February 13, 2005
Congratulations Chairman Dean!
If the past week has been any indication, the Democratic Party has a bright future. The link to Dean's plan below will take you to the DNC site where you can watch a video of Dean's acceptance speech, send comments, and learn more about the Democratic Party.
Chairman Howard Dean's DNC Plan
1. Show up! Democrats should never concede a single state, a single district, or a single voter to the Republicans. We must be active and compete in all 50 states and work with the state parties to build a true national party.
2. The success of the national party depends directly on the success of the state parties — we must better integrate our operations by:
* Having the DNC pay the salary of each state party executive director to help ensure that the state parties have adequate funds.
* Collectively building and sharing supporter lists between the national and state parties.
* Recruiting, training, and encouraging candidates to run for office at every level — building tomorrow's farm team from the ground up.
* Actively grow local Democratic committees and communities by working with neighborhood activists who can reach out in their communities and enable the grassroots to support state and local candidates.
* Maintaining a permanent campaign in every state. We need to establish an ongoing, active presence, which does not have to be recreated every four years for four months.
3. Set core principles that define the Democratic Party and what we stand for and take a bottom-up approach to the development of the Party's message;
4. Use cutting-edge Internet and other technologies to fundraise, organize, and communicate with our supporters;
5. Strengthen our political institutions and leadership institutes to promote our leaders and our ideas — these organizations must work together in a coordinated and integrated fashion to elect Democrats at every level, so that we can take this country back.
Posted by Melissa at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
January 11, 2005
I'm Running
As I have traveled across our country, I have talked to thousands of people who are working for change in their own communities about the power of politics to make a difference in their own lives and in the lives of others. Every group I have spoken to, I encouraged them to stand up for what they believe and to get involved in the electoral process—because the only sure way to make difference is to step up and run for office yourself.
Today, I'm announcing my candidacy for the Chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.
The Democratic Party needs a vibrant, forward-thinking, long-term presence in every single state and we must be willing to contest every race at every level. We will only win when we show up and fight for the issues important to all of us.
Another integral part of our strategy must be cultivating the party's grassroots. Our long term success depends on all of us taking an active role in our party and in the political process, by volunteering, going door to door and taking the Democratic message into every community, and by organizing at the local level. After all, new ideas and new leaders don't come from consultants; they come from communities.
As important as organization is, it alone can no longer win us elections. Offering a new choice means making Democrats the party of reform—reforming America's financial situation, reforming our electoral process, reforming health care, reforming education and putting morality back in our foreign policy. The Democratic Party will not win elections or build a lasting majority solely by changing its rhetoric, nor will we win by adopting the other side's positions. We must say what we mean—and mean real change when we say it.
But most of all, together, we have to rebuild the American community. We will never succeed by treating our nation as a collection of separate regions or separate groups. There are no red states or blues states, only American states. And we must talk to the people in all of these states as members of one community.
That word—'values'—has lately become a codeword for appeasement of the right-wing fringe. But when political calculations make us soften our opposition to bigotry, or sign on to policies that add to the burden of ordinary Americans, we have abandoned our true values.
We cannot let that happen. And we cannot just mouth the words. Our party must speak plainly and our agenda must clearly reflect the socially progressive, fiscally responsible values that bring our party—and the vast majority of Americans—together.
All of this will require both national perspective and local experience. I know what it's like to lead hands-on at the state level and I know what it's like to run for national office.
With your help, this past election season, Democracy for America, already started creating the kind of organization the Democratic Party can be. This past election cycle, we endorsed over 100 candidates at all levels of government—from school board to U.S. Senate. We contributed almost a million dollars to nearly 750 candidates around the country and raised millions of dollars for many more candidates.
Together, we helped elect a Democratic governor in Montana, a Democratic mayor of Salt Lake County, Utah and an African American woman to the bench in Alabama. Fifteen of the candidates we endorsed had never run for office before—and won.
I also have experience building and managing a local party organization. My career started as Democratic Party chair in Chittenden County, Vermont. I then ran successful campaigns: for state legislature, lieutenant governor and then governor. In my 11-year tenure as governor, I balanced the state's budget every year.
I served as chair of both the National Governors' Association and the Democratic Governors' Association (DGA). And as chair of the DGA, I helped recruit nearly 20 governors that won—even in states like Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi.
All of these experiences have only reaffirmed what I know to be true. There is only one party that speaks to the hopes and dreams of all Americans. It is the party you have already given so much to. It is the Democratic Party.
We can win elections only by standing up for what we believe.
Thank you and I look forward to listening to your concerns in the weeks ahead.
Posted by Jim at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2004
Howard Dean: Democrats Cannot Give Up
By Gov. Howard Dean, M.D.
This is one in a series of weekly syndicated columns written by Governor Howard Dean.
The Democrats took a beating last week, at least at the Federal level. But while the re-election of the President may be a setback on many levels, especially from the point of view of fiscal conservatives like me; the Democratic Party is not in the middle of a catastrophe.
First, at the local grassroots level, Democrats fared better than the Republicans. We picked up two state legislatures, and a number of other offices, we had some near misses in a states where candidates who had never run before did very well, thus helping to build a strong bench for 2006.
While President Bush's campaign did a flawless job getting out their vote, and preparing ahead of time by putting anti-gay marriage amendments on the ballot in key states, the Democrats also did very well, building a record turnout. The surge in young voters, who overwhelmingly voted for John Kerry, is a good sign for the future.
Having said all this, the Democratic Party needs an overhaul. We will never win by trying to be "Republican-lite".
The Republican Party consistently undermines the American middle class, makes it tougher to get health insurance, makes college education less affordable, and runs up large deficits, while giving enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars to the biggest corporations in the world.
Two weeks before the election, the Bush administration passed a bill that was supported by too many Democrats, giving $139 billion away. The argument was that we couldn't win if we didn't support this legislation, which had lots of goodies for everyone. Well, the bill passed, and we lost anyway.
If you want to win, you have to fight, and you have to stand for something. I disagree with President Bush on almost every direction he takes us in, but he is a disciplined campaigner with an easy to understand message.
I think Democrats have a better message. First, we are fiscally responsible, and deficits hurt America. There is nothing moral about passing on our debts to our children. You cannot trust Republicans with your money. This week another increase in the debt ceiling is to be voted on, the Democrats need to stand fast for fiscal responsibility.
The President successfully turned a discussion about moral values into a discussion about gay marriage and abortion. I think moral values are also about how you treat poor people, how you treat those who are different, how you respect the opinion of others, and what you leave to your children. On those moral values, I think the Republicans lose. We need to talk about these values too.
Finally, we should also continue to do what I think the Kerry/Edwards team did well. Every American needs a job, every American needs affordable health care, every American needs a decent public education system, and every American wants a foreign policy consistent with the vision of American moral leadership, so we can be the moral leader, not just the military leader of the world.
Posted by Jim at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)