Howard Dean on The Situation Room
For anyone else who, like me, missed seeing Howard Dean on The Situation Room last night, here is the transcript of that segment from CNN:
Democrats are savoring their off-year election victories this week. And they're now eagerly looking ahead to next year's key congressional elections. That's what they say. After the votes were in, I spoke with the former presidential candidate and current Democratic National Committee chairman, Howard Dean. I asked him if he's worried about the possibility that his party could blow this opportunity before next November.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HOWARD DEAN, CHAIRMAN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: It's always out there. The Republicans are really battling this headwind of corruption and incompetence and Iraq and all these budget problems and jobs, high oil prices. They got their work cut out for us. What we need to do is come across with a message that people will appreciate.
One is that we can do better in America if we're together. And we will be. Two, we need a healthcare system that will work for everybody. We want jobs that will stay in America if we're going to have a strong public education system. If we stick with that message and reach out to people and talk about our values, we'll be the majority party 2006.
BLITZER: Here in THE SITUATION ROOM, I interviewed New Mexico's governor, Bill Richardson. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. BILL RICHARDSON (D), NEW MEXICO: What we need to do as Democrats is we have to enunciate positive policies. We can't be negative on the president. There's plenty of problems that the Republicans have caused. At the same time, unless we as Democrats have a policy on national security, on Iraq, on defense, on healthcare, on making our schools better, on a lot of national issues, the public's going to stay where it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Do you think he makes a good point there?
DEAN: I think we need to have a positive message. We're going to have jobs that stay in America. A big energy policy. Reducing our enormous fuel plans. Secondly, we're going to have a health care system that will cover everybody. Like all 40 other industrialized countries.
BLITZER: Let me ask a question on healthcare, how do you plan on doing with the Republicans in control of the House, the Senate, the White House. How are the democrats going to make that happen?
DEAN: That's why Americans need to put Democrats back in the Congress and the White House. So we can make that happen. We we're going lay out a positive agenda. And if people like it they'll support us, just like they supported Tim Kaine and Jon Corzine.
BLITZER: Here's the new "Washington Post" ABC News poll that you saw a lot of bad numbers for the president. When it comes to a party with strong leaders only 35 percent of those who responded say Democrats had a party with strong leaders, 51 percent thought the Republicans have strong leaders. That seems to be a serious problem that the Democratic party has.
DEAN: I don't think it's a serious problem. We have planned to do deal with that. And I think we'll win in the end because the Republicans don't have any leadership. They led us in the wrong direction; strong leaders harming America is not a prescription for a winning message.
We're going to do some fundamentally different things. We're going to have to put ethics back in Congress again and ethics in our government again. Second thing we're going to do is talk about the values that we hold as Democrats. We think it's a moral value that kids don't go to bed hungry at night. We think it's a moral value that if you work hard, you have health insurance and a pension that you can look forward to.
Fundamental changes in America. We're going the wrong direction in this country. I think we can go in the right direction.
BLITZER: You want to maintain the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia. But New York City, arguably the most Democratic city in the country, the bluest city in the country, Bloomberg gets almost 60 percent of the vote, the Republican. Fernando Ferrer, 39 percent of the vote. What happens in a big city like New York?
DEAN: Well, first of all he spent $100 million; that buys a lot of votes. I think Mike spent about $147 per vote. Second is a great quote I saw in an AP story that said, "I don't really think he's a real Republican. If he was, I couldn't really vote for him in good conscience." And I think there are a lot people in New York that haven't figured out that Mike's a Republican yet.
BLITZER: So you're not worried about the trend in New York City that he gets reelected, the Republican?
DEAN: No. I think the most important election -- there are two really important elections. Obviously, Jon Corzine a great person and he's going to be a great governor. From the national point of new, having George Bush land in Virginia 24 hours before the election and having Tim Kaine win overwhelmingly is a big national message, not just a local message. And defeating all of Governor Schwarzenegger's initiatives of California, people are sick of what's going in California. They're frankly sick of what's going on in Washington. They want a change and we're going to give them the change in 2006.
BLITZER: Listen to what Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas said on Monday on the Senate floor. Because I keep hearing this from other republicans. Raising, in effect, the patriotism of Democrats. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: Merely venting angry without proposing alternative solutions is not the work of serious people. It's a sad commentary on our public discourse, when politicians seek to use the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform to advance a political agenda.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas made basically the same point. And other Republicans are raising that now. How worried are you that they're coming after you, you Democrats and raising this issue of you're undermining the moral, you're endangering the troops by raising questions about the war in Iraq?
DEAN: There's only one person that's endanger to the troops and that was the president when he sent them to war without telling the truth to the American people.
They have some nerve with some 256 brave Americans dead to even begin to speak like that and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
The truth is, the Democratic Party is never going to send troops aboard without equipping them properly before they go. It's a disgrace, for troops families to have to have bake sales to raise the money to buy the adequate equipment to protect them.
Frankly the people who are running this war from the White House, don't know what they're doing. Most of them haven't served a day in their life, in uniform abroad. We shouldn't be there. We are there now. It's going to be up to the Democrats to figure out how to get out of there in one piece and saving the respect of the United States of America. We will respect not just the United States of America; we'll respect the troops and we'll do it. First of all, by telling the troops and telling their parents why they're going, in an honest way.
BLITZER: We're out of time, Governor. Thanks very much for joining us.
DEAN: Thanks very much.
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