Chairman Howard Dean will be the keynote speaker at this year's Montana Democratic Party Convention in Great Falls, this Saturday evening July 16th. Making his second trip to Montana in as many months, Governor Dean is pushing democrats big time in the Rocky Mountain West.
"I'm spending my whole week in the West," Dean said. "I think the Rocky Mountain states, as Governor Schweitzer has proved, are states that can be won."
Tickets for the 6:30PM dinner are $35 in advance or $40 at the door at the Heritage Inn Convention Center on Fox Farm Road in Great Falls. Call 406-442-9520 for advance tickets.
More after the fold.
Today's Billings Gazette has
more. Dean has watched Schweitzer's gubanatorial campaign closely:
Dean praised Schweitzer's 2004 campaign as "spectacular." Schweitzer set an example for other Democrats nationally to follow as a candidate and as a governor, he said.
"I would encourage them to look at how he won," Dean said. "It's by saying what you think, not be afraid of saying what you believe. It's about managing a budget. It's about having a connection with ordinary citizens."
Dean is also aware of the importance of the Native American vote in the West:
Another emphasis, he said, is the importance of the American Indian vote. He said he hopes to meet with Eloise Cobell, a Blackfeet Indian who is the lead plaintiff of a billion-dollar lawsuit against the U.S. Interior Department, which plaintiffs contend mishandled Indian trust lands.
"We are actively pursuing Native American votes," Dean said, adding that his former political organization, Democracy in America, backed a number of Indian candidates. "In Western states, Native American votes are absolutely essential."
Montana has more Native American legislators, eight, than any other state. This is due primarily to the 2000 census redistricting, in which many reservations got their own state house districts, rather than being gerrymandered into multiple districts, much to the dismay of republicans.
It should be a great time with the Good Doctor, who I have failed to see multiple times. Every since my winter of discontent in 2003, when I was grimly watching CSPAN as an almost unknown candidate pounded the podium at the California State Democratic Convention and said "I want my country back!", I've been a deaniac.
In August of 2003, I ordered my Sleepless Summer Tour t-shirt and prepared to go to the Dean speech in downtown Seattle. Then work intervened. A coworker quit in middle of preparation for a big training event. Rather than having most of my part of the work done, suddenly, there was 70% more work to do. On that roasting August weekend, I was tied to my computer keyboard, cursing work, my former coworker and the broiling late summer weather as I checked into the DFA blog periodically to get first hand reports.
Finally, I called my sister in Seattle. "Listen, I have electronic tickets to the Howard Dean speech in downtown Seattle. You should go in my place, the guy's an amazing speaker," I said over the phone. "Who's he?" she replied, "It's too hot to leave the house anyway." I hung up in frustration and went back to writing the accursed training plan.
Two days later, the phone rings. "My friends went to this amazing speech by Howard Dean," my sister says, "Why didn't you encourage me more to go?" I grind my teeth in frustration.
Then DFA reports that Dean will stop in Spokane on that Monday, just five hours from my home (four hours at Warp Speed). I write furiously trying to beat my Wednesday deadline and sneak in a Spokane trip, but to no avail. I will have to miss this Dean event as well, so I put on my Sleepless Summer t-shirt and continue to pound the keys.
Meanwhile on that Monday morning, Governor Dean reaches Spokane and enters a room with a couple of hundred people. As he launches into his stump speech, people wave at him to stop. The meeting room is next door they say, and they are waiting to get in, but it is already filled with more than five hundred people. Damn I should have gone.
It has been a long wild ride with the Good Doctor, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. This Saturday night should be great!