''Dean on Jesus, balanced budgets''

"I'm going to tell them we're going to run in all 50 states, that the days of running in 18 states are over, and that we're going to help them in all races, down to the state and local level. I'm going to tell them we're going to build machines in their states with their own people, not with imported people. I'm going to tell them Democrats need not shy away from the values debate. I will tell them that the Democratic Party is going to have a national message, and it's not going to come from the top down but from them up. We're going to look at what we have in common, not what divides us. The people of Minnesota and Arkansas see a lot more things the same than they see differently." This is the man - Dean, I mean - who said with typical self-wounding that he wanted to be the Democratic presidential candidate who got votes from Southern guys with Confederate flags in their pickups. "I'd say that differently now," he told me. "But I do think Democrats need to be the party to get white AND black votes, and I think we will be."-from the column by John Brummett in the Pahrump Valley Times (AR). Dean talked to him by phone in advance of his trip to Arkansas.