MR. RUSSERT: It's interesting. You said that the issue is are we going to live in a theocracy where the highest powers tell us what to do? And I was reading the Pew Research Center where they went out and surveyed 11,000 of your closest advisers...
DR. DEAN: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: ...contributors, activists, volunteers. It was quite striking. Dean activists vs. all Democrats--attend church seldom or never, 59 percent of Dean activists seldom or never as opposed to 25 percent of all Democrats; 92 percent white, 82 percent liberal, 45 percent over $75,000 [annual income]. Is your base secular, affluent, white and liberal?
DR. DEAN: I think not quite as much as the Pew folks. That was a very fascinating study. [As fascinating as the one about mercury? Or that more abortions took place since Bush became president? Or about Social Security solvency?] The only methodological problem is they only went on the Internet, and, therefore, you could answer or could not. [Huh?] But I think it's a great piece. [So you admit it’s accurate?]
Look, I fit into some of those categories. [Some?] I don't go to church all that much. [Hallelu-HEEYAAHH!] I consider myself a deeply religious person. I consider myself a Christian. And I don't – you know, some of the other Christians would dare to say that I'm not a Christian. [Some of “the other Christians”? Is this a competition?] Frankly, it's what gets my ire up. We get back to the Rush Limbaugh stuff. I am sick of being told what I am and what I'm not by other people. [Then why are you a politician?] I'll tell you what I am. I'm a committed Christian. And the fact of whether I go to church or not, people can say whether I should or shouldn't, I worship in my own way. It came out in the campaign that I pray every night. That's my business. That's not the business of the pharisees who are going to preach to me about what I do and then do something else. [(1) Actually, that is their job, Mr. Dean. They’re literally paid to do just that. (2) Isn’t that what you’ve been doing to Republicans, especially Tom Delay, during this entire interview?]
You know, I care about values a lot. [H.D., 5/22/05: “We're (Democrats are) going to use Terri Schiavo later on.”] And one of the reasons that I care a lot is because of my upbringing. And it was a – I grew up in a Christian household. Now, because I grew up – I'm a congregationalist. People say, "Well, those are liberals." Well, since when do Christians get tagged liberal or conservative? [I don’t know, maybe since liberals demonized southern Christians and created the apocryphal (and phantom) label “The Religious Right”?] You either believe in the teachings of Jesus or you don't. I do. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. But I don't go around wearing it on my sleeve. [Even though Jesus encouraged spreading the Word of God.] And I think that's a private matter. And I'm happy to talk about it. I've been through a political campaign. There are a lot of folks to whom, you know, that's very important. I respect that. But I'm not going to be lectured to about my own private morality and my own private business by people who don't have the moat taken out of their own eye. [These last few sentences were almost eloquent until he referred to his botched proverb once again.]
MR. RUSSERT: Newt Gingrich [without whom Bill Clinton never balanced the budget], when you were elected chairman of the party, said the Democrats must have a death wish. The hotline did a survey, The Political Hotline published by National Journal, and of the 17 states that you went to, a Democratic governor or Democratic senator has not appeared with you in those states. Are people running from you?
DR. DEAN: I doubt it. When I went to Mississippi, all four former governors showed up. [And the senators?] You know, I stayed over at the governor's house in Kansas. [And the senators?] I mean, I think when you go into a state, and you're there for four or five hours, it's pretty hard for governors to change their schedule and suddenly decide they're going to have to be by your side. I've raised over $1 million for state parties, including places like Arizona and Oklahoma.
MR. RUSSERT: Republicans say January through March, they've raised $32 million, double what the Democrats have raised.
DR. DEAN: Well, that's – I think that's fine. You know, Republicans have always been better at raising money than we have. [Ha! Then why does the DNC continually refuse to release private donation records (as opposed to the RNC, which annually releases such info)?] But don't forget, I've only been in office for 100 days. We're still raising money at twice the rate we were in the first year of McCain-Feingold [which failed, thanks to 527s], which was 2003, and we're raising $1 million a week. We're also putting people, who are hired by – local people on the DNC payroll in every state in America. And that is going to be really what's going to create the opportunity for us to win. [Not ideas?]
We cannot run 18-state campaigns. [AKA, New England and the Left Coast.] We've got to be everywhere. We've got to be in Mississippi. We've got to be in Oklahoma. We have to be organized. By the end of this year, we have a goal of having a Democrat in every precinct in America, not every county, but every precinct in America, four paid political organizers in every state in America in 2005. We're not going to have seven-month campaigns for the presidency anymore. We're going to have four-year campaigns, and we're going to help governorships in '05 and '06 and '07. We're going to help congressionals in '06 and '08. But we're also going to try to get elected people running for the state legislature, people running for city council. We're involved in some mayors' races right now. [THEN WE’RE GOING TO COLORADO! TO OKLAHOMA! TO MAINE! HEE-YAHHH!] We need to do this from top to bottom just as the Republicans did. They have a 30-year plan. As I said, there's nothing I admire about what the Republicans are doing to this country politically [winning elections?], but I admire their campaign business model a great deal. [Having real ideas about real issues? Not blabbering about everything they know instead of focusing on what’s relevant?] And we're, frankly, going to adopt a lot of it that works for Democrats.
MR. RUSSERT: The USA Today on Friday had a big piece. "A Dam Sure Based GOP Goes Rating." They compare your schedule to that of Republican chairman Ken Mehlman. He's going the Hispanicroute, Catholics groups, reaching out. Your schedule is primarily with Democratic activists, labor unions, gays, the core, the base of the Democratic party.
DR. DEAN: You know, there was more petulance in that article than there was facts. [Facts taken out of context again by the media? Welcome to the world in which Republicans live.] The truth is we're reaching out all over the place. We are talking to people. I have spoken with evangelicals. I have visited with some of the Catholic hierarchy in this country. We are going to do some more of that. I've been to 18 states. It was 17 when you got your numbers, but recently I went to Oklahoma and Arizona. [19?] Of those, eight of them have been red states. We're trying to get our message out everywhere. [That Republicans are evil?] We are going to go after the Republican--what they think is the Republican base. We're going to go after red states. There are some of those states that we can win. [Been saying that for seven years.] My philosophy is actually there's no such thing as a red state and a blue state. There are purple states. Some are more purple than others. [Yeah, Massachusetts and California.] We need to be everywhere, and we will be.
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