Howard Dean is having a 10 year anniversary party (he announced in 2003) Sunday in Burlington

[karynnj]

As most of you know, I did not support Dean in 2004 - after going back and forth between Dean and Kerry, wanting one of them to win, I supported Kerry. However, this party at a park on the bike path that Dean and others worked to create - his first activist activity, seemed to cool not to post - just in case no one else posted it.

From the Burlington Free Press:

For Howard Dean, it was a ham sandwich.

When asked to pinpoint a favorite memory from his run for the Democratic presidential nomination a decade ago, the former governor recalled a clever stunt to attract donations.

“I sat in front of a computer webcam with a ham sandwich at the same time that Dick Cheney was at a fancy-schmancy fundraiser in South Carolina,” Dean said during a recent phone interview, referring to the then vice president. “But we wound up bringing in twice as much as he did.”

There’s likely to be a plethora of such reminiscences this weekend when Dean’s campaign staff members and volunteers, along with the general public, gather at Oakledge Park for a 10th anniversary reunion. The Sunday event, billed as a picnic, will commemorate the announcement of his candidacy at a downtown Burlington rally June 23, 2003.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20130618/NEWS03/306180024/Howard-Dean-staff-mark-10th-anniversary-presidential-campaign


I hope 10 years after is long enough ago that Dean people will be ok with a Kerry supporter posting this.

[rsmith6621]

1. Dean was in Seattle this week.

...we need more Deans in the Democratic party.... I'm tired of soft 2 sided sandwiches in the party.

[karynnj]

2. I think the party needs more Howard Dean himself

I think he can be abrasive, but many of his ideas have been valuable - and it would be good to have him in some role in the Obama administration.

Who knows - Feingold was just picked for a foreign policy role - and many of the complaints about Dean are the same ones some had for Feingold.

I thought this was a nice article that was on the front page of today's paper.

[tokenlib]

3. I think there are more Dean people now...we know him better...

..he was a great party chair. A lot of us never took the time to get to know him back then...too bad...myself included in not doing so...

[karynnj]

4. I think there are many people, who do not label themselves Dean people who appreciate all he did

I am one of them.

His campaign is unusual in that it was very very good - as well as very bad (Trippi wasting all his money leaving him with no chance to seriously compete after NH) - mostly, I think for the same good reason. While most campaigns could be called "cookie cutter" campaigns where what they do is very similar to what everyone has done in previous campaigns -- the difference is the candidate who is being pushed.

In his case, maybe because he entered without many of the teams of professional campaign people who look each election year for whom they want to hire them, he and his team recreated how to run a campaign.

So, his campaign developed things that never existed. Some are things that it is hard to believe now started less than 10 years ago. The most obvious is using the internet to efficiently raise campaign donations. Another big difference was the use of the internet to connect like people with like people to create grassroots. Not to mention Dean himself using the internet to interact with people. All of these things made their way into the eventual Kerry and later Obama campaigns. They would not have been the same - or as good without them. In 2005, both Dean, as DNC chair, and Kerry were using their email list not just to raise money but to try to keep people active. That was critical in the early period when Dean was starting his incredible effort to rebuild the state parties and to get people committed. All of this used what he learned and pioneered in 2004.

I live now in Burlington - and ignoring 2004 - one thing I daily could thank Dean for is his role in their wonderful biking/walking path along the lake.

[JI7]

5. i have been wondering if he would consider running for 2016

i have been thinking the same about Gore. Gore especially since he actually won the last time around and he has been speaking out on some issues of the day.