"Howard Dean brought an impassioned message and his apparent rock star status to Salt Lake City Saturday afternoon, drawing a crowd that started lining up at 8 a.m. for his noon speech.
Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a former candidate for president, told an overflow crowd of about 600 people at Westminster College that the way for Democrats to win in 2006 and beyond "is not to become a pale copy of the Republican Party" but to stand up for what they believe in.
What Democrats believe in is what most Americans — even Utahns — believe in, he said. Even on controversial issues, he insisted.
"We will not divide people in order to win elections," Dean said, arguing that President Bush's strategy of encouraging ballot initiatives against same-sex marriage in 11 states in 2004 was an attempt to "find people to scapegoat."
In 2008, Dean predicted, the scapegoat will be immigrants.
"We can't do this to ourselves," said Dean, a physician who served five terms as governor of Vermont. "It is immoral to divide Americans against each other. We are one family." People need to think of themselves as Americans first "and some category" second, he said.
The party chairman's reputation, and last year's brouhaha at Utah Valley State College over the appearance of filmmaker Michael Moore, apparently is what prompted a disclaimer "Fact Sheet Regarding Howard Dean Visit to Westminster College," put together by the school's office of communication. The fact sheet noted that because the speaking engagement fit into Dean's pre-existing travel plans, the appearance did not cost the students or the school administration anything. The event was co-sponsored by the Associated Students of Westminster College, the Utah Democratic Party and Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon, Dean's cousin.
Dean filled the school's Emma Eccles Jones Conservatory Concert Hall, as well as an additional overflow auditorium and an overflow classroom. Additional people stood in the concert hall lobby and listened to the speech via loudspeakers.
Dean supporter Cindy DeRoda, a Spanish teacher at Juan Diego High School, was first in line, having arrived at 8 a.m. She said she likes Dean for his early opposition to the war in Iraq, and "his willingness to tell the truth." Following Dean's speech, DeRoda walked over to the overflow auditorium to get a second look at her hero. Inching her way toward the stage after Dean spoke briefly to the overflow crowd, she shyly asked him to autograph the back page of a novel she had brought along to read during the long wait in line.
Dean's original speech had been presented in the overflow auditorium on a large screen, and the audio wasn't exactly in sync with Dean's lips. But that didn't bother Lauren Mermejo and her friends, who found Dean passionate and clear about his beliefs. "He tugs at my heart strings," Mermejo said.
America cannot succeed, Dean told his audience, unless the president and others reach out to the people who disagree with them. He urged his audience to knock on doors and engage their neighbors in dialogue. "Vote by vote, door by door, election by election, year by year, we will take this country back for the people who built it," he said.
The people who voted for Bush in 2004 and cited "moral issues" as the reason, are most worried not about abortion or same-sex marriage, he said, but about the TV programs their children are exposed to, the meth labs in their neighborhoods and the fact that their children come home to empty houses because both parents need to work to make ends meet. Most Americans, he said, want universal health insurance and a public education system that is not controlled by "unfunded mandates" like No Child Left Behind. Most Americans, he said, did not want the federal government to interfere in Terri Schiavo's death.
He urged his audience to purchase "democracy bonds" at www.democratic.org. The DNC's goal, he said, is to get 1 million Americans to buy a $20 bond each month, "if you want ordinary people to run America."-from the story in today's Deseret Morning News (UT).
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