from reflective (such as his response to the question of whether his brother's death influenced his choice of profession) to outright bizarre (his mastery of the rap sequence from the movie Bulworth. shudder). There is also a concise yet informative section of his political achievements and goals, which cover the spectrum in enough detail to give someone new to Dean a solid understanding of the breadth of Dean's positions. This isn't a "Dean the hyper liberal" meme-loving piece.

The article isn't a puff piece either - it does tackle Dean's fabled stubborness (and gives him a fair chance to respond). But overall it's the perfect introduction to the candidate and the personality. It's also a valuable tool for our grassroots recruitment efforts - I highly suggest taking copies of the article to the meetups to hand out.

Continue reading/discuss LA Times profile ...

Fellow Deanizens - I'd like to solicit some site feedback. The DeanBlog has been slow to load for some readers and the culprit seems to be the ZonkBoard. Do you like that feature? Should we dump it and replace it with periodic (ie, regular) open threads? Is there a better Zonkboard-type accessory that anyone knows of that has faster loading times or features that we should switch to^[1]?

Feel free to use the comments as an open thread about the DeanBlog in general - suggestions, comments, what you hate, etc. I will ask my fellow bloggers (The Dean Team) to help me find solutions to any issues.


^[1] including non-free services - I intend to reserve the sole right to fund this website's expenses myself :)

Continue reading/discuss ADMIN: zonkboard ...

Tom Tomorrow Weighs in on the Recent DLC Flap.

Let's just say that This Modern World does not think much of the Democratic Leadership Council.

Of course, they refer to Dean as Goofus, so, who knows.

Continue reading/discuss Tom Tomorrow Weighs In ...

Gov. Dean spoke to California public school teachers on Sunday. From the AP story on the event:

"I can personally say that I am the only person running for the presidency of the United States that knows what it's like to stand up without being able to go to the bathroom for five hours," Dean said to hearty applause.

Dean, 54, longtime Vermont governor and medical doctor who signed the country's only state law legalizing same-sex partnerships, said he taught eighth-grade social studies for three months while contemplating a post-politics career change.

But that was before Dean reinvented himself as a presidential candidate.

"I disagree strongly with President Bush on virtually every policy," Dean told some 800 delegates of the 330,000-member California Teachers Association, which will endorse a candidate.

Continue reading/discuss Howard Dean talks to 330,000-strong California teachers union ...

This article in the New York Times begins by painting Dean in a fairly positive light. He is the little known candidate who stormed upon the campaign trail.

Howard Dean is the guy who has dictated the theme of this early campaign season. Once written off as a little man from a little state, Dean has expertly framed the 2004 nomination fight as a choice between white-hot liberal rage on one side and the room-temperature promise of ''electability'' on the other. ''Democrats are furious at their own party,'' Dean says. ''They feel like the party's leaders have taken a pass.''

It does, however, seem to cast a shadow of unelectability on Gov. Dean:

The bad news for Dean's rivals, however, is that Democratic protest candidates have proved very effective at indelibly soiling whatever image the party is trying to convey at the moment. And you have to wonder if the other candidates, ensconced in Washington, have any real grasp of the grass-roots revolt that is fueling Dean's momentum. It's not surprising that the party's leaders feel like shoving Dean's stethoscope down his throat when he says they only care about sounding electable. What's harder to understand is why they seem so determined to prove him right.

I've heard this arguement and the past, and my response has generally been that Gov. Dean is not the far left liberal he is often painted as (just as the left wingers in VT who often felt frustrated). The author picks up on this theme:

If Dean ever belonged to the ''Democratic wing of the Democratic Party'' before this year, he must have kept his membership secret. During his five two-year terms as governor, Dean was proud to be known as a pragmatic New Democrat, in the Clinton mold, boasting that neither the far right nor the far left had much use for him. He signed into law a measure that legalized civil unions for gay couples, a decision that was essentially mandated by the state's Supreme Court. But he also faced opposition from the left-leaning Progressive Party in two re-election campaigns. And he forcefully upheld the rights of Vermonters to carry concealed guns wherever they went, which helped him earn an A rating from the National Rifle Association.

It writes a bit as well about the amazing take off that the governor's speach to the DNC winter meeting resulted in:

In November, Dean's campaign was getting about 50 e-mail messages a day from supporters; after Dean gave a fiery speech to the Democratic National Committee in February, which began with an indictment of the war, as many as 2,000 e-mail messages arrived in a single day. Polling data showed Dean's support shifting from white men and independents to women and younger voters. Dean raised a surprising $2.6 million in the first quarter of the year, outdoing his opponents in two of the most liberal enclaves in America: Cambridge, Mass., and Beverly Hills, Calif.

Turmoil at his Burlington headquarters reflected the leftward lurch of Dean's campaign. In April, Rick Ridder, his pragmatic campaign manager, left and was replaced by Joe Trippi, the insurgent strategist who had run Jerry Brown's 1992 campaign against Clinton.

Dean's campaign, meanwhile, has become an online juggernaut. On the Web site Meetup.com, some 24,000 Dean supporters, at last count, had scheduled monthly meetings in more than 250 American cities. ''You've heard of the silent majority?'' says Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster. ''Well, Dean represents the screaming minority.''

Overall, it's an interesting read. There's a lot more I'd post here, but I trust that many of you will read it all anyhow!

Continue reading/discuss Dr. No and the Yes Men ...

Got this in an E-Mail today from Cris Alvarado. He's absolutely right, the campaign should pick it up and run with it. Bush's willingness to eliminate the only bit of his tax cut that aided the poor, the child tax credit, is shameful. We need to show that the needy who Bush is attacking here aren't jobless degenrates, as Rove would have us believe, but quite a few of our enlisted men and women whom Bush is so happy to use as props for photo-ops.

"Did some research after a comment on the NewsHour intrigued me, specifically:

How many servicemen, just returning from Iraq, are shut out from the tax cuts because they fall below the approx. $27,000 cutoff?

I think this would be a devastating number to calculate precisely, and then circulate in the press.  "Mr. President, not only are 11.7 million children affected but (number) service men and women as well.  Is that how little you value our enlisted men and women?", or something like that.

As with all thing military, this is not straightforward.  Please find attached a pdf of the basic pay scale (Here's the HTML version of the pay scale - Ezra).  I was somewhat shocked to see just how low it is -- for example, a newly commissioned O-1, say out of West Point or Annapolis makes something like $2200/month (below the cutoff), as does every enlisted man regardless of experience at E-5 or below (some type of sergeant).

What is not straightforward is how basic subsistence and housing allowances factor into your tax liability -- I am not an accountant, just a physician! 

But someone in the campaign might take this ball and run with it. "

Y'hear that Campaign?

Continue reading/discuss Support Our Troops! ...

From the AP account of the Lake Placid rural issues forum:

"I appreciate Sen. Kerry saying we don't need Bush Lite, and we don't," Dean told about 1,000 people attending a forum on rural issues in Lake Placid. "But, Sen. Kerry, we don't want Dean Lite, either."
....
Before his speech, Dean told reporters that he had heard about fellow Democratic hopeful Kerry's speech to the forum and the warning by the senator from Massachusetts that Democrats had to stop acting like Republicans. "I heard he did a great job giving my speech," Dean said.
While Dean directed most of his criticism at Kerry, the former Vermont governor also said his other rivals from Congress too often have supported President Bush on the war with Iraq, tax cuts and other issues.

"They can talk the talk, but they aren't going to be able to walk the walk," Dean told reporters.

To the forum audience, he was as blunt: "What we need in this party is not just people who talk about backbone, but people who have it."
....
Dean, who grew up on Long Island and went to medical school in New York City, stressed his work as governor of a rural state in his speech to the forum.
"People know who I am," Dean said before his speech. "I have a little advantage in the North Country (of New York), comparable to what Senator Kerry has in New Hampshire" where residents often watch Massachusetts television stations.

Dean's speech was interrupted repeatedly by applause and cheers, as was Kerry's to a somewhat lesser extent.

The Reuters story on the forum skips the attack and says only,

"[Hillary Clinton] showed the Republicans they can't take upstate New York for granted," said Dean, a doctor and former governor of neighboring Vermont.

Dean took straight aim at Bush, denouncing the administration's support for tax cuts as a panacea for all ills. Whether the economy is booming or struggling, whether there is war or peace, he said, the Bush response is the same: "Take two tax cuts and call me in the morning.".

Continue reading/discuss AP: Dean attacks Kerry as a copycat ...

Are Doomed To Repeat It.

The more we in Dean Nation read - and ask our friends to read - much of the political commentary that followed the 2002 elections, the better off we'll be. Rick Perlstein had a gem in Mother Jones. John Nichols had another in The Nation. (I'd provide links to similar commentaries in major newspapers were those pieces not today in costly web-based archives).

The New York Times' Matt Bai quotes members of the Democratic Leadership Council because he and many members of the national media [wrongly, see below] credit the organization with Bill Clinton's electoral victory in November of 1992. Strangely, however, Bai and others fail to fault the DLC with the Democrats' numerous losses in November of 2002 -- "the worst midterm performance by a party outside the White House since the Republicans in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1934."

Democrats can justly criticize the DLC for lack of a backbone. Or we can go after the DLC where it hurts - and where the media will take notice: for lack of electability.

[Note: James Carville, Clinton's top campaign strategist and a liberal Democrat, steered the then-Arkansas Governor towards a focus on the economy and health care, the two issues that later won him the presidency. Historians also remind us that during Clinton's first year in office, he distanced himself from the DLC, prompting a backlash from none other than Joe Lieberman.]

Continue reading/discuss Electability: Those Who Forget History... ...

I do recommend that everyone read it, but I want to stress that the Times is an enemy we don't need. They're probably already feeling kicked with the whole Jayson Blair thing.

Keep feedback positive - constructive criticism.

Work with them.

And, remember, the article isn't officially being published for two more days. Sit on your letters a bit.

Continue reading/discuss NY Times Magazine Profile ...

Read it. Study it. And prepare those letters to the editor.

Continue reading/discuss The NY Times Magazine Profile ...

We've got our own blog.

DeanDefense.org

We're up and running, come check it out. And if you've wanted to join, but have been unable to bring yourself to give your address to Yahoo, join now by following the instructions over at the new site.

Thanks for everything. And, please, come join us.

Continue reading/discuss Dean Defense Forces ...

One Father for Dean has a post up (no permalinks, perhaps he's worried about being bloggered) on Neil Cavuto's dumb ass rant about sending back tax cut checks if you disagreed with the tax cut.

Here it is:

"So I'm imagining myself at my big Reunion shindig this coming weekend with largely conservative alumni -- (yes, there are a few. Quite a few, actually, despite what the college conservatives would have you believe) -- who decide to gang up on me for my support of Howard Dean’s pledge to repeal President Bush’s tax cuts when elected President in 2004.

'A blatant sop to the unions, special interests and you bleeding-heart liberals,' one said.

'Our economy (and my business) will suffer,' another railed.

When it was my turn to speak, I said simply, 'You guys look like you're doing okay. If you don't want the government, don’t take what the government gives you.'

My point would and will be this:

If you don’t want that interstate highway coming your way, don’t drive on it.

You don't want workers to have any government-funded education in their backgrounds, start hiring some others now.

You don't want more international business development dollars, or more research and development grants, or more defense contracts, give them back. Divest yourself of all stocks, bonds and mutual funds for whom government sources of revenue, tax breaks and/or incentives total more than 0.5% of gross receipts. Don’t do business with or (gasp) own small companies of a similar non-individualist character.

And certainly don’t own any healthcare company that takes Medicare or Medicaid. Or own stock in investment banks utilizing privitized Social Security funds. Or manufacture voting machines.

You think the top earners’ bank accounts and personal assets are a better place for our money, give them your own money directly and leave our federal, state and local governments out of it. Think of it as a venture capital fund – about the same returns, these days, anyway.

You think our families’ already limited government services are better used on your projects, give back the government services that secure, protect and defend those projects.

You think you have all the answers, then eschew yourself, your family and your assets of all of government subsidies, every last one: the oil, timber and minerals from public lands; the military that protects your foreign subsidiaries. And including the airwaves over which major corporations broadcast – we can share the spectrum and do just fine, thanks.

It's too late for you to lecture other people what we should do with 'our' government. Practice what you preach and return 'our' government and its littered commons.

Quite a few of you are very well off and still you say you need government. Prove it, then... or give it – all of it – back to those who do.

As for the rest of us who think we know more what to do with our government than what you want to destroy of it, may I suggest this:

Instead of a speech, write out your 2004 presidential absentee ballot or your voting intentions:

I'll even give you the address:

Dean for America
P.O. Box 1228
Burlington, Vermont 05402
www.deanforamerica.com

You think you have all the answers? Don’t expect anything from the rest of us who want to work on solutions for this great nation.

Stop using and abusing our country and its government, and then for goodness sake – be quiet."

Continue reading/discuss Funny if it wasn't true ...

ABC's Marc J. Ambinder put together this article comparing Gov. Howard Dean with former FL governor Sen. Bob Graham.

The article compares how they are alike as well as how they are different. Most noteworthy was the talk that pehaps Gov. Dean is thinking of Sen. Graham as a running mate...

Political observers currently put Dean in the first tier of Democratic candidates while Graham is seen at this early stage in the campaign as a second-tier candidate.

Could Dean be looking far enough into the future and thinking that Graham might make an attractive running mate? One idea, endorsed by some who have spoken with Dean, is that the candidate is angling for Graham to join his ticket.

Being governor is an important qualification for Dean. The last two Democrats elected president — Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton — were state executives. They were from the South, not the North.

So Graham could certainly help Dean's electoral calculus. Democratic candidates planning for the general election aspire to hold the states that Al Gore took in 2000. And then they need to win in at least one more big state. Graham's popularity could add Florida's 27 electoral votes and give the Democratic ticket a boost elsewhere.

Top Dean aides insist there's been no internal discussion about general election strategy.

"We're still trying to figure out how put our organization together in Iowa," said Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager. "We haven't given a thought to it."

Based upon many of your votes on the grassrootsfordean.com Dean's VP selection poll, it looks like the pundits aren't the only ones with such thoughts. Gen. Clark is winning, but Sen. Graham is in a strong second place.

Continue reading/discuss The Governors Are In. ...

I came across this little tid bit and thought it was interesting...

One of the current contenders for next year's Democratic nomination for president said Friday he would like to see New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton someday run for the White House herself.

"I think she would be a great candidate," former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said in a telephone interview. "I think she would be a great president."

Dean's comments came as New York's Democratic Rural Conference launched a two-day forum in Lake Placid on rural issues, planning to hear from some of the announced presidential candidates and from others, including the former first lady.

Okay, Hillary... Gov. Dean said nice things about you - now it's your turn!

Continue reading/discuss Hillary for President ...

We're gonna be on this like Atrios on Blitzer.

There's a Presidential straw poll in the lower right-hand corner of the site. Dean is up. Let's knock it out of the ballpark.

Continue reading/discuss WMUR Wants Your Opinion ...

In an AP article today, Dean expands on a new theme that he started to develop at the Iowa forum. Thoughts on this?

Dean, a doctor and former governor of Vermont, has proposed an $88 billion plan to provide health insurance coverage for all Americans under age 25 and expand coverage for uninsured adults.

In exchange, he wants Americans to take more responsibility for their health care.

Pharmaceutical companies, insurers and lawyers deserve some of the blame for rising health care costs, he said, but so do individuals who don't take care of themselves or don't make realistic decisions about their medical care.

''Most politicians treat voters as children: 'Elect me, and I'll solve all your problems,''' he said during a forum at which he explained his plan and answered questions from voters. ''When are we going to talk about our own responsibilities?''

''If we're going to have health insurance for everyone, you don't get health insurance unless you sign a living will or directive,'' he said.

Dean, an internist who left his medical practice in 1991, described how he used to sit down with relatives of seriously ill patients to discuss treatment options. But he said that connection between families and physicians has been lost due to the ''corporatization'' of medicine.

Continue reading/discuss ''... you don't get health insurance unless you sign a living will or directive.'' ...

The question I’ve found myself answering over and over again is “I think Dean is great, but do you really believe he can win?” I'm sure many of you have heard the same question. I suspect that most people reading this blog think the short answer is "YES!" but we could all benefit from a discussion of good longer answers to the question. My attempt at a long answer is too long to post, so I've put it here. Let's brainstorm!

UPDATE (by Aziz) : Don't miss Joe Trippi's comment !

Continue reading/discuss Can Dean Win? ...

Arianna Huffington in an article on salon.com writes that the Democratic Party could rally behind the motto "Vote for us -- we kinda, sorta disagree." She writes, "The party leaders are so timid, spineless and lacking in confidence that to compare them to jellyfish would be an insult to invertebrates." Most noteworthy, I thought, in her column was when she observed:

It is precisely this kind of craven vacillation that has made possible the triumph of the fanatics in the White House. Democrats are wringing their hands over the "tactical genius" of Karl Rove, and the "brilliant political stagecraft" of his TV experts who always present the president in the best light. Such is the Democrats' fragility that the mere smoke and mirrors of posing the president in profile at Mount Rushmore, or asking the people standing behind him during a recent speech on the economy to take off their ties so they would look more like average Joes, leave them quaking in their boots.

But the Democratic National Committee's Terry McAuliffe needs to stop worrying about the GOP using footage of Bush's Top Gun landing on the Abraham Lincoln in campaign ads and start worrying about finding a presidential candidate who isn't afraid to take audacious and decisive stands on the party's core issues. If they can't compete on style, they should at least give it a shot on substance.

I think this is the argument that many of us have been making in our support for Gov. Dean all along. As the doctor himself said in response to President Bush's reckless tax cut, "What America needs now is a Democratic Party with the backbone to stand up for fiscal responsibility and against this President's recklessness with the facts, and our future." We know that Gov. Dean is the candidate most prepared to do this.

But Huffington doesn't claim that Democrats need the courage to just say anything, she calls on the party to put forward a strong, Democratic agenda:

After all, the problem isn't that Democrats are on the wrong side of the issues. It's that they are afraid to make an issue of being on the right side -- not to mention smack dab in the middle of the American mainstream.

For example, only one out of four Americans believe the latest round of tax cuts will significantly reduce their taxes, and just 29 percent think the cuts are the best way to help stimulate the economy. Yet Democrats seem congenitally incapable of challenging a president whose entire domestic agenda consists of more and more tax cuts for the wealthy.

The numbers also favor the Democrats on the foreign policy front. According to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 57 percent of Americans are opposed to investing the time and money needed to rebuild Iraq. But the Democrats sit idly by, their thumbs otherwise engaged, while the administration's Iraqi tar baby grows stickier by the day.

And on and on it goes: On the environment, Social Security, greater access to affordable healthcare, gun control and abortion, the majority of the American people are with the Democrats.

Again, it seems as if she is unknowingly a Dean supporter! Dean supporters firmly believe "The only way that we're going to beat George Bush is to say what we mean, to stand up for who we are, to lift up a Democratic agenda against the Republican agenda because if you do that, the Democratic agenda wins every time. " (Dean, California Democratic Convention)

Huffington says, "It's time for the Democrats to give up their broken play-it-safe politics and risk offending a few vocal members of a radical minority." We say, "It's time for Howard Dean."

Continue reading/discuss Democrats: Profiles in spinelessness ...

MoveOn.org has built a massive online grassroots community. In a letter to their members today, founder Wes Boyd wrote to the 1.4 million members of MoveOn: "With our agenda in hand, we can play an unprecedented role in the presidential campaign. But first we need to develop a common agenda. Today's straw poll is the first step."

If you are a MoveOn member, or if you know someone who is, please check your email from MoveOn and follow the link to vote for Howard Dean. (You must already be a member of MoveOn to vote. Not all MoveOn members have yet received their email today-- be patient!)

We are building the largest grassroots campaign in history, a campaign to take back the Democratic Party and to take back the White House in 2004. In order to achieve this, we must all come together for Howard Dean. It is important that supporters show their commitment to Dean by voting in the MoveOn poll. Only by reaching out to the communities that already exist-- communities like MoveOn-- will we demonstrate to the world that Howard Dean, as the Democratic nominee, will defeat George W. Bush in the general election.

Now's your chance. If you're a MoveOn member, vote for Howard Dean in the MoveOn online poll today!

Continue reading/discuss More Info on the Move On Poll ...

Moveon.org, one of the largest grassroots organizations in the country, is holding a Democratic presidential poll today. If you are a member of moveon, check your email and vote in the poll, and make sure your moveon friends know about the poll. To learn about moveon.org--or join--visit http://www.moveon.org. Lets show Moveon the strength of our own netroots and grassroots!

Continue reading/discuss Vote in the Moveon Poll ...

Springboarding off of Governor Dean's statements below, I think there is a very powerful meme against the tax cuts, one that expresses what we want in a simple, practical fashion.

Any responsible adult knows that when you get a pay cut, you simply cannot spend as much. You need to conserve money for the basics, your children, health care, upkeep in your home, college funds for your kids...you simply cannot spend frivolously at their expense. That is what our President is doing. Tax Cuts are a bonus, something for good times. We cannot have them, however, when schools are closing, when health care is becoming unaffordable, when jobs are being lost and roads are deteriorating and law enforcement agencies don't have the money to protect. The President will tell you not to worry, that even in these lean times you can have both a tax cut and a perfect society. But I'm not going to lie to you. When times are tough, it doesn't matter if you're a country or an individual, you have to tighten your belt and take care of what is truly important. Politicians will tell you that we can have everything, I will tell you that until we get this economy back on its feet, we have to be fiscally responsible. The President is not doing that, I will. I'm Howard Dean, etc.

I think the responsibility versus recklessness meme is one we want to play up. Bush has a frat boy storyline waiting in the wings for him, we want to play the responsible adult thus forcing him back to frat boy-ness. Americans know (and polling data backs this up) that tax cuts don't stimulate the economy and aren't the right course of action right now. I don't think we have to make this about the "soul" of the party, I think we have to make this about balancing the checkbook and bringing the same prudent practices to the Government as we employ in our own homes. Plus, if Dean wants to come across as "more" than a politician, telling hard truths and articulating a clear, positive, but REALISTIC vision for dealing with them is the best way to do that.

Continue reading/discuss R is for Reckless ...

The main official campaign site has a new statement up from Howard Dean that is definitely worth reading and spreading around:

With the President's proposed budget and the $350 billion tax cut package he is signing today, it has become clear what this President is attempting to do, and why we must repeal the entire package of cuts both those signed today and those passed in 2001.

It is time to level with the American people. The economic plans put forth by President Bush and the Republican party are a fundamental assault on the basic American ideals that we all share -- an assault on our schools, our health care, our environment and our social security.

I will not go along with it.

The sooner we recognize that this isn't a fight over tax cuts, but a battle for our country's heart, soul and future - the sooner the American people will join our cause.

Let me be clear. The President's tax cuts are part of a radical agenda to dismantle Social Security, Medicare, and our public schools through financial starvation.

In Oregon last week, the state had to close schools three weeks early because there was no money. In New Hampshire this week, the sheriffs made it clear that, because there was no money, they couldn't provide the basic law enforcement protection communities expect in this time of heightened alerts about terrorism. All across the country, hospitals and health care systems are cutting back and cities are cutting services because there is no money.

What America needs now is a Democratic Party with the backbone to stand up for fiscal responsibility and against this President's recklessness with the facts, and our future.

No Republican president has balanced the budget in 34 years and if this president succeeds, no future American president from either party will be able to do so without massive tax increases that will break the backs of the American people or without destroying Medicare, social security, our schools and even our nation's security.

My central commitment upon taking office will be to repeal these tax cuts to put our fiscal house in order, and save the very fabric that holds our American community together.

We will not be able to meet our fundamental obligations to teach our children, care for our parents, and defend our nation if we bankrupt our country.

If we fail to defeat this President and end his radical agenda, we will have lost the central ideal proclaimed from one American generation to the next throughout our history: "We are one nation, and we are all in this together."

Continue reading/discuss "We are one nation, and we are all in this together." ...

Some talk has occured recently of finding ways to assure the DNC that Dean supporters stand with them and that we are a united party. So far, it's been a lot of talk, with few of us figuring out concrete steps. Well, Sam Flaxman emailed me today with an idea worth trying: signing the DNC's petition opposing extremist judicial nominees.

But don't just sign it. In the comments section, tell the DNC that you are another "Dean Democrat" who stands opposed to Bush's extremist judicial nominations.

Read the Petition:

The United States Supreme Court is the backbone that upholds American values.

These cherished American values are at risk if one or more Supreme Court Justices retire this summer. Civil rights, a woman's right to choose, environmental protections, public education, workers' rights, and much more are threatened by a right-wing court.

President Bush has already built a record of nominating extremist, ultra-conservative judges to the federal bench.

I stand with and support Democratic leaders in the fight to oppose ultra-conservative nominees to the nation's highest court.

And sign it.

Continue reading/discuss Block Extreme Judges ...

At the risk of veering into cult-like hero worship, note the following revelation from the Creative Loafing profile

Somehow, it's not surprising that Dean cites Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion as his favorite novel.

For anyone who has ever read the book, four words probably come to mind: "Never give an inch." The patriarch in Kesey's 1964 epic scrawls this admonishment on a painting and hangs it near his newborn son's bed. It's a commandment of intransigence, a screw you, to nature, convention and history.

It's the perfect Dean book. Not that Dean would ever think this way, but it also has resonance with groups of voters large and small: Oregonians, loggers, union members, and middle-aged men who worry they've compromised their values too many times. Also, Paul Newman and Henry Fonda fans who couldn't get through the book but saw the 1971 movie.

Continue reading/discuss The Favorite Book ...

Alert reader Richard Hoefer of San Francisco for Dean has asked us to pass along some resources. Right now, SF4Dean is overhauling their site and adding lots of organising tools. They also have a really good discussion forum that you should check out.

Richard explains that over the coming weeks, SF4Dean will be adding lots of tools which people in various states can use to organise locally. Since Dean for America is doing a major push towards local organisation, we think this will become an invaluable resource. And remember that we need to hook up with our local Democratic Party in order to take it back. =)

If anyone else has organisational links, please leave them in the comments section. I know there are many supporters out there who are still at a loss when it comes to organising locally. Leave contact information for those folks as well, and thanks for the help!

Continue reading/discuss Resources for the people, courtesy of San Francisco for Dean ...

You'd think with a title like that I'd be linking to another article about Howard Dean, wouldn't ya?

But I'm not. Cause it's a line from Kerry campaign e-mail.

...to beat [the Bush campaign] and take back our democracy, we need your help in building the largest grassroots campaign in American history.

Don't worry, John. We're already there.

Continue reading/discuss ...the largest grassroots campaign in American history. ...

As many of you know, the de-regulation of newspaper and television ownership across the country has been an issue of major concern as of late. Below is a copy of the letter that Gov. Dean sent to Chairman Powell of the FCC.

May 27, 2003

Chairman Michael Powell
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street SW
Washington, DC 20554

Dear Chairman Powell,

Americans cherish the freedom of the press -- and the diversity of the press that ensures they can get access to the truth and to the information they need. The Bush Administration may not appreciate that freedom and diversity, but they should not tamper with it.

On June 2nd, the Federal Communications Commission should decide against allowing a single company to own multiple television stations, radio stations, and newspapers in a single town. The Bush Administration has urged the FCC to remove regulations that protect every Americans’ right to a free press. This latest attempt by the Bush Administration to undermine the American ideals enshrined in our Constitution is wrong.

This deregulation, like so many actions pushed for by the Bush administration, would benefit a few at the expense of the rest of us. Modifying the ban in most cities on cross-ownership of television and radio stations and newspapers will have serious repercussions for every American. A similar deregulation of radio, through the 1996 Telecommunications Act, has resulted in a 30% decline of independently-owned radio stations in the United States. This decline has reduced Americans’ access to local news via radio. According to a May 27 Bloomberg story, in at least one instance local authorities were delayed in broadcasting important emergency information to the local populace because the “local” radio station was broadcast from out-of-state. Accelerating the disappearance of independent local media by further deregulating television and newspaper ownership is the wrong direction for this country.

In my travels around the country, I have discovered that this proposed deregulation is one of the foremost issues on peoples’ minds. I am asked about it everywhere—in small towns in New Hampshire, and in major cities across the nation. The American people are concerned about the future of their media, and the affect this decision will have on them. Thousands of Americans have written the FCC to oppose this rule, and members of Congress from both parties have voiced their protest and requested that you testify before them on the matter. Yet the FCC appears poised to ignore the interests of regular Americans by allowing a few massive conglomerates to gobble up our local news sources.

This proposed deregulation threatens the ideals of America—the ideals of openness, free speech, free expression and free discussion, which are the backbone of our Constitution and our democracy.

Therefore, I urge you to take the following actions:

1) Delay the June 2nd vote by the FCC.

2) Testify before Congress so that the Representatives of the American people can have the opportunity to question the representatives of the Bush Administration.

3) Allow for, and consider, additional public input. The FCC must provide sufficient opportunity for public input on a decision that affects every American.

I appreciate your consideration.


Sincerely,

Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

Continue reading/discuss Dean Writes to FCC Chairman Michael Powell ...

Joe Trippi does have posting priveleges to the blog, but he seems to save his best stuff for the comments threads :)

Gov. Dean defies labels. But there is a string that runs through most everything he does, his positions and his record. He really did make sure that nearly 100% of those under 18 in his state received health care -- there are very few (liberals or conservatives) that have produced those kind of results -- including a 43% reduction in child abuse in his state and a 71% reduction in sexual abuse against children over the 10 years he was Governor. During that same period many progressives faulted Gov. Dean for his fiscal restraint -- they believed that he was not committed to spending enough on social programs when times were good economically. Gov. Dean stated then, as he states today -- that the best guarantee of social policy is to balance the budget in a strong economy -- because fewer people need help -- and it is this fiscal restraint on his part that makes it possible for Vermont to continue to help those who need these programs now -- in a down economy when people most need it.

He is for a strong defense -- and a stronger homeland security -- what he is against is a doctrine of preemptive war that turns 40 years of bi-partisan consensus on the use of US military power in the world on its head. Yes it turns out that if you agree with Ike, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and Bush 1 -- you characterized as a left wing-nut.

The sorry fact is that too many in the Democratic Party bought this line of thinking and never really challenged the doctrine let alone debated it. There is something very different about Gov. Dean from the rest of the field -- he has demonstrated that he is willing to put his political career on the line by standing up for what he believes regardless of the polls and the conventional wisdom. 65% of the people of Vermont opposed civil unions 6 months before the election. Howard Dean signed the bill -- and he won. 75% of Americans supported the war in Iraq -- Howard Dean opposed it -- and opposese the doctrine of preemption to this day. He says every day on the campaign trail that the great lie is "elect me, and I will solve all your problems" and that the unspoken truth is that the future of our country rests in your hands. As someone who has worked with him for nearly a dozen years -- he is who he is. Around here what we say is let Howard Dean be Howard Dean -- I gave up trying to define him long ago. One of the things that is disconcerting is to see how hard it is for some to "believe in" someone again. The difference in Howard Dean is he doesn't want us to believe in him -- he wants us to believe in ourselves and our power to change our country.

Joe Trippi | Homepage | 05.23.03 - 8:58 pm | #

Continue reading/discuss let Howard Dean be Howard Dean ...

President Clinton recently made a guest appearance at a seminar at the University of Arkansas, focusing on the Clinton Presidency. While watching it, I found that Clinton's initial remarks were like a neon sign pointing to Dean. I urge everyone to watch it as I think Clinton raises some critical points that both we Dean supporters and the Dean campaign need to keep firmly in mind. Let's use the comments to this post as an open thread.

 President Clinton at the University of Arkansas

I will blog my own thoughts and impressions to this video later as an update (after I organize my extensive notes).

Continue reading/discuss video: Clinton at the University of Arkansas ...

The latest from the Associated Press has Dean as a top-tier candidate -- and nearly the favorite.

Ron Fournier, the article's author, is a well-respected reporter who has covered the White House and politics for the AP since 1993. In "With No Frontrunner, Democrats Plot Strategy For Race To Nomination," Fournier takes a look at each candidate's primary campaign. Dean's place in Fournier's candidate survey? Second, after Long Jawn Kerry. But I believe that because Dean's victory in New Hampshire will (effectively) end Kerry's campaign, we're sitting pretty. Onward-ho!

Of Note: One could argue that Fournier's hierarchy is determined not by the likelihood a given candidate will secure the nomation but by the candidates' strategies and the primary schedule. But why then are Dean and Kerry discussed before Gephardt when Iowa's primary comes sooner than New Hampshire's? No, no, my friends. Fournier has shown us his hand...

Continue reading/discuss Location, Location, Location ...

The number of unique page views on the Dean Blog has passed 150,000 - averaging about 1500 visitors a day, of which 75% arrive via Google and Yahoo searches. Reflect on that for a moment - this is significant because it suggests that we are still in the early growth phase of Dean's netroots support. And the netroots support drives the grassroots support - which also shows the same trends, as seen by the history of Meetup numbers recorded on the DeanBlog over the past few months:

Date	Supporters
February 2nd	501
February 20th	1590
February 25th	2327
March 5th	4297
March 30th	10010
March 31st	10434
April 8th	13808

Today, May 25th, we have 26055 members signed up. These are just the exact reported totals - after combing through the blog archives I found these estimated reports. These numbers are less accurate, because the numbers were quoted as "almost above" or "nearly at", and the dates are just the timestamp of the post which may not reflect the date that the estimate was made.

Date	Supporters
1/15	432[1]
9-Feb	900
28-Feb	2600
10-Mar	4200
11-Mar	5000
25-Mar	8000
28-Mar	9000
30-Mar	10000
2-Apr	12000
8-Apr	13000
13-Apr	15000
4-May	20000
7-May	22000

These numbers are plotted below - there are two curves, representing the precise and rough estimates. It's clear from the plot that the growth has been very healthy, but it's also also clear that it's the "foot" of an exponential, ie the initial near-linear regime. A linear fit to the data gives a slope of 240 supporters a day, with a R² of .9723. So it's clear that we still have most of our growth ahead.



The DLC and others may well argue that the growth will stay linear. I think that's a pessimistic (and agenda-driven) opinion - after all, politics is subject to the "network effect" and here we have the marriage of politics and the Internet, where the network effect was practically invented. It's impossible to try and fit a meaningful exponential to the curve at this point, but I think that we may well break 100,000 Meetup supporters within two months. Stay tuned :)

Of course, it's just rubbing salt to mention Edwards and Kerry meetup numbers. I can't resist, see the chart at below (data is much sketchier). Astonishingly, it seems that Kerry and Edwards actually lost supporters in late March/early April^[2]. Also, Joe had a hysterical post on 4/7 that pokes fun at the Favorite Sons running against Dean - by comparing meetup numbers in their home towns. And note that on the Edwards Meetup page, one of items for discussion is, "Why Edwards and not Dean in 2004?" - note Kerry is conspicuously absent from Edwards supporters' agenda.



But wait! This is all just Internet foolery! the critics argue. Why do Meetup numbers really matter? Four words: The Million-Dollar Meetup Challenge. Add a penny for the Internet!

^[1]Note that the january estimate is arbutrary, based on a comment by Joe Trippi that "we had 432 supporters in January". I just took the midpoint of the month.
^[2]The numbers come from reports published here on the DeanBlog. There may have been an error in reporting, but it's also possible that both candidates sufferred from defections to Dean.

Continue reading/discuss Meetup prediction: 100,000 by July ...