Expats4Dean

You can grab the latest Skype version here

See Dick Run - The media conspiracy descends on Gephardt in Iowa. By Chris Suellentrop: "While Gephardt speaks in front of a sign that reads 'Protect Social Security' and 'Protect Medicare' over and over, like computer-desktop wallpaper, I wonder: Does he really want to play this game? Dredging up old quotes and votes about Gephardt's onetime conservatism is what helped to derail his '88 campaign. He voted against the establishment of the Department of Education. He voted for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. He voted to means-test Social Security and to eliminate cost-of-living adjustments from the program. He voted for Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. He opposed an increase in the minimum wage. Does a man with a legislative record this long and varied really want to ostentatiously declare, 'There are life-and-death consequences to every position taken and every vote cast'? If that's so, how many times was Dick Gephardt on the side of death?"

I just read an interesting piece on Slate about Howard Dean's recently released TV ads:

Do the ads live up to the hype? Hardly. In the New Hampshire ad, Dean says of Iraq, "The best my opponents can do is ask questions today that they should have asked before they supported the war." In the Iowa ad, he says of seniors' prescription drug costs, "Instead of fixing the problem, the best my opponents can do is talk about what was said eight years ago. … For years, the politicians in Washington have talked about health insurance and a prescription drug benefit, and all you got was talk. But in Vermont, we did it."

That's it. No names. All issues.

I have so much respect for Dean, knowing what kind of obstacles he had to overcome to stand up against the war in Iraq. And more evidence of his clear thinking is showing up every day.

There's an interesting story at Democracy Now about a "new report by retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner charges the U.S. and Britain relied on information warfare and psychological operations to inform the public in the lead-up and during the invasion of Iraq. He outlines over 50 stories that appeared in the U.S. media that were either purposely false or misleading."

Maybe his stance on the war shouldn't mean as much as it does, but there you have it.

NEW YORK -- After making her way to the front of the crowd of 10,000 people at Manhattan's Bryant Park, Heather Palazzo, 32, let out a scream: "I touched him!" Then the desktop publisher from New Haven, Conn., explained her delight in making contact with Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont: "He has a ton of charisma! He's very sexy!"
sacbee.com -- Politics -- Taking Bush head-on, Dean is riding high

If the next general election were held now with Bush as the Republican candidate and retired General Wesley Clark as the Democratic candidate, 43 percent would vote for or lean towards Clark, while 49 percent would vote for or lean towards Bush; an increase of two percentage points for Bush over Clark from the Newsweek poll of October 9-10, 2003, when 47 percent would vote for Bush and 43 percent for Clark, a statistical dead-heat. A matchup between Bush and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean would see the same result: 49 to 43 percent, a narrower margin (six percent) than in the last Newsweek Poll when Bush led Dean by nine percent. By comparison, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry trails Bush by 42 v. 50 percent, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman trails Bush by 43 v. 50 and Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt trails Bush by 42 v. 51 percent, the poll shows.

Among Democrats and Democratic leaners, Dean has overtaken Clark as favorite for the party's presidential nomination for the first time since Clark entered the race, with 15 percent. Close behind, 12 percent favor Clark, while Kerry, Gephardt and the Rev. Al Sharpton are tied at eight percent each.

NEWSWEEK POLL: A Majority (58%) of Americans Say the U.S. is Spending Too Much Money on Iraq: "Dean Overtakes Clark As Favorite For Democratic Presidential Nomination for the First Time "

Dean advisers often joke about their headstrong candidate.

This go-it-alone style prompted the question: Do you listen more than you used to? "No," Dean replied without missing a beat. "But I listened a lot when I was governor. People misunderstand the way that I listen. I really push back hard on people. You can't just come in and say, 'This is what we ought to do' and I'm going to say, 'OK, let's go do it.' That never, ever worked with me. I want to know why we're going to do it. That's exactly the process that I went through trying to decide if the Iraq war was a good idea or not."
USATODAY.com - Despite hoopla, Dean is still Dean

According to the latest Zogby poll of likely New Hampshire voters, Dean is leading Kerry by a whopping 23 points. Here's a great quote from the web page:

Pollster John Zogby: "This is stunning. Dean leads 43-20 among Democrats and 35 to 11 among Independents. He hits 40 among all age groups, union and non-union voters. His lead is 57-17 among self-described progressives, 50-20 among liberals, and 34-14 among moderates. Married voters give him a 38-13 edge and singles a 45-21 point lead. He holds huge leads among all education groups, among investors and non-investors, men and women. This qualifies as juggernaut status. Can he be stopped?"

Keep sending those letters! We're making a real difference!

Dan Rather did an excellent interview with Dean on 60 Minutes II today. Some are calling it a "puff piece", which basically means Rather was not on the attack, and Dean presented himself well. There is a brief clip available online, so be sure to check it out.

Not only did the blog notice us today, but we're getting media credit, too! This is from The Village Voice:

Dean's supporters call this arrangement empowering. As many as 800 groups have formed around the candidate, a number rapidly on the rise. And this growth spurt defies easy labels. Dean followers now include self-described geeks, dykes, security moms, and expats, along with graphic designers, hackers, economists, and the unemployed. They call the campaign 'intoxicating' and 'electric,' and they treasure their autonomy. As long as supporters make clear that they aren't campaign staffers, they're free to organize as they like.

The article also touches on why the other campaigns don't want to use our strategy, for fear of a muddled message. Phew! For a minute there I thought the other campaigns were going to wake up and give us some actual competition.

I love it when they talk about us:

...Puerto Rico will have its first Dean Meetup on November 5th if enough people sign-up,

If you know anyone living in or near San Juan, ask them to join the Dean Meetup there today!

Or maybe it's time for you to take that vacation you've promised yourself... People have signed up for Dean Meetups in 43 foreign countries. Join the Americans meeting up for Dean in Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Montreal, Stockholm, Sydney, or London.

Click here to read the whole post, which announces that Dean Meetup has now hit 126,000.

Hello to all,

Before, I lleft the US. I worte letters to Iowa at a meetup in New Hampshire. Such letters are very effective and something we can all do from afar.

If you follow the information in Heather's post it should work.

Margaret

If there is one thing Americans abroad can do, it's writing a letter to the folks back home. But have you ever considered writing to a total stranger?

The official campaign has asked Dean supporters to write 10 letters to undecided Democratic voters in Iowa on the 18th of every month, and 10 letters to the undecided Democrats in New Hampshire on the 22nd of every month. Check out their letter writing tool for details. (Requires DeanLink registration, for which you should use your absentee voting address.)

If you want to write to more people, you might want to consider a completely grassroots effort in South Carolina, where the Dean campaign doesn't even have an office yet (much to their chagrin). Jen in SC, from the official blog, is coordinating an effort to target voters in counties that leaned toward Gore in the 2000 Election.

I have a special favor to ask. If you are reading this blog from a non-Asian, non-U.S. country, please email me directly. I need some input on a project I'm working on, to better equip international Meetup members and Get Local participants.

Thanks and remember to vote for your November Meetup venue!

Does everyone recollect the part of Dean's stump speech where he talks about how we're going to win in 2004? The part about taking back our country. The part that begins with taking back the Democratic Party.

Well, it looks like he may be doing just that. Check out this article from the Washington Post for opposing perspectives on this.

Just in case you don't have time to read it, permit me to share my favorite excerpt:

Samuel L. Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego, who has worked in a number of Democratic presidential campaigns, said win or lose, the Dean campaign may well prove to be significant. "New blood is important whether it wins right away or not. There are 'new blood' losers and bad losers," he said. Goldwater lost by a landslide in 1964, but he helped start the conservative revolution within the Republican Party that culminated in the election of Reagan in 1980, Popkin noted.

In all honesty, we can't control how people are going to vote at their primaries and caucuses. We don't know for a fact who is going to win the nomination. But I think we can say with great certainty that to support Dean is to support a sea change in politics, a shifting of the tide away from special interests and toward the will of the American people. Win or lose, we can be proud to have stood up and been counted for this great man.

That being said, please make sure you are registered to vote. All of this energy and enthusiasm is just chatter if you can't actually participate in your homestate's primary or caucus.

Project Vote Smart has a pretty cool feature that logs all of the candidates' speeches. By doing a keyword search, you can uncover every time your guy (or gal) has used that word in public.

Project Vote Smart - Mr. Dean - Speeches and Public Statements

How did we ever get by without the internet???

MSNBC embedded reporter Felix Schein spends some time profiling Zephyr Teachout (That is her real name) and giving some insight into her background and what her inspriation was for organizing tools like Deanlink. Behind Dean's win on the Web

A couple of days ago, Dean advocated limiting the power of pharmaceutical patents and importing prescription drugs from Canada.

So what does this mean in terms of general IP reform? Is he thinking what some of us are thinking? Could Dean actually be the all-out open source candidate that readers of Lessig and Slashdot have been demanding?

Check out this thread on our very own forums for other thoughts on this.

A long time ago, Dean argued against candidates who would opt out of public financing. He vowed that he would stick to it, and that other candidates should do the same. (I believe he was targeting Kerry with this statement.)

But now that Bush has raised $49 million in this quarter alone, and that Dean is at $25 million for the year, he is reconsidering. Maybe he should forgo public financing after all.

When I first heard about this, I wrote directly to the campaign and told them not to do it. My impression was that this would take politics out of the hands of the people and back to special interests. I felt that the campaign finance reform was there for a reason and he should set an example.

But now, I must admit, I have been converted. Dean is considering this move because he is receiving so much support from ordinary people. This would allow him to get even more of that kind of involvement. That's a pretty incredible development, considering Dean is a Democrat...

Here is an article that supports my opinion on this. Feel free to disagree in the comments thread.

Lawrence Lessig pens a short piece on why the Dean campaign's blog strategy is so darned ingenious. Here's an excerpt:

But when done right, as the Howard Dean campaign apparently is doing, the blog is a tool for building community. The trick is to turn the audience into the speaker. A well-structured blog inspires both reading and writing. And by getting the audience to type, candidates get the audience committed. Engagement replaces reception, which in turn leads to real space action. The life of the Dean campaign on the Internet is not really life on the Internet. It's the activity in real space that the Internet inspires.

None of this works unless the blog community is authentic. And that requires that members feel they own their gabbing space. A managed community works about as well as a managed economy. So the challenge is to find a way to build community without the community feeling built.

Click here to read the full article.

How many of us would categorize ourselves as swing voters? I'm pretty committed to the Democratic party personally, but I know Dean has captured the attention of a lot of Independents out there (and there are a lot to attract!).

Here is an article from one of them who makes an interesting -- and I think accurate -- case for why Dean is an excellent candidate, not (just) for liberals, but for anyone who wants a president who will use his brain while in office:

The New Stop-Dean Candidate - Howard Dean. By William Saletan

The news has been rather slow recently. This is a great opportunity to go back in time a bit. Here is the best Dean interview I have seen to date. Dean spoke to a full house at John F. Kennedy Library and Museum back in March '03. This is the Dean that America will see once he is the official nominee, calm, direct, concise and thoughtful. I have a feeling that very few people saw this when it originally aired. Set aside some time to watch, it's long. WGBH Forum Network - A Conversation with Howard Dean

Some followup on Judy Woodruff's attempt to rail road Dean during the debate in Arizona. - 'Sometimes during the course of these debates weird stuff happens,' said Tom Hannon, CNN's political director. 'The idea at one point was to read one of these documents to see if the candidates could back up their statement. We ultimately decided against it. How it got in there was unintentional. Not everyone got the word apparently.'

Meanwhile, Kerry's campaign was pleasantly surprised.

'We've never seen it happen in a debate before. And I've been doing this for 14 years,' said Mike Gehrke, research director for Kerry's campaign." 'Spin room' a busy place during debate

Allow me to put on my counseling hat for one brief moment...

I am posting this article on U.S. military suicides because 1) it is important that we be aware of what these men and women are going through, and 2) as Americans abroad we can sympathize with the intense emotions that come with merely being in a foreign land for an extended period of time.

My heart goes out to the families of the deceased, to those men and women in uniform who may be falling into depression, and to any of you who feel the same. These are dark times, and I encourage you to all stand together, get professional help if you need it, and cherish whatever hope you have left inside.

"A campaign of hope will beat a campaign of fear every time." - Howard Dean

I think my favorite part of getting involved with the presidential campaign is all the fun acronyms I've learned.... All right, maybe it isn't, but you have to admit it is an integral part of one's initiation into the proverbial political activist club.

Some of these capital letters are music to my ears -- NAACP, APN, and NOW for example -- while others leave me grinding my teeth in agitation. Yet sometimes we've got to talk about those "others", to remind ourselves of who exactly is in power right now and why it is so important to work for change.

We'll take this nice and slow so as not to cause an epidemic of ulcers and Tourette's Syndrome across the Expats4Dean readership. I will simply direct you toward a recent -- and graciously brief -- Washington Post article on how AIPAC has become a tool of the Bush administration.

I still find it hard to believe what Bush has done to our country. But there it is.

As if Wikipedia weren't already enough....

Go here for even more information about the 2004 Election. A good friend of mine from Democrats Abroad Japan swears that this site is as good as it gets.

This is a great article. It's so much fun to go back in time and read what people were saying about our guy. I have so much more respect for him now that I've seen how he's overcome obstacle after obstacle.

And in case you were wondering where the nickname Ho-Ho came from:

Dean is an intense and energetic 53 years old. Freyne's nickname for the governor, 'Ho-Ho,' does not refer to the dessert manufactured by Hostess ® (a chocolate cake rolled with creamy filling), but to Dean's energy and enthusiasm. Freyne explains that the name was coined by the late state Rep. Mary Everti in the early 80's. Upon seeing Dean, she remarked to Freyne, 'It's Ho-ho-ho!' because Dean was always on the go. Dean 'on the go' is still evident today."

The best thing about this article is the picture of Dean!

Friends recall Howard Dean’s intensity, worldly ways. With the turbulent ’60s as a backdrop, what his friends remember most are the good times and Dean was at the center of that — a fun guy, quick to organize a mixer and hang out for a card game. New Haven Register

The latest Frontline on PBS is superb. The entire show is available via streaming video. 'Did America rush into a war in Iraq for which it was unprepared? Could the current volatility in Iraq have been prevented? And was the White House's rationale for war based on faulty and exaggerated intelligence reports?' Frontline: truth, war and consequences

Slate -If you're going to gang up on a candidate, get your story straight. The more Howard Dean gets attacked from the left (by Dick Gephardt on Medicare and Social Security, and by Dennis Kucinich on the Iraq occupation) and from the right (by John Kerry and Joe Lieberman on trade and middle-class tax cuts), the more the attacks blur into a din of contradictory complaints, suggesting that Dean must be somewhere in the comfortable center. Every jab from Kucinich lets Dean show he's no Kucinich. Every jab from Lieberman lets Dean show he's no Lieberman. Dean summed up the effect when, after taking a shot from Gephardt, he said with a smile, "The folks that are running against me have had the greatest time. First they said I was George McGovern and couldn't win, and now they're saying I'm Newt Gingrich and I couldn't win."
The Phoenix Debate - Klutzy Clark, Dizzy Dean, and other highlights from the Democratic face-off. By William?Saletan

"While some libertarians like Clark's chances against Bush, only Howard Dean -- with an 'A' rating from the National Rifle Association and a vocal throat against the recent Iraq War -- has a shot at broad libertarian support, many in the movement say. 'If Howard Dean got the Democratic nod, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat,' says Julian Sanchez, a former Cato employee now with Reason magazine."
Liberty Island

Here is an excellent link for information about the presidential election. This is an excellent resource if you (or a friend) are just now getting interested in the race, or if you're simply looking to do some fact-checking about who has filed, when the primaries are, etc.

Wikipedia: Election 2004

(Toward the end of the third quarter, I saw the following post on Blog for America, written by a supporter in Berlin. He is not a U.S. citizen, but he has been encouraged by the Dean phenomenon. With his permission, I am reposting his words here. - HP)

The incredible rising of Howard Dean

May be its too early to summarize successes of Howard Dean in the third quarter. But with the eyes of a foreign in a foreign nation things look really awful impressive:

1. Howard Dean and his grassroot supporters changed the way of political campaigns - not only in America. The world gets inspired! Politics will get more participative, more based on contents and arguments, more web-based and better connected to people. Howard Dean consequently uses the web for decentralised self-organizing of his supporters and with sweeping successes he shocks the establishment in the democratic party - his grassroot campaign shocks the experts in their ad agencies - and nearly every competitor tries to copy. You have proved that the ordinary people can be empowered in the political process and you have shown that hollow marketing approaches are not that much sufficient anymore.

2. He changed the political climate in America! Beginning with his powerful questions "I wanted to know..." Bush and his extremist gang warfare of neocons now finally came under fire. They fell behind and do not dominate the political process and the minds of the American people anymore. Why? The media dare to be critical again and the whole democratic party followed Howard Dean and strikes back against Bush.

3. Want your party back? The democratic party was brought back to life. Isn't it incredible that almost every democratic nominee now clearly says that he is against the Iraq war and unequivocally against Bush politics? Isn't it incredible that now only Lieberman tries to be a kind of a moderate Bush and that nearly the complete rest of the party criticizes Bushs politics with full power? Howard Dean as driving force has energized the democratic party. You will get your party back!

4. Did you hear the quite clink? Howard Dean helped a lot to break a thing that I would call "patriotic blockade": Bushs neocon gang have exploited the patriotic feelings of the Americans for elimination of critical thinking and for their wicked international agenda. Indeed they do not care for the values of America. To be liberal is less patriotic? In the land of the free its unpatriotic to defend freedom rights? What a bad joke! In the land of the free its unpatriotic to stand for international democracy? In the land of the free its unpatriotic to use the freedom of speech to criticize Bushs administration and their shameless special interests politics? In the land of the free it is less patriotic to insist on equal rights for all? To take care for each other is less patriotic? Bankrupting America and the future of his childs is a patriotic thing? Bush and his gang lost their glassy trump card.

5. Maybe "only" 14 Mio fundraising in the third quarter and "only" 440.000 supporter in the third quarter. Hey, even this failure would be *very* much wonderful!

For sure Deans indeed historical successes are just as successes of his grassroot supporters. Maybe (I absolutely don't think so) Clark or Kerry will gain the upper hand - but you are the people who influenced a lot of their agenda! With the energy of Dean and the energy of his supporters you will win. From my (foreign) point of view I discern:

You are the people and you are the future of your nation!

GO ON!

(Dear Dean supporter, please be considerately with me and my not very sufficient english language)

- Jörg-Thomas Hansche

Howard Dean should not be called a Dukakis liberal, for one simple reason: Dean was among those who declined to endorse Dukakis’s Presidential bid when it mattered most, back in the early spring of 1988, and the reason, Dukakis said, was that Dean, who was then lieutenant governor of Vermont, “thought I was too liberal for him.”
The New Yorker: The Talk of the Town

The Defense Department's Secure Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE) will allow 100,000 expats and overseas service members to vote online in the 2004 primaries and general election. Hopefully this will soon expand to all 7.4 million Americans living overseas. Wired News Similar article here from IHT.

The Boston Globe has a short & sweet interview with our favorite webmaster, Nicco Mele. "The master of Howard Dean's website is doing more than just raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds. You're the 26-year-old webmaster for Howard Dean's presidential campaign. How did you get there?"
Web Spinner

We just finished the September to Remember, and it's time for Outreach October! The campaign is hoping to see a lot of grassroots efforts targeting people who do not have access to the internet, minority communities, seniors, and nonpolitical types.

Some ideas specific to international groups:

Display an Americans Abroad poster from the official website

Connect with other supporters using tools like the Expats for Dean forum

Educate yourself by taking DFA's e-course on grassroots organizing

Organize an international Get Local event using zipcode 90210

Get Out the Vote with your local Democrats Abroad organization

You can read more about what DFA has in mind by clicking here.

Finally, some media coverage in Japan! At Tokyo's October meetup, we were filmed and interviewed by Nippon TV. They are airing a segment on our group tonight at 11:30pm. I believe our host is taping it and will send a copy to HQ.

Did anyone else have media presence at their meetup this month? Any press releases sent to your local paper? If not, you might consider inviting them to your next meeting. It does wonders for the motivation of your members, as well as the obvious benefit of getting Dean more coverage.

An interesting online quiz is floating around the Dean lists. If you're confused about what all these political perspectives really are (isolationist, liberal, realist, neocon), you might be interested in this one:

Neocon quiz | Christian Science Monitor

The campaign is shifting into high gear now, not just with media blitz and palm-pressing, but also in the digital arena.

(Disclaimer: I plan to highlight all such efforts on this blog. It is DFA's strong internet presence that allows overseas supporters to be so involved in the campaign; hence I believe it is to our advantage to be aware of developments as they arise.)

We've already posted about the Net Advisory Net and grassroots open source software, but I also wanted to alert everyone to a few forums that are going live this month. Keep in mind that there are not many users at present, as all of these are still in the infant stage, but if users like us register, a strong community will follow.

In first place I will put in a plug for our very own Expats for Dean forums. Check it out if you haven't already, and be sure to introduce yourself to others from your part of the world.

Secondly, Dean for America is coming out with their own official version, called Forum for America.

Finally, there is the Dean Issues Forum. Unlike the first two I mentioned, DIF is more of a high-level, policy discussion forum where experts in various areas will have a conversation. The official campaign will be watching this forum closely and seriously considering the ideas that spring from it.

In the comments for this post, I have listed the topics within the DIF forums and a more detailed explanation of the forum, should you be interested in learning more.

So many of us have submitted news of Dean's internet policy to Slashdot.org today - and look here, Oblog is on /. !
Free Software for Politics