Howard Dean at the Washington Democrats Crab Feed

By LHfromSeattle
Transcript of Air America's abbreviated broadcast on AM1090, Sat 2/25/06 8:15 am, of their recording of Gov. Howard Dean's speech at the Washington State Democrats Annual Crabfeed Fundraiser in Olympia, WA 02/20/2006. (Any errors are accepted as the responsibility of transcriber.)

Gov. Dean is introduced by Dwight Pelz, Chair of Washington State Democrats:
Like many of you, a couple of years ago, I heard Howard Dean. I'd never heard this man before. He was running for president of the United States. He inspired me: Howard Dean said "I want my country back." (Cheers) In 1960, John Kennedy asked "What can you do for your country?"

Then 20 years later, Ronald Reagan said "Are you better off?" The decline of greatness in our country had begun. In this last election, the President of the United States talked about an ownership society--which valued the haves over the have nots. I tell you, from 1964 to 1980 to 2004 something has gone terribly wrong in this country -- and I want my country back

The person with the intelligence and the integrity and the leadership to help us take our country back is Governor Howard Dean, the chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Cheers, cheers, cheers. "Howard, Howard, Howard, Howard" from crowd.

Dean: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Wow. more cheers....

Thank you, thank you, thank you. My goodness. If only we'd started out in Washington state instead of Iowa, right? More cheers. Thank you.

Person in crowd: "2008!" More cheering.

Dean: This is great! My goodness.

Needless to say I'm delighted to be here and I appreciate the invitation. I particularly appeciate the fact that, once again, Washington state's going to be a key part in taking back America for the people who built it.

But there's a couple things we need to do this year.

First is to make sure that Maria Cantwell is reelected to the United States senate. Had it not been for Senator Cantwell, the right-wing -- led by the president of the United States -- would be drilling in Alaska right now. Maria Cantwell singlehandedly headed the effort to stop that from happening. We owe her a great deal of thanks.

The truth is the president claimed we are addicted to oil. He's right -- but his answer is 'more, more, more'. We can do better than that, and Senator Cantwell knows just how to do that. The fact is that Senator Cantwell the point person in the US Senate on energy independence.

The way the United States is going to develop more jobs, to fix all those things the Republicans have done wrong in the last 5 years, is to create a new industry. And that new industry is energy independence, so that we can have the construction jobs in order to retrofit American houses and businesses, and make them energy efficient. And we can have manufacturing jobs to produce equipment that's energy efficient -- for wind, solar and clean coal technology. We can do this, and Maria Cantwell right now is leading the fight in the US Senate to do that.

There is another reason we need Maria Cantwell. 793,000 people in this state do not have health insurance. The Democrats believe that every American ought to have health insurance , just like 36 other countries in the world -- and if you want, I'll name every one of them!

cheers Go Howard!

The final reason we need Maria Cantwell back in the US Senate is because only Democrats balance the budget. You can't trust Republicans with your money. Borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend -- you can't trust the Republicans. Not once in 40 years have the Republicans balanced the budget in their presidencies. We can do better than that. And Maria Cantwell knows how to balance budgets.

We need Maria Cantwell as your Senator. Unlike her opponent, Maria Cantwell did not take a 20-million-dollar gold parachute when he was axing 3,000 people from their jobs. We can do better than that. Maria Cantwell will do better than that.

There's a wonderful young woman up here whose button I'm wearing -- named Darcy Burner. Darcy, where are you? Darcy Burner comes forward. The next Congresswomen from the state of Washington! Because she has a business background, so she knows how to balance budgets. Dave Reichert (opponent) voted for the biggest deficit in America -- you can't trust Republicans with your money.

Unlike Dave Reichert, Darcy Burner is not going to take $20 thousand from Tom Delay's special interest PAC. Unlike Dave Reichert, Darcy Burner will not vote 97% of the time with Tom Delay. We can do better than that. If you want somebody you can trust in government, Darcy Burner is the next Congresswoman from the State of Washington.

Because the Democratic party belives in open and honest goverment. We will restore integrity to the government of the United States of America.

There is a third thing that we need to do this year. And that is to prepare ourselves for the 2008 gubenatorial election. You are incredible lucky to have Christine Gregoire. While the national budget is hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit because of Republican leadership -- quote unquote -- you have a governor here, Christine Gregoire, who has a billion dollar surplus. And wouldn't let the Republicans give it away. She spent it on what people needed, in eastern Washington and western Washington: which is roads, and transportation, and job opportunities, and education. We are lucky to have Chris Gregoire as governor of the State of Washington. And she stood up for the civil rights of every single American when the Republicans wouldn't do it. We won't divide the Americans in this state; we won't divide those hard working Americans who serve our country in the military with dignity. Gay or straight, we will stand up for all Americans.

There's been a lot of talk -- mostly by nervous newspaper editors, and right-wing pundits, that Demcrats don't have a message. The Democrats don't have a message?

Well, I can tell you what our message is in 25 seconds. Got a pen or pencil or tape recorder? It is not enough to just criticize the president. We don't need to do that any more -- he's at 39% in the polls! People know he couldn't manage Katrina, can't manage the budget, can't manage Iraq, didn't tell the truth to us, again and again and again; managed to mess up everybody's drug benefits. We don't have to go through all that. The people already know that in this country.

But what they want to know is: What are we going to do? Here's what we're going to do:

1. We will restore honesty and integrity to the government of United States of America again.

2. We will stand up for America and have a strong national defense -- and that defense will depend on telling the truth to our citizens, our soldiers, and our allies before we commit American troops.

3. We want American jobs that will stay in America and that means a new industry: energy independence to create manufacturing jobs, and to create construction jobs and to modernize America and to get rid of our dependence on foreign oil.

4. We want a health care system, just like the health care systems in 36 other countries which do provide health coverage,to every single American. We can do that, and the Republicans won't.

5. We want a strong public education system so that we can have optimism and opportunity back in America again.

I think that's a prety good message. I think that's a pretty good platform to run on. And to run against Republicans on.

Now let's look at their record. They sent millions of jobs to other countries. They've run up the largest deficit in the history of America. Again, and again, and they all vote for it. (Crowd: booooo.) They nowhave the distinction of presiding over the largest number of uninsured Americans in the last 50 years. And now they have passed No Child Left Behind, which essentially puts the government in charge of your school systems and takes the money away from it. And frankly, by 2013 every public school in America will be classified as a failing school.

They have not told the truth about why our troops are in Iraq. They did not tell the truth about when they knew about the devastation of hurricane Katrina. They did not tell the truth about how much the Medicare part D was going to cost. They have not told the truth about the money -- and about how much time --Abramoff spend in the White House.

They have not told the truth. It is time for them to go. more cheers

We're not done yet! This is the fun part. We get to have some unbelieveable crab and salmon, and all these good things, and come in here, and hoot and holler and feel good about ourselves. This is not the hard work (Noise from crowd talking.)

Dean: That's because you left the bar open, Dwight.

Dwight Pelz: Absolutely.

Dean: This is not the hard work. You know what I need you to do? You've come here, and you've raised a record amount of money for the state party. And you know what else I need you to do? I need you to go home and talk to your friends who didn't vote the way we vote. I need you to talk to people who didn't agree with us. Because that's how we're going to win elections.

When I took over the chairmanship of this party, we were running presidental election campaigns in 20 states. You can't be a national party if you're not in all 50 states. Today we're in all 50 states applause

On our payroll in Washington state and Oregon, but also in Missisippi and Alabama and Utah and Alabama, we have organizers. Everywhere we're going to stand up for what it means to be a Democrat. I know we're not going to win in Misssissippi in the 2008 presidential race, but we're not going to to win in 2028 unless we're willing to stand up now and go down there right now. The news is good for the Democratic party. The news is good.

We're interested in getting MORE people to vote. I understand the Chairman of the Replubican party was here last week bringing the best vote-suppressor in America right here to Washington state. We want elections that work, and you can't trust the Republicans with voting machines. We want honest voting machines that count the votes.

So, there's good news tonight from Mississippi where they've had 4 special elections in the last few months for the House of Representatives in Mississippi, and the Democrats won all 4 of them -- in Mississippi.

There's good news tonight from Alabama, where we won. The first Democratic, African-American woman won the mayorship of Mobile, Alabama, in the most conservative part of the state. There is good news from Alabama tonight.

And there's good news from Utah, the state that gave gave George Bush the largest margin in the presidential race. My cousin, an Irish Catholic Democrat -- which makes him a triple minority in Utah -- is the mayor of the 2nd-largest jurisdiction of the largest municipality in Utah, Salt Lake County, one million people.

If we can win in Mississippi, and we can win in Alabama, and win in Utah, Democrats can win everywhere in America.

And the way we're going to win is to talk about our values. I was just at a meeting of college Democrats, and a guy got up and he said to me, 'I'm from rural Washington. Mostly farmers and small business people and Christians. How do we reach out to rural Washington?'

First of all, you reach out by showing up. And today, the Washington State party is in eastern Washington, talking to folks about why they should vote for Democrats. But that is not enough.

We need to speak about who we are. Because Democrats think and vote and select candidates from here (points to head) and most of Americans think and vote and select candidates from here (points to heart), and we need to speak from our hearts if we're going to win elections. That's not hard to do.

The truth is, there's a lot we have in common with the folks who didn't vote with us in the last election. And what we have in common is our values. For example, the vast majority of Americans believe it is immoral to let children go to bed hungry at night -- while the Republicans are cutting the school lunch program.

Two-thirds of Americans believe it is immoral to not have health insurance for every single American -- while the Replicans are cutting back on Medicaid and making a mess of Social Security and Medicare.

60% of Americans believe it's immoral for the federal government to tell a woman what to do about her reproductive health care. We ask the question just that way. I am tired of having the President of the United States say we're the pro-abortion party. I served on the board of Planned Parenthood for 5 years. I don't know anyone who's pro-abortion. Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal -- I don't know anyone who's pro-abortion. We are not the pro-abortion party. We think abortion should be rare. The difference is that we believe that that kind of a decision is best left up to an individual and her family -- NOT to Tom Delay or Dick Cheney to tell people what to do with their health care.

We have our values. We don't like big government. We don't like big government telling individual women what to do. We don't like big government just 'small enough' -- as the Republicans say -- to fit in Terry Shiavo's bedroom. This is a country where individuals get to make their own decisions. Mr. President, take your big government back to Crawford, Texas and let us make up our own minds about our personal lives. much applaluse.

I get tired of being lectured to about morality by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly (laughs).

And I get tired of being told by the President that we're not strong on defense. Look at the president's record on defense -- he's been there for 5 years. North Korea still has nuclear weapons, Iran is about to get them, and he still can't find Osama bin Laden, and our borders are still not secure. We will do better than that.

But there are some things that we will NOT do. Immigration: The president -- excuse me, Karl Rove -- decided that immigration is the hot button. Just like they scape-goated African Americans and Latinos in 2002, when they talked about quotas. Just like they scape-goated gay Americans in 2004, when they put gay marriage on the ballot in 13 states, in which states where gay marriage was already absolutely against the law. Either he wanted to make gay marriage double-triple illegal, or he wanted to scapegoate another group of loyal Americans.

And I don't think we should support the president's guest worker program, because guest worker programs are indentured servitude. Here's how it works. You come from someplace else, and you get to work for a company, and if you ask them for a nickel more, or an extra bathroom break, they can send you back to wherever you came from. You know what that does: That doesn't do anything for the person who came here from somewhere else, because there's nothing at the end of the trail for you. And it doesn't do anything for everybody's who's already here, because it depresses wages, because if they can get you for $5.15, or even less, because you don't dare complain about what you're being paid, they can lower everybody's wages.

We are not going to have an immigration bill like the president's. We are going to enforce the borders, we are going to support unification of families and respect people. We will not allow non-governmental officials enforcing our boards. We will not divide this country by immigration status. We will not divide this country by ethic origin, we will not divide this country by sexual origin, we will not divide this country by race, not by income.

Together America will do better. And together we will make American better. Together we will rise up as Democrats, and together we will take this country back for the people who built it. Thank you very much.

No, Thank You Howard Dean

Note: After talking with other people who were at the event, we all agreed that the Air America radio broadcast had cut some of Howard's speech. Like the part about No vigilantes on our borders. Maybe 10% here and there. To fit into their alloted time? I do feel they should have mentioned they cut some out. Also I started leaving out the notes about applause, because of course we were applauding whenever HD paused!

-- LH.

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