Dean: "change the face of democracy so it represents ordinary Americans"

[madfloridian]

This is why I support and donate to the DNC. This is the goal he stated before he ever ran for DNC chair. These words were spoken on the day he dropped out of the race for president. He formed DFA a month later, and then ran for chair of the party. I still believe these are his goals. This is why we donate monthly, and why we keep on taking part in our local and state party....even though they discourage us sometimes.

http://www.4president.org/speeches/howardean2004address.htm

February 18, 2004:
"Secondly, Dean for America will be converted into a new grassroots organization. We need everybody to stay involved. We are -- as we always have -- going to look at what you had to say about which directions we ought to be going in, and what we ought to continue to do together. We are determined to keep this entire organization as vibrant as it has been through this campaign. There are a lot of ways to make change. We are leaving one track, but we are going on another track that will take back America for ordinary people again.

Third, there have been a lot of people who have decided to run for office locally as a result of this campaign.

We want to encourage you out there in the grassroots effort, run for office, support candidates like you who run for office, and we will use this enormous organization to support you as you run so we will change the face of democracy so that it represents ordinary Americans once again; government that will not be bought and sold."

"DEAN: Believe in yourself and we're all together, we can believe in ourselves. Let me just say something to the younger folks here -- those of us who do not have my hair color -- one of the advantages of age -- and they're less than I thought there were when I was 25...

(LAUGHTER)

... is that you get to see things come around a second or third time. And one of the things that I realized a long time ago is that change is very difficult. There is enormous institutional resistance to change in this country. We have seen that in this campaign as we literally terrified people sitting in their salons in Georgetown that they might have to look for work someplace else if we ever won."

DEAN: Change is difficult. You cannot expect people with great privileges taken at the expense of ordinary working people to surrender them lightly. But the history of humanity is that determined people will overcome obstacles. And we will overcome the problems that this country is facing as a result of George W. Bush and as a result of a Washington establishment that has forgotten who sent them there."

"Calvin Coolidge said, The business of America is business, but forgot that human beings are not meant to be cogs in an enormous government corporate machine; that we are spiritual people who need connections and have to have community again."

Abraham Lincoln said that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this Earth. You have the power to take back the Democratic Party and make us stand up for what's right again.

Allow us to fulfill the dream of Harry Truman in 1948 that he laid out where we would no longer be the last industrial country on the face of the Earth without health insurance. Allow us to stand up again for the rights to organize for ordinary men and women. Allow us to stand again for the principles of equal rights under the law for every single American.

You have the power to take our country back so that the flag of the United States of America no longer is the exclusive property of John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Falwell; that it belongs to all of us again."

[pstans]

1. Dean has the right vision

I think he has done some good things as DNC Chair, I hope he keeps it up.

[madfloridian]

2. He can't without support from the people of the party.

That is the problem. He is not responsible for the way those people voted, and is trying to change it. But see, there are other things going on here.

This has been a sad day for a lot of us here at DU. Not so much because we were just supporting him, but because we want to change the party.

This has been a depressing day at DU because we see that the main interest of many is letting party be destroyed instead of working to change it.

And right now there is nothing to take its place. I am sad this is happening here, but I guess that is how it is.

[pstans]

13. Are the "people of the party" the voters or the politicians?

If you mean the voters, then I think Dean speaks for them. Dean is more connected to the average American than the current politicians.

If you mean the elected officials, then I would agree somewhat, but Dean has been working to frame the issues. If you read "Don't think of an Elephant" you can see Dean trying to frame debate. It is very clear when he talks about abortion and you can tell when he talks about this issue. By framing the issue, Dean is sort of scheduling the games and then it is up to the politicians (Kerry, Feingold, Kennedy, Boxer, etc) to play the game and enact the policies.

I would love to have Dean run for political office, but I think he can have a great effect in his current position.

[Upfront]

3. Great Man!

Great plan!

[madfloridian]

5. Hey there.

How are you? Been a depressing day here with all the people saying they are going to withhold support until the changes are made.

Make sense to you, my friend?...Not to me.

Good to see you. :hi:

[firefox]

4. You have to thank Dean for bringing in the young

The young had never been known for an interest in voting/elections, but Dean brought the young and their tech savvy into the picture. By following Dean and the election they got a real education.

It is the young that will be doing most of the living in the future. When the country is in such crisis, it sure is nice to know there is some youthful energy, tech savvy, and now political savvy working to make things right.

The powers above the USG were not going to let anyone through that called for universal health care or ending the war in Iraq. If in a magic collapse of machinery Dean was the nominee, universal health care would have shown him victory. Iraq would be behind us instead of with us.

[rfkrfk]

6. unless HD has a magic wand ...

that can made incumbents disappear,
nothing will change

[madfloridian]

7. Look at it this way: We are the change. Not him, really. Us.

We are the only ones who can bring that change, and from what I am seeing here we are not willing.

It means setting goals, working with local groups to run candidates. We did that. We failed, because the establishment stepped in and took care of it by running an anti-choice, anti-gay candidate against ours who was pro both.

It hurt. We are undergoing some transitions where we are with the DEC, and our area is one that all Republican. But you see, we tried.

He is the chairman, but he just keeps saying the change is ours. What I see here mostly is wanting to just let the DNC self-destruct. I hate seeing this at a Democratic forum, and I hate seeing it at all.

[rfkrfk]

8. I wish HD would concentrate on fixing the primaries

{first of all, I understand that opinions vary, with that said}

If HD fixed the presidential primaries,
by that I mean to correct the disproportionate influence
of Iowa and NH,
Dean would have done the party and the country
a great service.

[madfloridian]

9. McAuliffe set up a commission to do that. Dean doesn't meet with them.

They have met several times, it is on C-Span. They will report to him at the end of the year. They are planning on adding a couple more states to the early primaries in addition to IA and NH.

[madfloridian]

10. The Third Way directives make me more sure about supporting the DNC

They are trying to marginalize all of us. The first paragraph was the very heart of the Dean campaign last year, energize your base. The fact that they dispute that and the fact they put it first show me they consider the DNC membership as part of a "myth" and that we don't need to be mobilized.

To those who want third party, I say go ahead. I will keep fighting with the DNC.

"The myth of mobilization is the belief that the key to Democratic victory is to energize the base and bring them to the polls in record numbers.

The myth of demography is the view that long-term, ongoing changes in the U.S. population - such as an increase in the number of Hispanic voters and female professionals - will secure a Democratic majority for decades to come.

The myth of language holds that the problem with the Democratic Party is not what it advocates, but rather how it speaks.

The myth of prescription drugs is shorthand for the theory that the Party can win national elections by avoiding cultural issues, downplaying national security, and changing the subject to domestic issues such as health care, education, and job security in the post-9/11 world."

[Vinnie From Indy]

11. Go Howard! n/t

[shance]

12. "We are spiritual people who need to have community again".

Dean has been the greatest educator of this decade.

He has done so much for this nation by awakening a dormant conscience and inspiring hope again.

Thanks for posting Floridian.

[R.I.Publicanism]

14. YEAH!!!

[Cha]

15. Dean is such a sweetie

who cares so much for our country..it must drive him nuts to see it in this handbasket.

[Kolesar]

16. That's why I make monthly donations

plus, they promised they would quit phoning if I went to monthly too :)

[madfloridian]

17. We do, too.

Doesn't stop the calls though. :evilgrin:

They called about that matching funds deal last week, but I had already sent some. That is a good way to double your money.