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I cant begin to describe the excitement I felt when he walked into the room.
It was a cocktail gathering hosted by a gay couple in a beautiful home here in Vegas. I spent a half hour speaking to a local media reporter, discussing the good Doctor before he ever showed.
What can i say about Dean.... He was short, he was endearing. And he was totally on message!
The first thing he did walking in the door was make a beeline for a couple of handicaped people in the crowd to thank them for the effort they made to come out and see him. I was touched by this as they were content to sit where they were and just listen but he made the effort to go straight to them and make sure they were heard before he moved on to the rest of us able bodied people.
After that I was quite rude in pushing my way to him and shaking his hand and asking him my first question.
"thank you so much for coming Doctor I am so glad to see you here in nevada. I heard you coughing in the debate, are you feeling better?"
He smiled at me and said "Thank you for coming! It was nothing just a small cold I am feeling fine but thanks for asking."
From there he worked the crowd and i made my way with my wife to the stage they had set up in the back yard where I assumed he would be speaking.
There where arround 250 people there, All had donated $100 dollars or more. He did not rush. He took his time and said hi to as many people as he could while making his way to the stage.
I had chosen my spot well and was maybe 10 feet from him if that when he got there. All I could think at the time was I wanted to reach out and hug this man. He was so gracious completely grateful for all of the support from everyone that had taken time out and donated money to help him in his quest for the presidency. All I could think is I wonder if he realizes how happy he made me in giving voice to my frustrations with this administration when it was so unpopular to do so.
Anyway, He took the mike and did his thing. For the most part it was the standard stump speech. As a rabid suporter I had heard most of it before, so for me it was old hat but the crowd seemed to drink it in and they cheered in all the places you would expect them to and groaned each time bush was mentioned. It was a wonderful sound to my ears, Nevada is a swing state but it leans republican right now. The local media is controlled by republicans so to have 250 people railing against the curent regime it was music to my ears.
Mixed in with his stump speach was a few direct references to issues central to nevada. Yucca mountain is a huge issue here and he addressed it directly in his typical style.
"I am not going to tell you that i will be against Yucca mountain when I get to washington, But I will tell you this, The problem i have with Yucca mountain doesnt have anything to do with the whole transportation issue but the actual storage itself. If i am elected president what i will do is comission a study of independant scientists to study the issues involved with the saftey of burying casks of nuclear waste in yucca mountain and make my decision based on the results. I wont get a comission based on partisan politics like bush does with all his studies but a fully independant group of scientists to investigate the saftey of the proposition."
This is not a direct quote but as close as I can do from memory.
After that it was question and answer time.
My wife and I both jumped up and down with our hands up. My wife got called on right away.
Her question was: I am a teacher here in nevada and I would like to know what you will do in regards to NCLB. Will you adjust it or repeal it in total?
He said that the entire law was terrible except for one small part, the part where they crunch the numbers from the standardized testing to look at the different groups of children to make sure that everyone was being taken care of. Doing that lets us look at racial groups, special education groups, etc to make sure that we don't let kids fall through the cracks. He also acknowledged that teachers were feeling incredibly frustrated by the constraints and consequences of NCLB.
For her he nailed it!
Questions from there were varied and touched on a lot of his stump speech stuff.
I kept bouncing with my hand up but was never called on :(
Two questions stood out out for me.
One was from a young man saying he was scheduled to go to Iraq next month, wanting to know if he would be stuck there for a long time.
Dean answered first with "first let me say thank you, I want tell you how much i appreciate your commitment to america in working to keep all of us safe." From there he went on to explain that his first priority would be to make sure they had the equipment they needed along with working to get them a pay raise as there were many soldiers that were eligable for food stamps based on thier pay"
The second question was related to a child that was suspended because he told his teacher he was gay.
He went on to explain that he thought that that was simply wrong and that the biggest thing the president could do in relation to prejudice against gays or any other minority was to speak out about it and that if he were president he would have come out denouncing the suspension. He also mentioned that if he were president he would have removed general boinkin from his command, He was very firm on discrimination and said that whenever bigotry or discrimination reared its ugly head that it was your duty as a citizen to speak out against it.
He touted renewable energy and went so far as to say he would work on fazing out nuclear energy and replacing it with renewable energy sources with things like wind solar and bio somethingor other :P
Alas I was not to be called on.
He said his thank yous and started to make his way out. Again we acted like rude groupies and pressed our way to the front and I got my wife next to him with her arm around him and got ready to snap a picture and the damn camera didnt want to take the picture! ARGHHHHH! as soon as i gave up and started to lower the camera the damn thing wnet off I think i got a really good shot of both of thier chests.
Now was my chance though so I made my move and asked the question that DU seems most concerned with.
Dr. I was wondering if you are aware of the problems with Black box voting and if you intend to adress it.
"Yes I am aware of it and it's a huge problem. We have plans to address it after the nomination"
That was it he moved on and I just sat there with a happy glow knowing this guy is the real thing. He has my full support.
on an interesting side note i spoke again to the local reporter afterwards and he admited to me that he was a republican but that he had a friend in Iraq and he had no intention of suporting bush in the next election. he said he was still open to who he would suport come election time but that he was very impressed with Dean and was leaning his way.
It was an awesome experience overall and I will treasure it for the rest of my life.
Go get em Doc I want my country back!
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