Blogging from YearlyKos

Serving up a healthy dose of political red meat to an audience primed and ready, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean and former Virginia Governor (and presidential hopeful) Mark Warner rallied the troops Saturday at YearlyKos.

"Those guys win elections by scapegoating people," said Dean referring to the Republican party. "[It's always] 'those people' from Ronald Reagan's 'welfare queen' to George Bush's gay and lesbian Americans and immigrants. Scapegoat, scapegoat, scapegoat! It's the way they win elections."

"We will not do that because it's bad for America and the one big difference between the Republican party and the Democratic party is they will put the interests of the Republican party ahead of the interests of the United States of America and we will not do that," continued Dean, to thunderous applause.

Dean addressed a massive crowd that managed to get there for the 8:00 AM speech, despite most having attended the extravagant gala hosted by Warner -- complete with open bar and lavish buffets -- last night at the Stratosphere Casino. Though many attendees may have been blurry-eyed, Dean got them revved up when talking about the role of the new generation of activists and bloggers and the extent to which people like those attending YearlyKos will be key in returning our country to greatness.

"What we are now engaged in is a new generation, a community, that wants to restore American values. The best American values. Not the American values put forth by Dick Cheney and George Bush every day," said Dean, as the crowd roared in approval. "This is a movement that is not so different from the movement in the 60s to take back America to a better place or bring America to a better place than where it was. In the 60s what we fought for was individual rights, equal rights under the law for every single American and we're still fighting for these things today. But we have lost our way starting in 1980 when the me party took over from the we party."

Dean discussed how the Republican party fights for votes every day between presidential elections and emphasized the need for Democrats to work as hard -- or harder.

"The Democratic party is the vehicle to reform America. This is a tough fight and you don’t win just because you're right," he said. "You win because you out-work the other guys, you're tougher than the other guys but you also win because you appeal to the higher instincts in people instead of people's worst instincts."

After again castigating the GOP as "the party of big government and interfering in individual personal decisions" and "the party of secrecy and dishonesty," Dean made a direct plea to the audience to go beyond simply voting and making donations and moving to a higher degree of involvement.

"If a generation wants to make its mark on politics you have to actually participate in politics," the DNC Chairman told the enthusiastic crowd. "Voting is not enough -- voting is the bare minimum. And even giving money is not enough. We need people to become active either being involved in somebody's campaign or running themselves."

Mark Warner, who many people consider a rising star in the national Democratic party, spoke to a lunchtime crowd that, while not providing the standing ovations accorded to Dean, was eager to hear how his well-known centrist approach would address progressive political concerns.

Before he was introduced, the audience saw a five-minute promotional video that highlighted Warner's considerable accomplishments as Virginia's governor, including ensuring that 136,000 more children have health insurance, presiding over Virginia being named the best-managed state by Governing Magazine and being heralded as one of the top five governors in America by Time Magazine.

"Democrats are starting to think that outgoing Virginia Governor Mark Warner may finally have figured out what it will take for their party to start winning in the South again,” said the Time article. "But the real political miracle is the fact that Virginians have only grown to love him more as he has slashed popular programs and raised taxes.”

Speaking today at YearlyKos, Warner embraced the 50-state message delivered by Dean earlier in the day, citing the fact that Democrats are running 427 candidates in races for the House of Representatives in November.

"A lot of that is due to your hard work," said Warner. "But we cannot just go after 16 states and then try to hit a triple bank-shot to get Ohio or Florida."

Warner was self-deprecating, talking about failed business ventures in his 20s that left him, at age 26, living out of his car and sleeping on friends' sofas and also talked about his run for the U.S. Senate 10 years ago.

"I ran for United States Senate in 1996 -- I got a silver medal," he said, as the crowd laughed.

Warner, who attended public schools his entire life and is the first person in his family to graduate from college, said that a driving force in his public life has been trying "…to make sure that other people got the same fair shot that I got growing up"

"The most quintessential version of American values is that each person should get their shot at their version of the American dream."

While urging the partisan crowd to look beyond the labels of red and blue states and liberals versus conservatives, Warner took the opportunity to launch some well-deserved shots at the Bush administration saying "I can't remember a time, at least in my lifetime, when America has faced more challenges." He then ran off a laundry list of the problems facing the country under Team Bush and declared there to be "no visible action in sight."

"This president has never tried to bring this country together. He's never asked us to step up, to sacrifice," said Warner, who left office recently with an 80 percent approval rating. "We could actually start by having a foreign policy that unites our friends and divides our enemies and not the reverse. When things aren't working, you hold people accountable -- and that ought to start with a new Secretary of Defense."

And he slapped at Bush for his posturing when talking about values and for having no respect for the rule of law.

"For America to lead we need an administration that doesn’t just talk about American values, but that actually lives American values. We need an administration that doesn’t have an 'on' and 'off' switch when it comes to following the law."

But the day so far has clearly belonged to Dean, who gave exactly the kind of pep talk we've come to expect from the former Vermont Governor. He emphasized that Democratic values are far more consistent with what most Americans believe than what Republicans are invoking.

"Most people believe that it is more immoral to send a child to bed hungry than to let two gay people get married," said Dean, who then ended with a flourish.

"We have to put aside whatever we disagree on [within the party] and keep together. Because block by block, vote by vote, precinct by precinct, and year by year, we will take America back for the people who built it."

You can reach Bob Geiger at geiger.bob@gmail.com