Dean at the Take Back America Conference

Last week, Howard Dean gave one of his great "everyone on your feet" speeches at the Take Back America conference in Washington DC. More than 2,000 progressive leaders, activists, and thinkers heard Gov. Dean and others speak. At the conference, Dean was awarded the Tom Paine Commonsense Award. An excerpt from his speech:

"All of us who have been in public office, and I know there are some out here that are, have been fond of saying, going to high schools and going to colleges, and telling young people how important it is to vote. One of the things I learned in this campaign is, voting is the bare minimum, voting is not enough, you've got to give 10 bucks to your favorite candidate. And Lord knows we showed that you can sure raise a hell of a lot of money by getting 10 bucks from a half-a-million people, and you've got to run for office yourself. You have to run yourself. Democracy is not a spectator sport, and we won't have one if we don't fight for it.

(Applause.)

"So over the next few months we're going to partner with 21st Century Democrats, with the Progressive Majority, with SEIU, with AFSCME, with other groups, where we can come together not just to make sure John Kerry is the next president of the United States, but to make sure that if he is, that this is not just simply a weigh station in between right-wing presidents. That we are going to take this country back this time, and never again are we going to permit the extreme right wing of the Republican Party to tell us what to do. I am tired of listening to the fundamentalist preachers, and we're not going to do it anymore.

(Applause.)

"I'm tired of listening to Ralph Reed, and Newt Gingrich, and Rush Limbaugh, and we're not going to do it anymore, because we built this country, and we're going to take it back for ordinary working Americans. We're going to take this country back, and it's going to take election, after election, after election, work after work, after work, and win, after win, after win. Take back America, we want our country back, and it's our country, we built it, and now in November we're going to take it back."

Click here for transcripts and videos of all the speakers at the conference. Click here to watch a video of Dean's speech.