Gov. Howard Dean
"The Great American Restoration"
Church Street Marketplace
Burlington, VT
June 23, 2003
Today
I announce that I am running for President of the United States of
America. I
speak not only for my candidacy. I speak for a new American century and
a new
generation of Americans -- both young people and the young at heart. We
seek the
great restoration of American values and the restoration of our
nation's
traditional purpose in the world.
This is a campaign to unite and empower people everywhere.
It is a call to every American, regardless of party, to join together
in common
purpose and for the common good to save and restore all that it means
to be an
American.
Over a year ago I began to travel the country in the usual way one does
when
seeking the Presidency.
I believed that, by running for President, I could raise the issues of
health
care for every American and the need to focus on early childhood
development. I
wanted to bring those issues to the forefront of the national debate.
And I
wanted to balance the budget to bring financial stability and jobs back
to
America.
Most importantly, I have wanted my party to stand up for what we
believe in
again.
But something changed along the way as I listened to Americans around
this
country. On my first trip to Iowa I heard people speak of a profound
fear and
distrust of multi-national corporations. From New Hampshire to Texas I
met
Americans doubting the words of our leaders and our government in
Washington.
Every where I go people are asking fundamental questions: Who can we
trust? Is
the media reporting the truth? What is happening to our country?
The Americans I have met love their country. They believe deeply in its
promise,
our values and our principles. But they know something is wrong and
they want to
take action. They want to do something to right our path. But they feel
Washington isn't listening. And as individuals, they lack the power to
change
the course those in Washington have put us on.
What they know is that somehow 7 trillion dollars of our country's
wealth
disappeared. Nearly 1 in 10 retired people have had to return to the
workforce
because they have lost their pensions. Young people are returning to
live at
home after graduating because they cannot find work.
Companies are leaving the country to avoid paying taxes, or to avoid
paying
people livable wages. And corporations are doing this with the support
of the
government and a political process in Washington that they rent -- if
not own.
This was the fear that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson spoke of --
the fear
that economic power would one day try to seize political power.
Theodore Roosevelt said it best, "Every special interest is entitled to
justice full, fair and complete....but not one is entitled to a vote in
Congress, to a voice on the bench or to representation in any public
office."
Today, our nation is in crisis. At home, this crisis manifests itself
in this
President's destruction of the idea of community. This President pushes
forward
an agenda and policies which divide us. He advocates economic polices
which
beggar the middle class and raise property taxes so that income taxes
may be cut
for those who ran Enron.
He divides us by race by using the word quota, which appeals to the
worst in us
by instilling fear that people of color might take our jobs or our
places in the
nation's best universities. He divides us by gender by attacking a
woman's right
to make her own health care decisions. And even by attacking young
women's right
to have the same athletic opportunities that young men do. He divides
us by
sexual orientation by supporting senators who have slandered gay
Americans, and
he appeals once again to the worst instincts within us, instead of that
which is
good in all Americans.
The tax cuts that are the radicals' weapon are not about tax cuts for
working
people. They are not even about tax cuts for millionaires. Instead, the
tax cuts
are designed to destroy Social Security, Medicare, our public schools
and our
public services through starvation and privatization.
Our President and too many in Washington are giving away our future so
that we
pass to our children not a flickering flame of freedom but the chain of
insurmountable debt.
No parent would do this and America must not do this.
And so for me the long journey of a Presidential campaign has begun
with the
people I have met affecting me far more than any affect I may have had
on them.
And because of that, the reasons why I seek the Presidency have changed.
This campaign is about more than issue differences on health care, tax
cuts,
national security, jobs, the environment and our economy. It is about
something
as important as our children. It's about who we are as Americans.
Here are the words of John Winthrop: "We shall be as one. We must
delight
in each other, make other's conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn
together, labor and suffer together, always living before our eyes our
Commission and Community in our work."
It is that ideal, the ideal of the American community, that we seek to
restore.
An America where it is not enough for me to want health care for my
family but
the obligation, and responsibility of every one of us as American
citizens to
insure that each one of us has health care for our families.
An America where it is not enough for me to want good public schools
and a
better life for my children but an obligation, and a responsibility as
citizens
to insure that every child in America may go to a good public school
and have
the opportunity of a better life.
An America where it is not enough to protect my rights under the law
but where
it is a duty and an obligation for each of us as Americans to make sure
every
American is equal under the law.
An America where it is not enough to proclaim the words freedom,
self-government, and democracy, but where it is a duty and a
responsibility to
participate together in common purpose with the sacrifice required of
each of us
to give those words meaning.
If September 11, 2001 taught America anything it is that we are
stronger when we
are beholden to each other as a national community, and weaker when we
act only
as individuals. That tragedy gave us an enormous opportunity to focus
not only
on our common peril, but also on our common dreams. The peril remains,
but the
dreams must be resurrected -- and they will be in a new American
century.
President Kennedy challenged us to "pass the torch to a new generation
of
Americans." And so, we must issue that challenge again.
So too must we restore the deepest belief of our people that each
generation has
a responsibility to pass to our children a nation and a world that is
better and
stronger than the one that was passed to us.
As we experience the crisis of community at home, we are witnessing the
effort
to repudiate 225 years of American consensus on what our nation's place
should
be in the world.
Since the time of Thomas Paine and John Adams, our founders implored
that we
were not to be the new Rome. We are not to conquer and suppress other
nations to
submit to our will. We were to inspire them.
The idea of America using its power solely for its own ends is not
consistent
with the idealistic moral force the world has known for over two
centuries.
We must rejoin the world community. America is far stronger as the
moral and
military leader of the world than we will ever be by relying solely on
military
power. We destroyed repressive communist regimes without firing a shot,
not
simply by having a strong military, but because we had a better ideal
to show
the world.
Every American President must and will take up arms in the defense of
our
nation. It is a solemn oath that cannot -- and will not -- be
compromised.
But there is a fundamental difference between the defense of our nation
and the
doctrine of preemptive war espoused by this administration. The
President's
group of narrow-minded ideological advisors are undermining our
nation's
greatness in the world. They have embraced a form of unilateralism that
is even
more dangerous than isolationism.
This administration has shown disdain for allies, treaties, and
international
organizations alike.
In doing so they would throw aside our nation's role as the
inspirational leader
of the world the beacon of hope and justice in the interests of
humankind. And
instead, they would present our face to the world as a dominant power
prepared
to push aside any nation with which we do not agree.
Our foreign and military policies must be about America leading the
world, not
America against the world.
So how did we come to this point?
How is it that our leaders have abandoned our communities and
repudiated our
idealism and principles?
When confronted with a dedicated band of right wing ideologues, too
many
Americans have stopped participating, stopped voting, and stopped
believing that
they can change America.
And we in politics have not given our people a reason to vote or a
reason to
participate. We have slavishly spewed sound bites, copying each other
while
saying little. We raise millions of dollars and each year make lofty
promises,
while every year the struggles of ordinary Americans increase and fewer
Americans vote. Our politicians, many of them good people, have been
paralyzed
by their fear of losing office. Our leaders have developed a vocabulary
which
has become meaningless to the American people.
There is no greater example of this than a self-described conservative
Republican president who creates the greatest deficits in history of
America. Or
a President who boasts of a Clear Skies Initiative which allows far
more
pollution into our air. Or a President who co-opts from an advocacy
organization
the phrase "No Child Left Behind," while paying for irresponsible tax
cuts by cutting children's health care.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become
silent about things that matter."
The history of our nation is clear: At every turn when there has been
an
imbalance of power, the truth questioned, or our beliefs and values
distorted,
the change required to restore our nation has always come from the
bottom up
from our people.
And so, while the President raises $4 million more tonight to maintain
his
agenda, we will not be silent.
He calls his biggest fundraisers Rangers and Pioneers.
But today, we stand together with thousands in Burlington, Vermont and
tens of
thousands more, standing with us right now in every state in this
nation. And we
call ourselves, simply, Americans.
And we stand today in common purpose to take our country back.
I am a doctor and I was proud to be Governor of Vermont:
- where we balanced our budgets
- where we made sure that nearly every child in our state had health care coverage
- where we are stewards of our land and natural resources
- where, on the first Tuesday of March every year, Vermonters gather to make decisions on matters vital to our communities
- where we hold these truths to be self evident: that all are created equal and are endowed with the inalienable rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness
- And, where we, like all Americans, love our country and want to see her flag stand for freedom and justice for all. That flag is not the property of the either party, it belongs to all of us.
It
is from this place that the rest of the journey of this campaign
continues. We
will ask the American people to participate again in our common future.
I ask
all Americans, regardless of party, to meet with me across the nation
to come
together in common cause to forge a new American century. Help us in
this quest
to return greatness, and return high moral purpose to the United States
of
America.
The great lie spoken by politicians on platforms like this is the cry
of
"elect me and I will solve all your problems."
The truth is the future of our nation rests in your hands, and not in mine.
Abraham Lincoln said that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth.
But this President has forgotten ordinary people.
You have the power to reclaim our nation's destiny.
You have the power to rid Washington of the politics of money.
You have the power to make right as important as might.
You have the power to give Americans a reason to vote again.
You have the power to restore our nation to fiscal sanity and bring jobs back to our people.
You have the power to fulfill Harry Truman's dream and bring health insurance to every American.
You have the power to give us a foreign policy consistent with American values again.
You have the power to take back the Democratic Party.
You have the power to take our country back.
And we have the power to take the White House back in 2004.