Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Half Million Dean Supporters to Decide on Federal Matching Funds Your Country, Your Campaign, Your Decision. [The following is the text of an email that is being sent this evening from Governor Dean to all 484,000 members of our campaign.] I am writing to place the most important decision of this campaign in your hands. We need to choose whether we will decline federal matching funds or accept them. Our political system is drowning in a flood of large corporate interest money. The pens that sign the checks of the lobbyists in Washington are the same pens that write our legislation. Oil corporations write energy laws in the Vice-President’s office. The pharmaceutical industry drafts our Medicare laws. Billions of dollars worth of contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan are awarded to Bush contributors. For the Republican primary election, even though he has no opponent, George Bush is raising $200 million from large corporate interests. The Bush campaign is selling our democracy so they can crush their Democratic opponent. We are building the only campaign that can stop this outrage. Our campaign has not been talk about future reform, it has been the action of real reform. Through hundreds of thousands of donations averaging $77, the impossible is happening -- ordinary Americans are poised to overpower the largest mass of special interest money our nation has ever seen. But soon our opportunity to compete dollar-for-dollar against George Bush’s army of special interests may be gone. If we accept federal matching funds, our spending will be capped at $45 million -- and the greatest grassroots movement in the history of presidential politics will be stopped from raising money almost immediately and will reach the spending limit well before the end of the primaries. We will not have any funding until the Democratic convention at the end of July. I have always been committed to public financing. But the federal matching funds law, though it was meant to provide an incentive for ordinary Americans to participate in the funding of our elections, is doing the opposite of what it intended. It could end up punishing a movement that has raised more from ordinary Americans than any campaign in history, while rewarding the campaign that has blatantly abused both the spirit and intent of campaign finance, selling off piece after piece of our country. This is how the Bush campaign believes they can defeat us. If we accept federal matching funds -- and the $45 million spending cap that goes with it -- they will have a $170 million spending advantage against us. From March through August, they will be able to define and distort us, and we will have no way to defend ourselves. We do have the option to go toe-to-toe with the big corporate donors of George Bush by getting 2 million Americans to give a hundred dollars each. By declining matching funds, we free ourselves to raise the money needed to defend ourselves during the crucial months from March through August against the attacks of George Bush and his special interest backers. But let me be clear, if you decide to decline federal matching funds, it will require a significant commitment from all of us who have brought this campaign to this point. Declining matching funds means turning down almost 19 million dollars that the federal government would give to this campaign. That means we will have to raise that money ourselves if we are to win the primary, beat George Bush, and take our country back. Declining federal money and funding a campaign with grassroots support has never been done before, and if you choose this option it will be a challenge-- but with your commitment, your dedication and your hard work, we can do it. This decision is no longer mine to make. This is a campaign of the people, by the people and for the people. Your successful effort of raising a historic amount of money through small contributions has made this choice possible. This is why I am putting this decision in your hands. I am asking you to vote on what kind of a campaign we will conduct from this point forward. No matter how well intentioned both our options are – the choice is difficult: do we choose option (a) to fund our campaign ourselves and decline matching funds, or do we choose option (b) and accept federal matching funds and the spending limits? You will receive a ballot via email on Thursday and have until midnight Friday to vote. The results will be announced on Saturday. The fate of this campaign rests in your hands, and I believe the future of our American democracy rests on your decision. Sincerely, Governor Howard Dean, M.D. PS For more information about the vote, visit www.deanforamerica.com/decision. [Blog for America] 9:16:18 PM

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Via Blog For America Post-Debate Thread. "I'm not going to take a back seat to anybody in terms of fighting bigotry. I'm the only person here that signed a bill that outlawed discrimination against gays and lesbians by giving them the same rights [as everyone else]. "What I discovered is that the fear of people who opposed that bill, the majority of people in my state, was mostly based on ignorance. We have to reach out to every American. We don't have to embrace the confederate flag and I never suggested we do. We have to reach out to all disenfranchised people. Robert Kennedy brought people together. Jesse Jackson did it. We're going to bring people together in this country. I understand the confederate flag is a loathesome symbol, just as I understood the anti-gay slurs I had to put up with after I signed that bill were loathesome. If we don't reach out to every American we can't win. I've had enough of campaigns based on fear, I want a campaign based on hope." -- Howard Dean, Rock the Vote Forum, Boston, 11/4/03 Use this thread to discuss your reaction to tonight's debate. [Blog for America] 7:19:35 PM

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'Drive For Democracy' Visits Phoenix Drive for Democracy: This Hope is So Important. Last night, about 30 of us gathered outside a house in Phoenix, after a barbeque, and people took turns talking about what drew them into the campaign. One woman found the campaign when she was getting her nails done with the host’s mother -- another saw a Dean button in a grocery store, another talked about “Emporer Bush” and how Governor Dean was the only one saying that he had no clothes. Over and over again in these meetings, people talk about courage – about Dean’s lack of fear, willingness to be honest and strong, and over and over again, it becomes clear that people got involved because of your outreach, person-to-person. Robert Tu, who is building phone-banking software for the Arizona campaign, stilled us all when he told us how he came from Vietnam in 1980. He said that when he came here, he was drawn, as so many others outside the country, by the idea of America. It was an idea so strong that he moved here, so strong that he held it up as a hope for other countries. He worked for Clinton in 1992, he said, but only now is he throwing himself entirely into a Presidential campaign. “What Bush is doing, he is destroying something that, to me, is sacred,” he said. “I want to what I can do to restore this democracy.” Later, he told me, “I know how to stop terrorism.” He said, “you take away the hatred in people’s hearts.” “So many people, they hold up America as a hope. And when that hope, that America, turns ugly, and does things that violate the international community, that violate the idea – it hurts people so much, especially young people, and that hope that America stands for turns to hatred. You know, I grew up in the war. This hope is so important. Howard Dean is only candidate who can do this. I want to do this, to do something to give that hope again.” [Blog for America] 11:27:21 AM

Via AZ Daily Star Mayor, council races signal 50% turnout. Turnount is expected to hover around 50 percent today as Tucsonans go to the polls to elect a mayor and two members of the City Council. [Arizona Daily Star: Front Page] 2:21:39 AM