Howard Dean invigorates Montana Democrats

Howard Dean spoke to a gathering of Montana Democrats over the weekend and, minus any shouts or screams, still managed to give kudos and sustenance to Big Sky activists while upsetting the D.C. Democrat 'lords.'

Dean, with his message of empowering and supporting each and every Democratic state party, 'gets it,' while too many top-level Democrats desperately want to retain 'top down' control from their D.C. bastion.

Knowing what is takes to win and implementing such is job one for Dean. Here's hoping the other Demo powers-that-be rein in their vast egos and put the Party first.

Dean wows Dems with speech
July 17, 2005
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON
Billings Gazette State Bureau

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.

He suggested President Bush and Republicans have abandoned their traditional values of small government, sound fiscal management and moral leadership. Democrats have seized these issues, he said.

"We will promise you a balanced budget, and we will get government out of people's lives," Dean said.

"Republicans say that they are a party of small government, just small enough to fit inside Terri Schiavo's bedroom," Dean said. "Republicans say they're in favor of small government, but they don't mind telling women what they can or cannot do with their health care.

"Whatever happened to the rugged individualism in the Republican Party?" Dean asked. "It is very much alive and well in the Democratic Party."

He blasted the fiscal policies of his recent GOP predecessors for not balancing the federal budget over the past 35 years.

"Only Democrats balance the budget," Dean said. "You cannot trust Republicans with your taxpayer money. Borrow and spend. Borrow and waste. That's what the Republican Party stands for. We will do better."

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.

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