She's a Deaniac

Since very early in the last election cycle, if you wanted to know what a real Democrat should look, sound, and feel like, you only had to look as far as Howard Dean. Howard Dean was the man who invigorated the “Democratic wing” of the Democratic Party, who reflected an anti-war position and a pro-gay rights position, who yelled about healthcare and proved it could be done in his own state.

Now Dr. Dean is the favorite of many for DNC chair (myself included). The opposition against Dean keeps growing, but so does the pool of aspirants, meaning that opposition votes will be diluted. There is still hope that Dean will ascend to this leadership position, and if you need any reasons why hope should yet be held, I encourage you to read his remarks made yesterday at George Washington University. The speech is also partially excerpted below.

Here in Washington, it seems that after every losing election, there's a consensus reached among decision-makers in the Democratic Party is that the way to win is to be more like Republicans.

I suppose you could call that philosophy: if you didn't beat 'em, join them.

I'm not one for making predictions -- but if we accept that philosophy this time around, another Democrat will be standing here in four years giving this same speech. we cannot win by being "Republican-lite." We've tried it; it doesn't work. The question is not whether we move left or right. It's not about our direction. What we need to start focusing on... is the destination.

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That destination is a better, stronger, smarter, safer, healthier America.

An America where we don't turn our back on our own people.

That's the America we can only build with conviction.

When some people say we should change direction, in essence they are arguing that our basic or guiding principles can be altered or modified.

They can't.

On issue after issue, we are where the majority of the American people are.

What I want to know is at what point did it become a radical notion to stand up for what we believe?

Over fifty years ago, Harry Truman said, "We are not going to get anywhere by trimming or appeasing. And we don't need to try it."

Yet here we are still making the same mistakes.

Let me tell you something: there's only one thing Republican power brokers want more than for us to lurch to the left -- and that's for us to lurch to the right.

What they fear most is that we may really begin fighting for what we believe -- the fiscally responsible, socially progressive values for which Democrats have always stood and fought.

I'll give this to Republicans. They know the America they want. They want a government so small that, in the words of one prominent Republican, it can be drowned in a bathtub.

They want a government that runs big deficits, but is small enough to fit into your bedroom.

They want a government that is of, by, and for their special interest friends.

They want a government that preaches compassion but practices division.

They want wealth rewarded over work.

And they are willing to use any means to get there.

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We are what we believe. And the American people know it.

And I believe that over the next two... four... ten years...

Election by election...

State by state...

Precinct by precinct...

Door by door...

Vote by vote...

We're going to lift our Party up...

And we're going to take this country back for the people who built it.