Howard Dean
American Democratic politician and physician from the U S state of Vermont.
"My view is FOX News is a propaganda outlet for the Republican Party and I don't comment on FOX News." --June 12, 2005
"We don't know that yet. We don't know that yet, Wolf. We still have a country whose city is mostly without electricity. We have tumultuous occasions in the south where there is no clear governance. We have a major city without clear governance." -- Howard Dean's reply to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, when asked if Iraq was better off without Saddam Hussein, April 23, 2003.
"I think Tom DeLay ought to go back to Houston, where he can serve his jail sentence down there courtesy of the Texas taxpayers."
"George Bush is not my neighbor." --January 10, 2004
"I think the problem with the country is that we operate on a sickness model, not a wellness model... Basically, we treat people who become ill. What we don't do is do a very good job in keeping them healthy in the first place... We lose all the educational benefits, all the things we could be doing, all the things we ought to be doing, in terms of food safety... because the emphasis is on sickness. But I really don't think there's a conspiracy to make people sick so we can heal them. That I don't agree with."
"You think the RNC could get this many people of color into a single room?"..."Maybe if they got the hotel staff in there."
"The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. I mean, they're a pretty monolithic party. They pretty much, they all behave the same, they all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party. Again, the Democrats abduct everybody you can think of. So, as this gentleman was talking about, it's a coalition, a lot of it independent. The problem is, we gotta make sure that turns into a party, which means this: I've gotta spend time in the communities, and our folks gotta spend time in the communities. I think, we're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the type of people we are. But that's not enough. We do have to deliver on things, particularly on jobs, and housing, and business opportunities and college opportunities, and so fourth. I think, there has been a lot of progress in the last 20-40 years, but the stakes keep changing. I think there's a lot of folks who vote, maybe right now, in the Asian-American communities, who don't wanna vote Democrats, but they're angry with the President on his immigration policy, the Patriot Act. But, what we need to do while this is going on, is develop a really close relationship with the Asian-American community, so later on there's gonna be a benefit, you know, more equal division. There'll be some party loyalty, as people would rememeber that we were there when it really made a difference. That's really what I'm trying to do. If I come in here 8 weeks before the elections, we're not getting anywhere. Asking if you would vote, you're still mad at the lesser of two evils. So that's why I'm here 3.5 years before the elections. We want different kind of people to run for office, too. We want a very diverse group of people running for office, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos. I think Villaraigosa's election in Los Angeles is incredibly important for the Democratic Party. Bush can go out and talk all he wants about "this is the party of opportunity", you know, he can make his appointments, Condi Rice, or, what's this guy's name, Commerce Secretary, Gutierrez. But you can't succeed electorally if you're a person of color in then Republican Party, there're very few people who have succeeded. You can pick some out, JC Watts, I'm trying to think of an Asian-American who's been a success who's a Republican, I can't think of one off the top of my head. You know, there's always a few, but not many. Because this is the party of opportunity for people of color, and for communities of color. And we're hoping to cement that relationship so that'll always be that way. [Q: You've been very tough on the Republicans, some Democrats criticized you over the weeked for doing that, Joe Biden...] I just got off the phone with John Edwards. What happened was, John Edwards was, in a sense, set up by the reporter, "well you know, Governor Dean said this". Well what I said was, the Republican leadership didn't seem to care much about working people. That's essentially the gist of the quote, and, you know, the RNC put out a press release. I don't think there's a lot of difference between me and John Edwards right now, I haven't spoken to Senator Biden, but I'm sure that I will. Today, it's all over the wires that Durbin and Sheila Jackson Lee and all of these folks are coming to my defense. Look, we have to be tough on the Republicans; the Republicans don't represent ordinary Americans, and they don't have any understanding of what it is to have to go out and try to make ends meet. You know, the context of what I was talking about was these long lines that you have to wait in to vote. How could you design a system that sometimes causes people to vote, to stand in line for 6 or 8 hours, if you had any understanding what their lives are like: they gotta pick up the kids, they gotta work, sometimes they have two jobs. So that was the context of the remarks. [crosstalk/laughter] This is one of those flaps that comes up once in awhile when I get tough, but I think we all wanna be tougher on the Republicans."
"I hope Governor Dean will remember that he didn't get elected to be a wimp. We have been waiting a long time for someone to stand up for Democrats." --DNC member and South Carolina state representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter, June 11, 2005
"Not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma And Arizona.. And North Dakota And New Mexico! We're going to California and Texas and New York! And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan! And then we're going to Washington D.C. to take back the White House! Yeah!!!"
"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for."
"As somebody who is a Christian myself, I don't like it when people use religion to divide, whether that is Republican or Democrat. [...] I think in terms of his role as party spokesman, [Dean] probably needs to be a little more careful and I suspect that is a message he is going to be getting from a number of us. [...] We are at a time in our country's history that inclusive language is better than exclusive language." --Barack Obama, June 8, 2005
"I'm tired of the ayatollahs of the right wing. We're fighting for freedom in Iraq. We're going to fight for freedom in America."
Regarding Iraq: "I hope the President is incredibly successful with his policy now that we're there."
"I was hoping to get a reception like this, I'd just hoped that it would be on Thursday night instead of Tuesday night."
"Dean is a raving nut bag...a raving, sinister, demagogic nutbag...I and a few other people saw that he should be destroyed." --Christopher Hitchens, quoted in The New Yorker, October 2006.
"I may be controversial, but my allegiance is to people outside the Beltway."
"I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for." Dean later said the statement referred only to Republican leaders, not Republican voters.
Referring to differences between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, he said, "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we're the good."
"Not only are we going to New Hampshire. We're going to South Carolina and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York. And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House. Yeah!"