Just saw our ass-kicking Democratic National Committee chairman speak before a jam-packed audience in the basement of an Italian restuarant in Plymouth - an affluent Detroit suburb. So refreshing to hear from a guy who actually speaks from the heart - like Al Smith for the new Millenium (if you don't know who Al Smith is, look him up. Without him Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal might never have existed). Here's a pared down transcript of Gov. Dean's comments:
African-Americans vote with the Democrats 90% of the time. We need not to give African-Americans a place at the table. They need a place on the ticket!
(applause)
-snip-
Voters in this country have put aside the old paradigm. We've got to get over in this party thinking, well, you have a Hispanic district - we're going to find a Hispanic candidate. You've got an African-American district; you have to find an African-American candidate. We go to African-Americans and Hispanics and ask them for our vote, now it is our time to support their candidates in white district...
(applause)
Why do I talk like this? Why do I bring up uncomfortable subjects like race? I'll tell you why I do: because there's no such thing as a majority in the Democratic Party. I'm not a majority in the Democratic Party. There's only one - there is one majority in the Democratic Party and that's women.
(applause)
That means each of us is a minority. That means we only win if we stick together.
You know it's not the Iraq war that's the worst thing that the President did in misleading us. And it's not the huge budget deficits that are going to saddle our children with debt for years. You know what the worst thing is?
(man in audience: "Lies!")
No, that's not the worst thing either. That's bad but it's not the worst. The worst thing is that he has divided us. He has destroyed the American sense of community.
In 2002, he stood on the evening news on television, he used the word "quota" five or six times to talk about the University of Michigan affirmative program. Now the word "quota" - and every pollster in American knows and certainly Karl Rove does - is a race-coded word designed to frighten white folks into thinking somebody of color is going to take their place at a university or your job.
Then in 2004, he caused gay marriage to be put on the ballot in 11 states where gay marriage was ABSOLUTELY against the law! Now it seems to me he could have only one of two objectives. One, was to make gay marriage double-triple illegal...
(laughter)
...and the other was to scapegoat a group of Americans and point the finger at them in order that he could win the election.
(applause)
And in 2006, you know who it's gonna be? He's beating `em already - it's gonna be immigrants. Immigrants of every kind. He already said he wants to kick out every illegal immigrant that ever crossed the border. Do you know how much money that would cost? How likely do you think that would be when this administration can't find a 6'4" Saudi...
(laughter/applause)
He isn't serious about this. If he was he would have been enforcing the border laws to begin for the last five years. He isn't serious about it. He just wants another group to scapegoat - to point the finger at. Well, I've got news for him! Pete Wilson tried it in California in the 1990's and the Republicans haven't won the Hispanic vote since, and they aren't going to win it ever again in this country.
(applause)
While the Republicans with Tom Tancredo and Arnold Schwarzenegger were welcoming the minutemen to defend their borders and are scapegoating immigrants, we're going to say yes we will enforce the border laws, but we are in this together. All of us Americans are in this together. The important thing is not whether you're Arab American or Asian American or Hispanic American. The important thing is the American. That's what we are and we're in it together.
(applause)
Here's what we'll do for America. First thing is that we're going to have a strong national defense, which will rely on telling the truth to the American people, telling the truth to our soldiers, and telling the truth to our allies.
(applause)
Second, we will have jobs for Americans that will stay in America. We need a new industry in America and I think that industry is going to be renewable energy.
(applause)
We consume 25% of the energy, even though we're only five percent of the population. This is farmers growing corn and sugar to turn into ethanol. The Brazilians run their cars on ethanol. We run our cars on imported oil. These are union jobs at ethanol factories where they're producing this. These are union construction jobs doing weatherization on hundreds of thousands of homes owned by older people and poor people. We used to do that in Vermont. We'd set aside a couple of million dollars every year in the budget and have a corps of people running around putting in insulation in people's houses. It's much cheaper in the long run to weatherize somebody's house than to subsidize their fuel bill. Imagine if you did that for everybody in America who needed that help. We can do this and we will do it.
We need a health care system that does what 36 other countries do...
(applause)
Republicans say that's "socialized medicine." But I don't hear people over 65 complaining about socialized medicine for Medicare - except for all of the screwups that the Republicans...
(applause)
We need to bring health care to every single American. You know the last time I was out here, I was in Detroit talking to the ACLU. When I came into town the headline in both the Free Press and the Detroit News were that General Motors had just invested $2 billion in Canada. And why did they do it? Because they couldn't pay their health care bills in the United States of America! This is not some liberal socialist plan, this is a plan to save American jobs and keep jobs in America!
(applause)
We need a strong education system, because public education is what made it possible for America....
(applause)
...and we need to end the culture of corruption and we will end the culture of corruption that the President has brought into Washington.
(applause)
Not only did Scooter Libby's indictment mark the first time in 135 years that a sitting official in the White House had been indicted, but the chief procurement officer of the White House was arrested two weeks earlier for being involved in Jack Abramoff's scandal. The majority leader in the Senate, Bill Frist, is under investigation for insider trading - he'll probably go to the same place Martha Stewart did - only longer...
(laughter)
The Republican leader in the House has already been indicted, after he'd been reprimanded by the ethics committee three times. The deputy chief of staff to the President of the United States still has his security clearance even though he was identified by the special prosecutor as having been "official A" who leaked classified security information. Can you imagine? Can you imagine an administration that says they defend America, where they knowingly have on taxpayers salary inside the White House someone with security clearance to leak official secrets. What is the matter... NEVER say you're strong on defense until you fire Karl Rove!
(extended applause)
Congress needs to pass tough ethics laws that Democrats have to abide by as well as Republicans. Democrats, we need to stand up for this and have ethical reform in the Congress that...
(applause)
We need to ban voting machines that can't be recounted...
(applause)
You don't have to believe in conspiracy theories on the Internet. The General Accounting Office just came out...the General Accounting Office - about the most neutral, non-partisan group in America - came out with a big study showing in fact that it was easily possible to program these things to make them do whatever you want. That's not good for America. This is not a partisan Republican-Democrat issue. This is an American issue. American have to believe their votes count.
(applause)
The culture of corruption has stretched from Washington all the way to Michigan, and my wonderful research staff provided me with the following interesting information:
Thad Mccotter - $20,000 from Tom DeLay's PAC - voted with Tom DeLay 93% of the time.
John Schwarz - $10,000 from Tom DeLay's PAC - voted with him nearly 99% of the time.
Michael Rogers - $19,500 from Tom DeLay's PAC - votes with Tom DeLay 95% of the time.
Joseph Knollenberg - $10,192 from Tom DeLay's PAC - votes with Tom DeLay 96% of the time.
Candice Miller - $20,000 from Tom DeLay's PAC - voted with him 95% of the time.
They have refused to give back the money. These people may value, and they represent Tom DeLay's value, but they don't represent Michigan values....
(applause)
...We can do better than that and together America will do better than that.
(applause)
-snip-
They have these guys who get these enormous tax cuts at the expense of cutting the school lunch program.
What we have are millions of Americans who share our values. We need to speak about the morality of making sure that no child goes to bed hungry. We need to think about the morality of making sure people have health care. We need never run away from moral values, because we are the party of moral values...
(applause)
-snip-
If you stand up for who you are and never back down, if you stand with the people who made this party great, and never be afraid to stand up for what we believe in, if you go out and give your message and knock on doors and talk to people didn't vote the way you did and befriend them and talk to them about why you believe what you do, call talk show hosts, write letters to the editor so we can get our message out...If you do those things, I promise you, vote by vote, door by door, precinct by precinct, and election by election, we're going to take this country back!
(applause)
