''Dean wows Dems with speech''

"GREAT FALLS - Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean called for national health insurance for all Americans, prompting Montana Democrats to whoop and holler on Saturday night.

"This country needs to join the British, the French, the German, the Japanese, the Irish, the Italians, the Swedes, the Norwegians," Dean, a physician and former Vermont governor, said at the dinner speech at the Montana Democratic Party's Officers Convention. "We ought to have health insurance for every man, woman and child in America."

The crowd of 450 rose en masse to cheer on Dean's call for national health insurance. They yelled so loudly during the speech that Dean said later he should have started his 2004 presidential campaign in Montana instead of Iowa.

The Rocky Mountain West will provide the winning margin for the Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, Dean predicted. He has spent the past week in this region, flying to Montana on Saturday from Utah. "You know why I think we're going to win in the Rocky Mountain West?" he asked. "Because Republicans have forgotten who they are, and we've remembered all of a sudden who we are."

Dean praised the Montana Democratic Party's 2004 electoral gains - electing Brian Schweitzer as the party's first governor since Ted Schwinden left office in 1989, controlling the state Senate for the first time since 1993 and achieving a tie in the Montana House that Republicans had dominated since 1991.

At one point, Dean poked fun at himself and his famous scream last year that some say doomed his 2004 presidential race. "If we can do that in Montana with no help from the DNC, surely we can win in Colorado, in Arizona and Nevada and New Mexico - not to mention Michigan and Ohio and California," he shouted with a big smile on his face. "Never believe what you read in the press. We're might as well have some fun here."

New Montana Democratic Party Chairman Dennis McDonald, of Melville, who had earlier expressed reservations about Dean and said he didn't want photograph taken with him, had a different view after hearing the DNC chairman's speech. "I loved the positive speech, and I loved the positive message," McDonald said. He added that he told Dean he was honored to get his picture taken with him.

Others attending the dinner also praised Dean's speech.

He made it clear the Democrats really are party of moral values," said Liberty County Democratic Chairman Don Marble, a Chester attorney. "He brings a level of excitement and hope to people about health care, funding education and protecting the environment."-from the story in the Billings Gazette (MT).