Transcript of Chairman Dean's Remarks in Chicago

[MaineDem]

I'm not sure this has been posted before. My apologies if it's a dupe.

Transcript of Chairman Dean's Remarks in Chicago
August 19, 2006

(This was preceded by a video of the 7/29 "Democratic Reunion")

Well, that was 100 days before the election, and now we have eighty. We have a
record turnout in the democratic primaries. We have a lot of new voters and we
have got great momentum, but the election is not today. If it were, we would
have a majority in the House of Representatives and very close to a majority in
the United States Senate. We would pick up five or six governors' races, but it
is not today.

For the next 80 days, we will do more of this. We will knock on doors, we will
talk to our neighbors and go speak to folks at picnics and talk about what's at
stake in this election. We have terrific candidates and our candidates are not
running away from the Democratic Party.

We're going to hear from two of these candidates in a bit. Darcy Burner, a
candidate in Washington State and Jennifer Brunner for Secretary of State in
Ohio.

But America has gotten off track. And we need a new direction in America. And
Democrats will lead with a new direction. The first new direction that we will
insist on is honest leadership and open government in America. Honesty is a
moral value. And Democrats practice honesty.

The second new direction that we will lead America in is American jobs that
will stay in America using energy independence as a new industry to create
millions and millions of jobs all over America. We will lead America in a new
direction in terms of economic prosperity and educational excellence. And we
have a great role model. The greatest ten years in the past century in terms of
economic prosperity was under the leadership of a democratic president, William
Jefferson Clinton. We can do that again if we put the Democrats back in charge.
Give us a new direction for America.

And in the last 40 years, only one president has balanced the budget in this
country. His name is William Jefferson Clinton. You can't trust the Republicans
with your money. You need the Democrats to set us in a new direction so we can
have fiscal responsibility and accountability back in America again.

We will balance the budgets; they can't. According to the latest reports by the
nonpartisan congressional budget office, extending the president's tax cuts, as
the republicans would like to do, will add $1.75 Trillion over the next 10
years and increase the amount that we take from our children every day by $250
billion a year, every year. And I might add, that is money we are also
borrowing from the Chinese government, the Saudi government, the Japanese
government. This nation is a debtor nation. You can't trust the Republicans to
manage your money. We need Democrats back in charge, just like Bill Clinton, so
we can balance the budget again and make sure our children can live better
lives than we can.

We need a health care system that works for everyone. Now we are not perfect.
The Democrats have tried. Harry Truman tried. Jimmy Carter tried. Bill Clinton
tried. We have tried to have a universal health care system in this country and
we will try again. But every year that the Republicans are in this presidency,
one million additional people become uninsured. Every year that Republicans
are in this presidency and control the Congress, millions of American jobs do
not get created in America. They get created elsewhere because the price of
health care is higher than the price of steel that goes into an American
automobile. We can do better and the Democrats will lead us in a new direction
to have a health care system that works for everybody so we can have jobs in
America that will stay in America.

We want a new direction for retirement security. Keep your hands off our social
security, Republican Party. And allow us, the working people of America to keep
their pensions. Those pensions don't belong to the C.E.O. and the shareholders.
They belong to the working people that earned it . And we want retirement
security, a new direction for America.

And we want a new direction in defense for America. We want real security. Our
agenda includes a new direction in foreign policy that's tough and smart. A
defense policy that restores the moral authority of America, a defense policy
that protects America from the threats abroad and here at home and keeps
American communities safe.

The truth is the president's foreign and defense policies have failed. Iraq is
in the middle of a civil war. Iran is about to obtain nuclear weapons. North
Korea has four times as many nuclear weapons today as they did when President
Bush took office. The Taliban is coming back in Afghanistan, partly because we
don't have enough troops there because our troops are in Iraq. And five years,
five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden has simply relocated to a better
location in northwest Pakistan. The truth is you can't trust the Republicans to
defend America. They talk tough, but they are weak because they don't think
before they act.

A majority of Americans now believe that occupying Iraq is a mistake and that
the majority of Americans now agree that the democratic position is the new
direction that we should begin phased redeployment by the end of the year and
we believe the American people are far wiser than the leaders that govern us
today. We want a new direction where the Democratic Party will listen not just
to the American people but unlike the republicans, we will listen to the advice
we get from the United States military before we send troops abroad.


The occupation in Iraq comes at an enormous cost to Americans. Despite the
administration's denials last month was the deadliest month in Iraq since the
beginning of the war. Sectarian violence claimed the lives of 3,400 Iraqis. Our
top generals have expressed their fear of being involved in a civil war. But
the occupation of Iraq is also costing American lives and hampering our ability
to fight the real war, which is the war on terror, fight al Qaeda and deal with
threats in Iran and North Korea.

And the occupation of Iraq also prevents us from doing what we need to do in
another front in the war on terror right here at home. We're spending eight
billion dollars every month in Iraq, two billion dollars a week, 267 million a
day, 11 million an hour in Iraq in the middle of a civil war, where we occupy
another nation. For three weeks in Iraq, we could make the needed improvements
to secure our public transportation systems here in Chicago and every city in
America, while Americans are forced to pay $3 a gallon, we could provide public
transportation gas simply for the price of three weeks of occupying Iraq. For 1
½ weeks We could provide health insurance for the nine million children who
don't have health insurance because of the policies of the Republican Party,
ensuring every single American child for the price of one and a half weeks in
Iraq. For five days in Iraq, we could restore the low crime rates that we saw
when Bill Clinton was president by restoring the cops program and by putting
more police on the streets to keep our neighborhoods safe. For five days in
Iraq we could put radiation detectors in every single one of our ports.

The president is failing to keep us safe abroad, but he has failed to keep us
safe at home. Five days in Iraq, we could restore the security that we have
lost under the Republicans in our own neighborhoods. For two days in Iraq, we
could screen every bit of air cargo that comes in to the United States of
America. Five years after 9/11, we are not safe at home, because the president
refuses and the Republican majority in the House and Senate refuse to spend the
money that the democrats have asked to make us safe at home by screening our
ports and cargo. For the price of two days in Iraq, we can do better than this.
We will have a new direction in foreign and defense policy. And you can trust
the democrats to defend the United States of America here at home because you
can't trust the republicans to defend America. They talk tough, but we need to
be tough and smart in defending America.

These are billions of dollars for one month in Iraq. The gulf coast could have
been rebuilt and here almost a year after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina,
very little has been done. For the price of one month in Iraq, Mississippi and
Louisiana and New Orleans could have been rebuilt. We need a new direction in
America. You can't trust the republicans.

The reason that the Republican Party has failed America is very simple. It's
not Iraq and it's not the enormous deficits, it's the way they win elections.
They win elections by dividing us. We need to be one community again. We need
to listen to those who disagree with us as well as those who agree with us
again. Because what the republicans have done is to put the interests of their
party ahead of the interests of America. We need a new direction in America to
have a political party in charge, which understands their loyalty is to America
and not even to the Democratic Party.

In the city of Chicago, the people who pay drive the taxis that you were taking
around yesterday as I hope you were enjoying the sites, those folks are paying
$3 a gallon for gas, $55 a day. The Republicans' response to that was to give
$16 billion worth of tax breaks to ExxonMobil, and Big Oil slipped into the
budget in the middle of the night when nobody knew it was there. There are
thousands of thousands of seniors here and millions across the country who are
struggling now with the so-called doughnut hole in Medicare Part d, the largest
farce ever perpetrated on the American people because that drug benefit was
written for benefit of the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies
and seniors were left behind. We need a new direction, a party in charge that
cares about seniors and write our legislation to benefit seniors not the drug
companies and the insurance companies.

There is another war that the president hasn't told us about. And that's the
war , the republican war on the middle class. The war on the middle class and
the war on hard working people who are under siege from republican policies
that make it harder for working people to make ends meat. President talked
about math and science excellence in the state of the union address. Short time
later, his party cut $12 billion out of Pell Grants. This country is a great
country, because we have the largest middle class in America. In order to be
part of the middle class, we need those Pell Grants back again. We need those
lower interest rates back again. How can you be in the middle class if you
can't send your kids to college? You want to take out a second a third a forth
mortgage and work three jobs? We want to give people opportunity again. They
are the party that takes opportunity away from ordinary working people and
gives it to their privileged donors. We stand for ordinary working people. They
have forgotten who built people America. It was the middle class. It was the
labor unions. It was the working people. We want a new direction in America
where ordinary Americans run America again and not the privileged few
republicans, who have put their party above the interests of America.


The vast majority of Americans believe we are going in the wrong direction and
the choice is very clear in this election. Do you want more of the same or a do
you want a new direction for America? A Democratic Congress will not rubber
stamp the administration's policies which puts the agenda of the far right
ahead of what good for America. The republican platform is one -- even
yesterday the vice president was saying, their agenda is an agenda of
divisiveness deceit distortion and deficits we can't afford them any more. We
need a new direction for America. Fear mongering whining, complaining and name
calling is not leadership Mr. President, Mr. Vice president. We will do better.


We will not turn our back on the people of the state of Louisiana and
Mississippi. The president had no plan for the gulf coast, as we come up on the
anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. And he still has no plan for the gulf coast.
He had no plan for Iraq. And he still has no plan for Iraq. Katrina was a
terrible tragedy, not just for New Orleans and Mississippi, and not just for
the people who died or who still have not been able to move home. Katrina was a
tragedy for America. Because one thing everybody believed throughout the world,
throughout this country but throughout the world, whether they liked us or not,
they believed that Americans could fix anything. And we believed that about
ourselves, that if something really bad happened, call on the Americans. They
are the best organized people, best managing people, and they can fix anything.
If something really bad happens, call the Americans. And what we experienced a
year ago was not just a personal loss and tragedy in all of our lives because
so many of us knew people or had family in New Orleans or Mississippi. What we
experienced was the tragedy of seeing unmasked the incompetence and failures
and indifference of the president and the Republican majority. We need a new
direction for America where no one is left behind.

The American people are extraordinary people. What we saw was great acts of
generosity and courage and heroism, of people coming together opening their
hearts reaching out to help one another. That reminds us that the American
people will transcend the incompetence of our leaders. We need a new direction
where we are as competent, and fair, and qualified and caring as the American
people showed themselves to be a year ago. We can do better. We will have a new
direction of hope and opportunity in America based on the idea that we are all
in this together, not just those in the Democratic Party, not just those in
urban America. We will reach out to those who disagree with us, we will reach
out to evangelicals Christians and rural americans, we will reach out, this is
time to end the divisiveness and the deceit.

So let me thank you. We have an enormous amount to do in the next 80 days.
There is a feeling of optimism here. I felt it myself over the last few days.
Some ways a little giddy. We're not used to being in this position in the last
12 years.

Don't get giddy and don't get optimistic. We are going to win this race the
same way anybody wins races. Not by hoping for the best, but by working for
what's right, one foot in front of the other. Every door you knock on presents
the American people with a Democrat who is proud to be a Democrat and explains
to people why we need a new direction in America and what our new direction is.
Every door you knock on. We are only going to win this if we do what you have
been doing for the last year and a half, talking to your neighbors. This is the
fun part. Come on out here to Chicago, room full of Democrats. We feel good. We
have great candidates.

The hard part, the hard part is going out and doing what we have to do next.
And that is for the next 80 days, talking to all those folks who did not vote
with us the last time, reaching out to them, understanding their resentments
and their fears and their angers and talking to them what's on their mind,
listening to them before we talk at them. We can do that. The American people
are ready for a change. The American people through the last five years of
difficulty and poor leadership have never lost what makes them wonderful: their
sense of caring, their sense of optimism and their desire for real leadership
that will emphasize hope over fear.

We can do this again. We can be great again. We can be the moral authority and
the moral leader of the free world again. We can eliminate our deficits again.
We can be proud of our armed forces and listen to them as they guide us rather
than be incompetent civilian leaders and telling them what to do before we're
willing to listen to them. We can honor our military again by never sending
them abroad without being adequately equipped again. We will honor our military
again because we will listen to them.

We will have a new direction in defense. We will have a new direction for the
economic well-being of our people. We will have a new direction in education.
We will have a new direction in retirement security. We will have a new
direction in job creation in America. And we will have a new direction to end
the divisiveness, to end the hallmark of this administration which has put
their own interests in front of America. We will restore America to its
greatness. We need a new direction and in 80 days, we will have one.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

[Mojambo]

1. Damn good stuff. n/t

[DeepModem Mom]

2. K&R

[OzarkDem]

3. Great!

He hit all the major points. Dean and the Dems have a great vision for the US.