Howard Dean exhorts students to get involved in politics
Former primary candidate criticizes Bush for exploiting homophobia in re-election bid
Howard Dean clearly was at ease with the partisan audience. He grinned broadly from behind a podium as students and community supporters repeatedly interrupted his campaign-style stump speech with thunderous applause.
Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and one-time presidential hopeful, was greeted warmly during his speech Monday in a packed Memorial Auditorium.
BY LISA TREI
Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont who stormed onto the national scene this year during his failed grassroots bid for the presidency, called on students Monday night to help restore democracy in the United States and remake the Democratic Party.
"If you want to live in a democracy you have to work for it," he said to a cheering crowd in Memorial Auditorium waving "Dean for President" banners. "The first lesson for the Democratic Party is if you ever want to win, then … stand up for what you believe in and stop running away and pretending you're going to win by being a Republican or a half Republican. The mark of a Democratic politician and the Democratic Party ought to be social justice and community."
Dean, who served as Vermont's Democratic governor from 1991 to 2003, was a surprise presidential candidate who successfully mobilized independents and politically disenchanted citizens during the Democratic presidential primaries. In December 2003, Dean was ahead in the polls, but he failed to win several key states and withdrew from the race Feb. 18. His campaign marked the first time the Internet was used extensively to reach out to supporters and raise funds in an effort that shattered previous records for the Democratic presidential primaries. After Dean withdrew from the race he launched Democracy for America, an advocacy group dedicated to returning political power to the community level. Dean is currently considering a bid to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
At the campus event sponsored by the Associated Students, Dean clearly was at ease with the partisan audience. He grinned broadly from behind a podium as students and community supporters repeatedly interrupted his campaign-style stump speech with thunderous applause.
"Let me start off by giving you a piece of good news: 51 percent is not a mandate!" he said, referring to the popular vote for President George W. Bush. "The truth is that history is on our side and that we will prevail and that right-wing politics always ends up where it belongs—in the trash can of history. Any politics ends up in the trash can of history if it's based on ideology instead of facts."
The 56-year-old politician spent more than an hour discussing the 2004 presidential race and how the Democratic Party can take back the country. He credited his party with running a great presidential campaign but said Washington Democrats are now suffering from a "loser's syndrome" and a "culture of defeat."
Dean, who signed the nation's first civil union bill in 2000, sharply criticized President Bush for tapping into homophobia to get re-elected. Measures banning same-sex marriage were placed on the ballot in 11 states where gay marriage already was outlawed, he said. "It was about the willingness of the president of the United States to appeal to the very worst in humanity," he said. "It served one purpose only—to once again pillory a minority [that] has been described as the most despised minority in world civilization."
In contrast, Dean said, Democrats should offer leadership based on hope, not fear, despite the fact that the media trumpeted the "moral values" of the Republican Party as a key factor in winning this year's race.
"I prefer the moral values of the Democratic Party to the moral values of the Republican Party," Dean said. "Our moral values say it's not OK for 10 million children to go to bed hungry every night and that somebody better stand up and do something about it. … It's not OK to mislead the American people and send over a thousand brave American soldiers to die in a foreign land … because you so badly wanted the result that you were willing to say anything to get that result. I don't think lying is a moral value. … I stand up for the moral values of the Democratic Party, not the moral values of segregationism, nationalism and homophobia."
Dean acknowledged that Democrats have not been as effective as Republicans in getting their message across to voters. "We have to talk about our sense of moral obligation to each other," he said. "What the right wing has done is create a society where we don't feel we owe each other anything. The president believes that if you're rich you deserve it, and if you're poor you deserve it. That's not the country I was raised in."
Instead of fighting over pro-choice and pro-life positions on abortion, Dean said, people should fight about whether the government has the right to tell them what kind of personal decisions they ought to make. And rather than fighting about gay marriage, he continued, people should be fighting over whether all Americans ought to enjoy the same rights. "Let's never stop including everyone in our society," Dean said. "Let's never stop the idea that we have a communal responsibility to each other. We owe it to this country to present an opposing model. I think that what we believe in is better than what they stand for, and I believe that if we make our case we'll start to win elections again."
Dean called on students to get involved in politics and run for office. "I'm not kidding," he said. "Run for the school board, county commission. You can run for president—how many think you wouldn't be a better president than George W. Bush!" Democrats must work, one vote at a time, one precinct at a time, year after year, to take America back, he said: "Never again will we allow a group of right-wingers to control the agenda of the greatest country on the face of the earth."
Share This Story