Governor Dean's statement on Ralph Nader

This is what Howard Dean said after Ralph Nader announced his candidacy for President on Sunday's Meet the Press:

When I announced last week that I am no longer actively pursuing the presidency, I urged my supporters not to be tempted by any independent or third party candidate. I said I would support the nominee of the Democratic Party, because the bottom line is that we must defeat George W. Bush in November, whatever it takes.

This year, our campaign has made the case that, in order to defeat George W. Bush, the Democratic Party must stand up strong for its principles, not paper over its differences with the most radical Administration in our lifetime. In order to win, the Democratic Party must aggressively expose the ways in which George W. Bush's policies benefit the privileged and the most extreme ideologues.

I will do everything I can to ensure that the 2004 Democratic nominee runs as a true progressive, as a champion of working Americans and their hopes for a better future. I urge my supporters, and all other Americans committed to progressive values and honest government, to stick with us, and stick with the Democratic Party, so our cause can prevail in 2004.

Ralph Nader has made many great contributions to America over 40 years. But if George W. Bush is re-elected, the health, safety, consumer, environmental, and open government provisions Ralph Nader has fought for will be undermined. George Bush's right-wing appointees will still be serving as judges fifty years from now, and our Constitution will be shredded. It will be government by, of, and for, the corporations - exactly what Ralph Nader has struggled against.

Those who truly want America's leaders to stand up to the corporate special interests and build a better country for working people should recognize that, in 2004, a vote for Ralph Nader is, plain and simple, a vote to re-elect George W. Bush. I hope that Ralph Nader will withdraw his candidacy in the best interests of the country we hope to become.

Many of my supporters urged me to run as an independent, but I judged it the wrong thing to do. There is still time for Ralph Nader to stand with those in the Democratic Party who are building a progressive coalition to defeat George W. Bush. But time is running out. We can win only if we are united.

The Nation: Dean's Rough Ride by William Greider

In the March 8th edition of The Nation, National affairs correspondent William Greider writes a powerful overview of what happened to Howard Dean in the hands of the Media, and reminds us of some of his progressive policies and statements that rarely got covered. He starts with:

In forty years of observing presidential contests, I cannot remember another major candidate brutalized so intensely by the media, with the possible exception of George Wallace. Howard Dean contributed some fatal errors of his own, to be sure, but he also brought fresh air and new ideas, a crisp call to revitalize the Democratic Party and at least the outlines of deeper political and economic reforms. The reporters, as surrogate agents for Washington's insider sensibilities, blew him off. Dean's big mistake was in not recognizing, up front, that the media are very much part of the existing order and were bound to be hostile to his provocative kind of politics. To be heard, clearly and accurately, he would have had to find another channel.

And he ends the article with:

What the Dean campaign clearly did not accomplish (in addition to formulating a smart countermedia strategy) was to find ways to develop the flesh-and-blood relationships that can become enduring building blocks in politics--de Tocqueville's "associations" or labor's "collective action." The Meet-Ups are a rough start. MoveOn.org is an impressive organizing engine. We may be witnessing the early stages of small-d democratic renewal, in which people impose new technologies and new social realities on tired old institutions. As Howard Dean's rough ride reminds, established power, including the media, will resist change tenaciously. But the doctor may yet be remembered as the herald of something new.

Read the entire article here.

Dean No Longer Campaigning for Presidency

In a speech before a crowd of supporters in Burlington, VT, today, Governor Dean announced that he is no longer campaigning for the Presidency. He also announced how his organization will continue working for change in America. Here's the an excerpt, followed by the entire transcript, pulled from the Dean for America blog:

DEAN: I am no longer actively pursuing the presidency. We will, however, continue to build a new organization, using our enormous grassroots network, to continue the effort to transform the Democratic Party and to change our country.

First, keep active in the primary. Sending delegates to the convention only continues to energize our party. Fight on in the caucuses. We are on the ballots. Use your network to send progressive delegates to the convention in Boston. We are not going away. We are staying together, unified -- all of us.

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.

Let me be clear, I will not run as an independent or third party candidate and I urge my supporters not to be tempted to support any effort by another candidate.

The bottom line is that we must beat George W. Bush in November whatever it takes.

I will support the nominee of our party. I will do everything I can to beat George W. Bush. I urge you to do the same.

Complete transcript:

My thanks to all of you who got this crowd together in about three hours notice. I appreciate that very much. And my thanks to an awful lot of people.

But my particular thanks to Vermont. I started this two years ago -- and I see Governor Kunin is here in the crowd, so I'm going to tell a story that she's going to appreciate in particular, but all of you will, because it's a local story.

The first thing I ever did is I went down to a chamber of commerce meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I was invited down. So I went down with a few brochures in my back pocket. And I got down there and gave the speech, and then they asked questions, as they do at rotaries. It's a lot like going to a rotary or chamber here.

And the last question was somebody who got up and said this. They said, Well, Governor, you have a great business climate in Vermont. It's just terrific. And the one here in New Hampshire stinks. Can you send your people down here to tell us what to do? I thought you'd like that.

(LAUGHTER)

That's an inside joke for those of you who are from Vermont.

We love to hear people talk about New Hampshire that way.

(LAUGHTER)

Well, actually, I did pretty well in New Hampshire.

We did have a -- have had a real record of achievement in this state: creating jobs, providing health insurance, investing in children, balancing budgets.

And I said when I left the governor's office that if the rest of this country were like Vermont this country would be much better off.

(APPLAUSE)

And what we set out to do was make the rest of the country more like Vermont. And so far we haven't succeeded, but we have a long way to go.

What we did show is that by standing up and telling the truth and not worrying about polls and focus groups, you could actually get support in this country from voters.

(APPLAUSE)

We started the campaign office in Burlington. There are an awful lot of people -- and some of you should raise your hands -- who drove up here, unrequested, unknowing; showed up, no salary. Finally, we grew in to you and we were able to pay you a little something. But we really appreciate people from all over the country, particularly young people.

One quarter of all our people who gave us money were under 30 years old in this campaign. I have not seen that happen since I was under 30 years old, and that was a long time ago.

(APPLAUSE)

This has been a campaign that has been extraordinarily different. The new approach, planting seeds on the Internet, strengthening grassroots, face-to-face obtaining support from hundreds of thousands of small donors, all these steps can revitalize our democracy and return power to ordinary Americans.

All of us have done these things together. We have exposed the dangerous, radical nature of George W. Bush's agenda.

(APPLAUSE)

DEAN: We have demonstrated to other Democrats that it is a far better strategy to stand up against the right wing agenda of George W. Bush than it is to cooperate with it.

(APPLAUSE)

We have led this party back to considering what its heart and soul is, although there is a lot of work left to do.

I am very proud of all of you and very grateful to all of you for your extraordinary hard work. To the staff who've worked exceptionally hard, very long hours -- worse than mine, sometimes...

(LAUGHTER)

... for all of you who traveled around the country, showed up at our office, worked around the clock, because they believed in what we were doing, thousands of Americans who have given generously of their time, in their states, because they believed in our cause.

I want to particularly thank all our congressional supporters, many of whom signed on with us when we were an asterisk in the polls, because they believed that it was the right thing to do for their country. There are people in Washington who are going to do the right thing in this party: stand up and be recognized and stand up for what's right with America, instead of being poll-driven. And believe me, we are going to support those people in September.

(APPLAUSE)

And in November. September, if they have a primary, and then in November.

I want to thank the Service Employees International Union and the Painters. They stuck with me...

(APPLAUSE)

They stood with us when the others abandoned us and I am forever grateful to those people in the labor movement who stood up for what was right and not what was popular.

(APPLAUSE)

DEAN: I want to thank all the state and local officials who stood with us, many of them, like Governor Kunin and others, who went to other states for us to represent us all over America.

I want to thank the Dean's List. These are the big donors. We didn't have a lot of big donors, but the ones that we had signed on with us when we were nowhere. We were an asterisk in the polls. They did not do what the establishment of the Democratic Party did. They followed their hearts and stood up for what was right, and they changed this party, too.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to thank the 300,000 small donors that decided that they wanted their country back.

And we are now in the process of taking our country back thanks to you.

(APPLAUSE)

I want to thank all the people in every state who heard our message and supported us.

And I, of course, finally and most importantly want to thank my wonderful wife, who finally, after 12 years, made her political debut in Wisconsin, Iowa, New Hampshire.

(APPLAUSE)

I also...

AUDIENCE: Judy! Judy! Judy!

DEAN: I also want to thank Judy for at least promoting the debate that's needed to happen in this country for a long time about whether a woman needs to gaze adoringly at her husband or follow her own career.

(APPLAUSE)

Now I lost my place.

(LAUGHTER)

DEAN: I am no longer actively pursuing the presidency. We will, however, continue to build a new organization, using our enormous grassroots network, to continue the effort to transform the Democratic Party and to change our country. And I...

(APPLAUSE)

And speaking to all of you and all of the hundreds of thousands of people around America who are going to get this word, either by the establishment media...

(LAUGHTER)

... or the Internet, I have some things that I specifically want to ask of our supporters.

First, keep active in the primary. Sending delegates to the convention only continues to energize our party. Fight on in the caucuses. We are on the ballots. Use your network to send progressive delegates to the convention in Boston. We are not going away. We are staying together, unified -- all of us.

(APPLAUSE)

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.

(APPLAUSE)

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.

(APPLAUSE)

Let me be clear, I will not run as an independent or third party candidate and I urge my supporters not to be tempted to support any effort by another candidate.

The bottom line is that we must beat George W. Bush in November whatever it takes.

(APPLAUSE)

I will support the nominee of our party. I will do everything I can to beat George W. Bush. I urge you to do the same.

But we will not be above in this organization of letting our nominee know that we expect them to adhere to the standards that this organization has set for decency, honesty, integrity and standing up for ordinary American working people.

(APPLAUSE)

AUDIENCE: Take back Congress!

(APPLAUSE)

DEAN: Well, we're going to take back Congress, but we're going to take the White House, too.

AUDIENCE: We still believe, Howard!

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.

(APPLAUSE)

It is natural for people to resist, but it is also inevitable that we will win.

(APPLAUSE)

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.

(APPLAUSE)

Some of you have been on the road with me or have seen the speeches have heard this before, but it's true. We have been here before in this country. When William McKinley was president, enormous trusts were put together which made it impossible for ordinary Americans to start their own business, make any money without enormous pressure from those trusts, which destroyed their business.

Teddy Roosevelt came along, busted up the trusts and made it possible to earn a living for ordinary Americans and small businesses again.

Under Harding and Coolidge and Hoover, 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.

Franklin Roosevelt came along and took America back for ordinary working people again.

(APPLAUSE)

My favorite, however, is this one. In 1824, John Quincy Adams, the son of a one-term president, John Adams...

(LAUGHTER)

... beat Andrew Jackson of Tennessee in an election where Andrew Jackson received more votes.

It was decided in Congress by one vote, electing John Quincy Adams as president.

In 1828, four years later, John Quincy Adams became the one-term son of a one-term president.

(APPLAUSE)

Change is hard work. Change does not happen simply because you go to a rally and simply because you make phone calls -- and I know how hard everybody here has worked. But change is a process that you can never give up on because change is the state of America and change is the state of humankind.

So we will continue to fight. This is the end of phase one of this fight, but the fight will go on, and we will be together in that fight. We will continue to bring our message of hope and change to the American people.

We will speak out. We will fight on. We will continue to stand up against the dangerous foreign policy which weakens our security, and stand up against this president who weakens our civil rights.

We will continue to stand up against special interest that prevent change. And we will stand for America's working families for jobs and health care, investment in our children, the chance of all Americans to pursue their dreams.

We will continue to stand up against the divisive policies of the far right. We will no longer be divided by race. We will no longer be divided by gender. We will no longer be divided by sexual orientation. We will no longer be divided by religion. We will no longer be divided by income. And we will no longer be divided by George W. Bush in the White House.

(APPLAUSE)

And now that the campaign is stopped, I'm going to say something that all of you have heard me say before.

But I want you to think about it now because now is the most important time that you have heard it. And this is the real message of this campaign and you'll hear it in a different way because I am no longer a candidate.

The biggest lie that people like me tell people like you at election time is that, If you vote for me, I'll solve your problems. The truth is the power is in your hands, not mine.

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.

(APPLAUSE)

And together we have the power to take back in the White House in 2004 and that is exactly what we're going to do. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

END

Dean on Fox News: Washington needs a good kick in the butt

This morning Howard Dean appeared on Fox News with Chris Wallace. In response to the question on how Dean handles the downside of the campaign, he answered:

There are many peaks and valleys to things that you do, the major things. This is the biggest thing I've ever done in my life. And you've just got to keep soldiering on, through the good times — it's easy to be up in the good times. You've got to work at being up in the tough times.

And, you know, you cannot win if you quit. You cannot win if you let yourself get down. You've just got to keep pushing ahead.

We are going to change this country. This country's the greatest country in the world, but it is great because it has had changes from time to time, when Washington got sclerotic.

Washington is sclerotic right now. Both parties are wallowing in their own special interests. There are significant policy changes, which is why I think it would be a huge advantage to have a Democratic president over a Republican president.

Washington needs a good kick in the butt. That's what we're going to give them.

I don't read the press clippings. Bill Clinton told me when I first started this out, "Never read anything that's written inside the Beltway," and I think that's very good advice. Washington is a peculiar place which has its own rules. And I've discovered one thing in this campaign: The American people are much better than the people who govern them.

So, we're going to continue to push on this, because there have been extraordinary times in America — Andrew Jackson's election in 1828, Franklin Roosevelt of course in 1932, Theodore Roosevelt, who took power because of the assassination of McKinley, but was a totally different president — those kinds of major changes are what I'm looking for. And that's what we've got to keep pushing for, working hard.

Read the entire interview here.

Dean's Statement on Wesley Clark

BURLINGTON--Governor Dean issued the following statement this afternoon, after General Clark announced that he was ending his presidential campaign:

"Wes Clark ran a spirited race for the White House, and I congratulate him. His lifetime of military service has made a strong and lasting contribution to America's security.

"I believe Wes Clark's supporters will take a fresh look at our campaign, because Wes Clark and I agreed that the best way to take on George W. Bush this fall is not with a Washington politician who voted to support this president's wrongheaded policies, but with an experienced leader and a grassroots campaign that can bring new people into the process and change the way Washington does business.

"Wes Clark and I agreed that the most urgent national security threats are terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Our campaign, strongly supported by senior retired military leaders, offers much to people impressed by General Clark's outstanding record of service and commitment to national security."

Grassroots Grown Ads to be Shown in Wisconsin

Last summer, a group of media professionals and amateurs got together in San Francisco. They were the Dean Media Team, a part of the San Francisco for Dean grassroots. During their monthly meetings, they launched several projects, including Switch2Dean.com -- a series of 30 second testimonial by everyday people who switched from another party or candidate to Dean. Kevin Murray directed the ads, and they were produced by Bart Myers and David Fox (yes, the same person writing this blog entry!).

Besides being shown on the Web, these ads were included in grassroots-produced DVDs and video tapes. But when the ads were entered into the Project Deanlight contest (which was looking for grassroots ads about Dean), they were noticed by Steve McMahon, Dean's media strategist. He loved them, and wanted to find a way to put them on TV as part of the mix of professionally produced Dean ads. All this came together last weekend when visitors to Blog for America, the official Howard Dean blog, got to vote on which of three Switch ads they wanted shown on Wisconsin television.

The voting ended last night, and the results are in. "Max" and "Mike" (their real names!) will both be shown in Wisconsin starting tomorrow.

AP Story: CNN Says It Overplayed Dean's Iowa Scream

This isn't news to any Dean supporter, but the AP came out with a story today where various network officials say they played Dean's Scream too much:

It probably means little now to Howard Dean, but CNN's top executive believes his network overplayed the infamous clip of Dean's "scream" after the Iowa caucuses.

"It was a big story, but the challenge in a 24-hour news network is that you try to keep all of your different viewers throughout the day informed without overdoing it," said Princell Hair, CNN's general manager.

It took on such a life, said Paul Slavin, senior vice president of ABC News, that "the amount of attention it was receiving necessitated more attention."

While it's impossible to blame any one network or reporter, CBS News President Andrew Heyward said, the cumulative effect was the event was covered more than editorially justified.

Slavin said his only regret was not airing an intriguing Diane Sawyer report on the coverage earlier. Sawyer reported that Dean was using a special microphone that night that filters out crowd noise to heighten his voice; other videotapes taken illustrate that his "scream" was barely audible to his live audience.

To Trippi, Sawyer's report felt like a Super Bowl referee admitting — after the game — that he blew a call that decided the outcome.

"Unfortunately, no one ran that 633 times," he said. "ABC, to its credit, did it once."

Read the entire story here.

Winning Back America Excerpt: GETTING THE CALL

Each day we'll be posting an excerpt from "Winning Back America". Check back often:

On August 14, 1991, the phone rang in my doctor’s office at eight o’clock in the morning. I was the only doctor working that day. Judy was getting ready to take the kids on vacation to her parents’ house that night; I was due to work a few more days and then join them before we all visited my parents. Ted Fink, our partner, was already on vacation, although he hadn’t yet left town, and I was covering for everyone.

I was conducting a physical examination when the call came in. It was very unusual to get interrupted during an exam, but I understood when the nurse told me the governor’s office was on the line. You don’t ask the governor if you can call back in ten minutes, so I asked my patient to excuse me for a second.

The call was from Bruce Post, one of Governor Snelling’s staffers. “I’m terribly sorry to inform you the governor’s passed away,” Bruce said. My first split-second reaction was that he was kidding, but I knew immediately by his tone of voice he wasn’t. I then started to hyperventilate, which was something I’d never done in my entire life. I told myself to breathe normally because I wouldn’t be of use to anyone if I kept that up.

Before doing anything else, I went back and finished the physical. I knew from experience that when something traumatic happens, getting to work helps me to bear down and think. More important, this was my responsibility as a doctor. I knew that the patient I was seeing wouldn’t be able to get another appointment for quite some time, and I wanted to fulfill my commitment to him before beginning to assume the obligations of governorship.

Eventually, I was able to call Judy and tell her what happened. I then called Jane Williams, who was working in my office. Instead of heading straight to Montpelier, I sat for three hours in the doctor’s office in Shelburne making phone calls. I stayed where I was because I had three phone lines in the doctor’s office and only two at the lieutenant governor’s. The state police arrived; the media showed up, and it was something of a circus. Of course, I wasn’t interested in talking to the media; I was trying to ensure that authority would be transferred in an orderly manner.

Judy came in to see the rest of my morning’s patients. At around 11:30, I went back to the house. The place was full of kids. A couple of college students were running a small playgroup out of our house for the summer. I took Anne and Paul aside and brought them into the bedroom. I told them what had happened and that I was going to be the governor. The kids both cried because I couldn’t go on vacation with them. They were too young to understand what being governor meant.

Eventually, everybody got dressed up, and we all got in a car with a state police officer. I used to get driven by the governor’s state police detail on the rare occasions the governor was out of state and I was acting governor. Now, of course, I was being driven to Montpelier to be sworn in as governor. Technically, I’d be acting governor until there was another election, and there was no legal requirement that I be sworn in at all. But I decided that I should have a swearing-in ceremony. I thought it would be symbolically important to the people of the state to see the formal transition.

I took the oath of office from the chief justice standing in the governor’s office—now my office—with Judy and the kids. I rarely give written speeches, and usually I hate to do it. But on some very formal occasions, it’s important that you have a prepared text. This was certainly one of those occasions. The important part of the speech said that we were going to move forward with Governor Snelling’s economic recovery plan. I understood that Dick Snelling had been elected governor and not me, and it was up to me to continue to clean up the state’s fiscal mess. The first piece of business would be improving the state’s economic outlook.

Gov. Dean on Meet the Press

Yesterday Gov. Howard Dean appeared on NBC News' "Meet the Press". His performance was nothing short of brilliant, answering each question thrown to him by host Tim Russert with clarity and ease. At 6:00AM EST, on his MSNBC radio and TV talk show, in New York City, the very conservative Don Imus said the following about Gov. Dean's 2/1/04 appearance on "Meet the Press".

"Howard Dean pitched a perfect game!"

"Russert never laid a hand on him."

"He was fabulous!"

"He had an answer for everything, and a good answer!" "He was great."

Don Imus is well known for almost never saying anything good about anyone in fact just the opposite. And demben at Daily Kos said about the interview:

Anyone that says this isn't the man to lead this country after watching this certainly doesn't live in the same country that I do. I certainly hope plenty of Feb 3 voters were watching.

Here are some excerpts from Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT:  But, Governor, if your mission is to beat George Bush...

DR. DEAN:  Yeah.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...and you haven't won any primaries and John Kerry emerges as the presumptive nominee, would you continue on a scorched-earth policy?

DR. DEAN:  No, there's not going to be a scorched-earth policy, but this race is about delegates.  As we sit here right now, I have more delegates than John Kerry does.  So the real test is what happens in January--or excuse me, in July at the convention, who has the most delegates.  I hope to have the most delegates.  And we're going to continue to work and work and work and work. And every time I get discouraged about it, I go out and talk to all the people who are really supporting us and they want change in this country and I want change in this country.

I did not start this because I had this burning desire that I have to be president or my life is ruined.  I started this because this country is in big trouble because of what George Bush has done to us, $1/2 trillion deficits, all our taxpayers' money ending up in the hands of people like Ken Lay at Enron or the insurance companies and the HMOs.  More than half of the money from the Medicare prescription drug bill is ending up in the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies.  That's not what this country's about.

Whatever happened to ordinary Americans?  That is what this campaign is about is what's going to happen to ordinary Americans and I'm going to change this country should I become president of the United States so that ordinary people can have their voice back.

MR. RUSSERT:  After the Iowa caucuses, Democrats were very civil and nice to each other.  Yesterday, you really unloaded on John Kerry.  Let's let the viewers...

DR. DEAN:  Sure.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...listen to what you said and then hear John Kerry's response:

(Videotape, January 30, 2004):

DR. DEAN:  It turns out we've got more than one Republican in the Democratic race.  I've already said that I thought Wes Clark was a Republican and now apparently John Kerry has the same financing habits.

SEN. JOHN KERRY, (D-MA):  Governor Dean has in the course of this campaign made a number of comments that he's had to apologize to other candidates for. And I would respectfully suggest that that may be just one more of them.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT:  Will you apologize for, in effect, calling John Kerry a Republican?

DR. DEAN:  The only time I've ever apologized to any candidate was when I said something about John Edwards that wasn't true.  I said that John Edwards had changed his position on the war in front of the California convention last April.  That wasn't true.  Of course, I'm no going to apologize.  John Kerry gets his money the same way George Bush does.

I was so angry when I read that article after John Kerry had the nerve--you know, here's what's happening in this campaign.  Look, we came out with a very strong message.  We shot to the top.  All the other candidates took up our message.  I thinks that's fine.  Imitations is the sincerest form of flattery and it's actually great for the Democratic Party that we're starting to get some backbone again.

Then I come to find out that John Kerry has been running around Iowa and New Hampshire and telling all these Americans that he's going to get the special interests, and who was on the take with the special interests?  Not only just got him some special interest money--look, we all have special interest money. I'm sure if you went through my campaign, you'd find--there's people in special interests, lobbyists, who have given me money and so forth.  The senator with the most special interest money over the last 15 years is John Kerry who's just been running around telling all Americans how he's going to get the special interests and don't let the door hit you on the way out.  That is exactly what's wrong with American politics and that's why 50 percent of the people in this country don't vote.

For a full transcript of Gov. Dean's appearance on "Meet the Press", click here. If you're on a Windows machine, you can watch the video here.