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.

Video of Dean's San Francisco Speech

Videographer Eric Predoehl has posted his edit of a 43 minute video of Howard Dean's appearance in San Francisco on March 18, 2004 at the Palace Hotel. You can download this video as a Quicktime, MPEG, or Windows Media file for free here. Or, if you don't have broadband, you can purchase it on DVD here.

Dean Endorses Kerry

Today Governor Howard Dean officially endorsed Senator John Kerry for President:

"While my run for the White House ended last month, our work to take back this country has only just begun. George W. Bush's policies continue to fail to deliver on issues that matter most to Americans, and we desperately need a change of leadership come November," said Dean, speaking at a rally with Massachusetts Senator at The George Washington University's Kogan Plaza.

"John Kerry is a fighter with a distinguished record of service to this country, and I believe he has the experience, strength, and vision to get this country back on the right path," Dean said. "John Kerry is fighting every day to defeat President Bush because he knows that four more years of George W. Bush's right-wing ideological agenda at home and weak leadership in the world would be devastating to our country for many decades to come. The future of our country depends on defeating this president, and John Kerry is the candidate that can beat this President in November. If our party stands united, we will send George Bush back to Crawford Texas.

"I'm honored to have earned Howard Dean's support in the mission we share: bringing new leadership to our country," said Senator Kerry. "Over the last year, Governor Dean's voice has reminded us of the power of grassroots politics to change America. He's started a conversation with thousands of Americans who had turned away from politics for too long, a conversation that, with his help, we will continue and intensify and spread to thousands of other Americans in the months to come. We may have started this campaign by discussing our differences, but we will win it by reminding America that what unites this country is so much more powerful that what has ever divided us in the past."

Additional stories can be read at CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

Audio Recording of Dean's SF Speech

If you missed Howard Dean's speech in San Francisco on March 18th, you can listen to it here. It's an MP3 file and it runs for 40 minutes, including the introduction by Will Easton and Stephanie Linder of SF4Dean.com.

Dean Announces New Organization

Yesterday, at events in Seattle (click to listen) and San Francisco, and today in New York, Governor Howard Dean announced his new organization.

Still using the same DFA initials as his campaign organization (Dean for America), the new organization, Democracy for America, "will be committed to 1) strong, sustained grassroots involvement in the democratic process, 2) promoting an America where candidates and office holders tell the truth about policy choices and stand up for what they believe, 3) fighting against the influence and agenda of the two pillars of George W. Bush’s Washington: the far right wing and their radical, divisive policies, and the selfish special interests who for too long have dominated politics, and 4) fighting for progressive policies, like health care for all; investment in children; equal rights under law; fiscal responsibility; and a national security policy that makes America stronger by advancing progressive values."

At the San Francisco event, a crowd of more than 1,000 supporters squeezed into a room set up to seat 600, and joked by saying, "With crowds like this, maybe it's not too late to get back in!" The crowd went wild, and he had to make sure they all knew he was only kidding.

Dean stated, "Democracy for America will be committed to promoting an America where candidates and office holders tell the truth about policy choices and stand up for what they believe. The era when politicians equivocate about matters as fundamental as war and peace must end."

For people wanting to be on the new DFA mailing list, sign up here. The new organization will not migrate the old mailing list over to the new list, so you must sign up again. The Dean blog will still be at BlogForAmerica.com.

Read Governor Dean's speech here.

Mark Your Calendars: Dean Book Signing in Vermont

Do you live in the Vermont area? Howard Dean will be doing a book signing of his book, Winning Back America, at the Burlington, VT Borders book store on March 23, 2004:

AUTHOR:	Howard Dean
TITLE:	Winning Back America
DATE:	3/23/2004
TIME:	7 PM
EVENT:	In store signing
EVENT LOCATION:	Borders # 276 29 Church Street Burlington, VT 05401 802-865-2711

Dean to Speak in Seattle, San Francisco, New York

From Blog for America:

Governor Dean will be speaking about the new organization in the following locations.

Seattle, Washington - 9:30 AM on Thursday, March 18th
San Francisco, California - 6 PM on Thursday March 18th
New York, New York - 11:30 AM on Friday, March 19th

Stay tuned for exact locations. Events will be open to the public and the Governor looks forward to seeing you there!

Transcript from 12/1/03 Good Morning America

On Monday, December 1, 2003, Governor Howard Dean appeared on ABC's Good Morning America to promote his book. Here is the complete transcript:

CHARLES GIBSON, ABC NEWS: Well, we're gonna turn to the front running Democratic candidate for president of the United States, Howard Dean. He has a new book out, it is called "Winning Back America." And the former governor of Vermont, Governor Dean is joining us live from Burlington, Vermont. Governor, good to have you with us.

GOVERNOR HOWARD DEAN, DEMOCRAT, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good morning.

GIBSON: (Off Camera) I, I, we'll get to the book in a moment, but I can't help but note, and I think everyone did, that you're recently back from Hawaii. And you were there for the repatriation of the apparent remains of your brother who's been missing for 29 years. And I wondered as you were there, and as you went through something that must have been quite moving, what your thoughts were as you watched that.

DEAN: Well, I was very grateful, first of all, to the United States military. They, the POW-MIA recovery operation is extraordinary. It's been going on for a long time to find the kind of remains they found of my brother and Neil Sharman, his Australian friend who he was traveling with, is extraordinary, after 29 years. And I think my family is really just very, very grateful for the closure. It, it's really quite extraordinary, what, what our, our troops are doing over there in terms of recovery.

GIBSON: (Voice Over) Who killed him? And is there bitterness in your heart?

DEAN: No. It's, that's, it's a long time. We suspect the North Vietnamese, but we don't know and we probably will never know.

GIBSON: (Off Camera) How do you carry that around daily? It's not something that you can put down. I'm not sure there is something of closure. And I'm curious ...

DEAN: No, there, there isn't.

GIBSON: (Off Camera) Sorry. Go ahead.

DEAN: There, there really, once you, a loss like this, the only worse loss I think is the parents' loss of a child. This was very, very tough on my parents. It was tough on us, but it was even tougher on them. And you never forget this. It, it lives, you live with it for the rest of your life. But there is a lot of closure in not having him missing anymore. About two years ago, I flew over to look at the operations and I went to five excavation sights for POW-MIAs that are over there. And the operation is just incredible. And what, what you do get when the remains come home is a sense that at least he'll be buried with everybody else in the family. And, you know, for the POW-MIAs who have been -or families who have been, had their loved ones repatriated, it makes a big, big difference. And for those who don't have their loved ones repatriated, it's, you, you understand what it's like after 29 years of waiting and wondering. It just, I can't explain it. I didn't expect to feel the closure I, I had. We all had. The four, three of us went out there, plus my mother. And it was really an extraordinary, an extraordinary thing.

GIBSON: (Off Camera) Let me ask you about the book, "Winning Back America." As I read it, and was able to read some of it last night, it, it seems to me there's a conscious attempt, and I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but it seems to me there's a conscious attempt in here to reassure people that you're not as far to left as some Democrats fear and as the Republicans will try to paint you. Is that a fair reading?

DEAN: No. That's not what I set out to do in the book. All I set out to do in the book was tell the story, tell my story of my governorship and a little bit about who I am and how I got to be where I was. Something about my childhood. And also some things I believe. I believe this country, this government has moved too far to the right. I don't think the government represents where the country is. To think that we ought, that we're the only industrialized country left without health insurance is pretty unbelievable, really, and it's not much of a tribute to the leadership or lack of leadership, of the president. To think that we're now stuck in Iraq, losing troops every single day for reasons that are never clear, because it didn't seem like we had a national security interest in Iraq and I don't think we did, is pretty unbelievable. To, to see Pell Grants being cut for college students and health care being cut for kids in order to give tax breaks to people like Ken Lay who ran Enron, by our government, is unbelievable. I think we want a different kind of America, and that's what the campaign's all about.

GIBSON: (Off Camera) You mention the president and Iraqi policy. I'm curious, what did you think of the president's trip to Baghdad?

DEAN: I thought it was great. I think that's the kind of thing that really helps the troops. The trouble is, last August he tried to cut the combat pay of the troops. He just cut, he's about to cut 164,000 veterans off their health care. So, this is a president who is big on the flashy gestures, but when it comes to substance and really helping America's veterans and America's troops, I don't see it there. And I don't think it's right to treat our troops in Iraq by doubling their tour of duty and then trying to cut their combat pay. Now they've backed off and they've increased the combat pay but the thought was there last August when he tried to do that. I, I don't think this president really understands what it takes to defend America. What it takes to defend America is treating the troops and treating your veterans properly, because those are the people who do defend America.

GIBSON: (Off Camera) I'm curious, you mention in the book you try to tell the story of your governorship in Vermont. A lot of reporters and other indeed representatives of the candidates who have gone up to Burlington to try to find out a little bit about your record as governor have found a lot of those records. I wonder why? Is there something in those records that you don't want public?

DEAN: No, sealing gubernatorial records is routine. You don't actually get to seal the majority of the records, just those sensitive parts that apply to other people. President Bush sort of takes the cake for his sealing. He, he actually had his sent, as I understand it, to his - father's Presidential Library, where there's a 50-year seal. So what I've said is every governor does seal their records. I'll unseal mine if he'll unseal all of his.

GIBSON: (Off Camera) All right, Governor. Appreciate your being with us. Once again, the name of the book is "Winning Back America," written by former Governor Howard Dean of Vermont. Good to have you with us, Governor. Thanks for being here.

DEAN: Thanks very much.

GIBSON: (Off Camera) You take care.

Howard Dean on Chris Matthews's Hardball

Yesterday Governor Dean was featured on a special edition of Hardball at Harvard, and was grilled by Chris Matthews for an hour. Dean got to hold up his book, "Winning Back America", a couple of times:

MATTHEWS:  Let's go to fun questions and lighten it up here. Governor, it's nice to meet you in this circumstance in front of these smart people here. It's sort of like a cock fight here. Let me ask you, what's your favorite movie?

DEAN: Oh, probably "A Beautiful Mind." Pretty impressive movie.

MATTHEWS: Do you like Jennifer Connelly. She's pretty good. Just guessing. Let me ask you about -- you know you don't have to have one. Your favorite book.

DEAN: Well, Chris, I hate to do this to you, but...

MATTHEWS: Oh, no.

DEAN: [holding up his book] It's actually issued today, by Simon and Schuster and it says "Too to Chris, with warmest wishes, Howard Dean."

MATTHEWS: You know, it's amazing how all these books go straight to paperback. Lets go too...

DEAN: Chris, that's 20 percent off on amazon.com, but Kerry's is 40 percent off. So, I'm still ahead.

Click Here to watch part of the interview. Read about the show in this Boston Globe article.

Upcoming Media Events - December 1st

Just in, a list of upcoming media events Howard Dean will be doing for his book:

December 1, live ABC-TV/Good Morning America, 7:35 AM ET

December 1, live + taped ABC Radio Morning Drive Satellite:

WMAL Radio (Washington DC)
WFLA Radio/(Tampa)
WTAM Radio/ Bill Wills (Cleveland)
WRKO Radio/ Peter & Scott (Boston)
WRQX Radio/Jack Diamond (Wash DC)
WJR Radio/Paul W. Smith (Detroit)
WOR Radio/Ed Walsh (NYC)
KABC Radio/Ken Minyard (Los Angeles)

December 1, live NPR/Diane Rhem, 10:00 AM ET

December 1, live WNYC-FM (NPR)/Bryan Leher