On June 23, 2003, Howard Dean stepped out on a make shift stage at the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington to formally enter the Democratic Presidential campaign.
You have the power to take back the Democratic Party - Howard Dean in his announcement speech
As Dean outlined some of the key issues of his campaign, Vermonters saw a side of Dean they hadn’t seen before.
“You have the power to fulfill Harry Truman’s pledge of health care for all Americans, you have the power to give us foreign policy consistent with American values again, you have the power to take back the Democratic Party,” said Dean. “Thank you very much you have the power thank you very much.”
In the fall of 2003, former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Dean – a move that helped make Dean the front runner in the race. But a disappointing third place finish in the Iowa caucuses effectively ended Dean’s presidential campaign.
Although he didn’t win the nomination, Dean’s campaign will be remembered as the first campaign to fully integrate technology and the Internet in presidential politics.
Dean says his original campaign plan didn’t include using the Internet but some young volunteers convinced him to try it.
“What they did was build out of the tools that we were completely unfamiliar with, all the Internet tools, a structure that you could raise tons of money on, in small donations, because we clearly didn’t have any of the big Washington donors on our side,” said Dean. “What they did was out raise every single establishment candidate in Washington by the end of the quarter in which my announcement was given.”
Dean says his campaign was unusual because it wasn’t a top down operation. Instead, it was fueled by the energy and enthusiasm of thousands of volunteers across the country and many of these groups worked independently of each other. But in the end, this asset became a liability.
“We had the enthusiasm and the passion we didn’t have the organizational structure beneath that in order to be disciplined enough to win the Iowa caucuses and go on from there,” said Dean. “But we certainly had an enormous wave of passion and it was all based on the notion that ordinary people did have power in their own lives if they’d only use it.”
Would Dean consider another run for President ? He says it’s very unlikely that he would ever take on that challenge again.
Supporters of Dean will hold a tenth anniversary celebration on Sunday in Oakledge Park in Burlington starting at 11:00 a.m. The event is free and open to the public.
