"Wednesday night may have been one of those rare occasions when a crowd was already boiling before Howard Dean gave a speech. Not that the chairman of the Democratic National Committee calmed them down. He left a group of more than 700 people cheering after his short talk in the Orpheum Theatre on State Street.
This was after state Democrats barely avoided a fiasco, having rented only the theater lobby - capacity less than 150 - for the short-notice "grassroots" fundraiser. With many supporters hoping to stop in for the speech on their way to Concert on the Square, and Dean's drawing appeal among the party members, the lobby quickly filled before 5 p.m. A line of perspiring faithful outside snaked to Johnson Street, and the mood was restless, if not outright restive.
Joe Wineke, the state Democratic Party chairman, himself red-faced and sweating, surveyed the packed lobby, heard a suggestion to move to the theater, and saw theater owner Henry Doane give the nod that it could be done. This pleased Joe and Sue Schaut of Fort Atkinson, who were so hot and upset about the conditions after spending $50 to get in, they had moved quickly to the bar and said it was almost as if it had been organized by Republicans. Doane, who earlier had wondered aloud at the wisdom of just using the lobby, was able to evacuate 21 people who had paid to watch the movie, "Enron," and the Democrats' show went on. (The movie- goers got their money back and two free passes each. Only one complained.)
The compact, gray-haired Dean, 56, with rolled-up sleeves, red tie and active eyebrows, is the former governor of Vermont, a physician, and a failed candidate for president. Although a certain bluntness in speech has attracted recent attention, his message to an eclectic Madison crowd Wednesday night was encouraging without name-calling or histrionics, and was critical of his own party as well as Republicans.
"If only the Wisconsin primary had been first," Dean joked, when greeted with a standing ovation after the crowd was warmed up by Wineke, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, and Gov. James Doyle. Dean promised that the party was changing and would be doing things differently in Wisconsin and in the country, starting with putting local people in charge, a promise that once again brought cheers. He also said the Democrats can't succeed under old strategies: "We cannot run an 18-state campaign if we are going to be a national party."
"We're going to be everywhere now, and you are going to run the show," he said. And, while saying the Democrats are going to define themselves, and not let the Republicans do it, he noted that the "positive agenda of reform and change" bears some resemblance to a Republican platform from the 1970s: "You cannot trust Republicans with the taxpayers' money. It's borrow and spend, borrow and waste."
He got loud and long cheers after describing an abortion policy as "not pro-abortion, I don't know anyone who is pro- abortion," but as favoring abortions to be "safe, legal and rare."
His criticism of President Bush focused on "moral values," and he said "our moral value is to honesty in government," before reciting an anti- Republican campaign stump speech list of accusations, including ethics violations, concealed costs (in health costs) and prevarication (about Iraq). "(Bush) doesn't care about freedom. He only cares about giving it to the Iraqis and taking it away from us," said Dean, in probably his most pointed comment.
He said his Democratic Party had failed to connect with working, ordinary people of the country because it didn't understand what they were worried about: jobs, health care and moral values.
"We don't talk to those folks," said Dean. And when the Democrats do respond, "the people hear that the Democrats want to raise their kids for them." "The Democrats think that a message is a list of issues," but, Dean said, it is really "principles and values. "The (people) are losing control of their children and families and we have to speak to them," said Dean.
Dean shook hands with the front row of supporters ("I'm glad you're back," shouted one), posed for photographs, listened to personal praise and some complaints, and didn't talk with reporters. He then was escorted out a side door of the theater, just in time for the beginning of the Concert on the Square."-from the story in The Wisconsin State Journal.
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