Governor Dean,
I'm glad you are asking for some suggestions and hope that the ones made here reach you.
My wife and I just got back from a Glendale, CA Democratic Club fundraiser and Democratic Candidates Forum. I spoke on your behalf at this event. This is the speech I made and it goes to the very heart of why we are with you now.
We are trying to get our act together to reform this grassroots effort out here in California. Ultimately, supporters like Maddie and me will get involved locally and show the effects of this campaign for years to come. It'll be many times more effective if we have a leader who gives us focus and legitimacy as we reform. Each day that passes we lose the focused support. Please find some way to help us. http://www.deanport.com/national/
The text of my speech:
==============================
Let me start by saying we who support Howard Dean are not done trying to influence this election and the Democratic Party. While not actively campaigning for the nomination we hope to gain delegates and influence at our party?s convention in July. We need your votes on March 2nd to do this. Your voice is your vote and we ask you to let your heart speak on that day.
My wife, Maddie and I had never been involved in politics before nor given money to a candidate. No politician in our lifetime had ever given us a reason to. Here we are today though. Both of us having given speeches about what we feel with such passion and knowing truth. Both having gotten involved such that our every weekend for the past 10 months has been about Dean in some shape or form. Our story is repeated thousands of people over in this country.
Now that Dean has stopped actively campaigning for the nomination, we all feel a sense of sadness and disappointment. Were it any other campaign, we, Dean?s supporters would have gone our separate ways and our work would be done. But this never was just any other campaign.
Teddy Roosevelt said:
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
~Theodore Roosevelt
Dean?s supporters are not finished yet because our campaign was about something larger than Howard Dean.
We are learning that change takes time. It cannot rest on an idealized perspective of how an electorate should vote, of how politicians should act or how the media should do its job. It can only rest on pure political power generated by the hard work of focused objectives and the relational community effort to build the leaders required to rally our fellow citizens to this work. We must ground this movement more strongly and we will.
By getting involved locally in our communities and creating meaningful results, we can give our electorate a reason to believe their vote matters. We can lead by example. We can hold our politicians accountable for the things that improve lives in our own communities. We can run for leadership positions within the Democratic Party, Democratic Clubs, School Boards, City Council?.and yes we can run for State as well as National level representation. We will do these things so that long after 2004, the impact of the Dean campaign will be felt in this nation. We do have the power and we do understand it is our responsibility.
Martin Luther King said, "Our lives begin to end, the day we become silent about things that matter."
?.{SILENCE}?.
WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED in 2004!!
The Democratic Party has always represented a positive force for change in this great land! In recent years it has lost its way. Howard Dean has reminded us of what we stand for again. It was Dean that brought down the house at the California Democratic Convention a year ago.
He said then:
?I have never lost an election, but my career has never been about winning elections. My career -- and this campaign -- is about changing the Democratic Party. It's about changing America. And this campaign is about taking back the White House so we can have health insurance, so we can have a balanced budget, and so we can have an inclusive society where everybody believes in each other and believes in America.
?I want my country back! I want our country back!?
He never wavered from that message. We who supported Howard Dean saw an honest, sincere and forceful advocate for change and empowerment of our country?s people. How remarkable it was that so many disaffected Democrats, Independents and even Republicans flocked to his campaign. People who had given up on participating in politics found voice to their frustration and anger. Found hope??they found a reason to get involved again!
It was Dean himself that said this campaign is more than issue differences on health care, tax cuts, national security, jobs, the environment and our economy. It?s about who we are as Americans. Never had any of us heard a politician show such depth in understanding what we all were searching for. It?s the essential question we all ask ourselves at one time or another.
WHO ARE WE? ?. WHAT DO WE BELIEVE IN?..... WHAT MATTERS WHEN WE LOOK INTO OUR HEART OF HEARTS?
At Meet Ups every month, we gathered together to ask what that meant and act in community to help our advocate for change gain the nomination. For you who supported Dean at one time or another I want to ask you to think back to your first Meet Up.
How it felt to come out of that lonely place of disconnection from community?.community that we felt so powerless to preserve and protect from this dishonest, corporate owned, administration and its right wing allies in Congress, the Courts, and the media. To realize that we WERE NOT ALONE! To have someone believing in us.
You have the power??To reclaim our nation?s destiny
You have the power??To rid Washington of the politics of money
You have the power??To make right as important as might
You have the power??To give Americans a reason to vote again
You have the power??To restore our nation?s fiscal sanity and bring jobs back to our people
You have the power??To fulfill Harry Truman?s dream and bring Health Insurance to every American
You have the power??To give us a foreign policy consistent with American values again.
You have the power??To take back the Democratic Party
We have the power to unite behind our nominee for President in 2004 and that is what we will do.
Thank you very much!
Posted by pbriggsiam at February 22, 2004 03:30 AM