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Dean pep-talks Cinton’s Yalies.
The original internet-powered presidential candidate kicked off a local Hillary Clinton phone-banking operation by declaring that the web can’t match human contact for getting out the vote.
Former Vermont Gov. and Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean — who briefly ran a frontrunning 2004 presidential campaign fueled by early mastery of “netroots” internet organizing — delivered that message Wednesday night to a dozen “Yale for Hillary” students in advance of Connecticut’s April 26 presidential primary.
The Clinton campaign brought in Dean, a 1971 Yale alum, to a Branford residential college classroom to offer a pep talk right before the students began dialing Connecticut voters on behalf of the Democratic presidential contender.
Wednesday night’s phone script.
After promoting Clinton as a more knowledgeable, experienced and realistic alternative to Democratic opponent Bernie Sanders, Dean spoke of how, while TV commercials and web campaigning matter, one-on-contact contacts with voters in person or in a phone conversation make a bigger difference on election day.
“The internet is an organizing tool. It is not a substitute for getting people to vote,” Dean said, seated at a long table surrounded by students.
“The real way people win elections is door-to-door campaigning, phone banking and personal interaction. … You’re the interaction.”
He remarked that the students’ youth will work to their benefit in phone-banking.
“When somebody your age calls someone,” he said, “what older voters see is their legacy. They care about what you think.”
Hillary has struggled mightily to inspire younger voters. Sanders has consistently captured as high as 80 percent of the votes of 18 – 29 year-olds in many primaries so far.
Asked about that after his pep talk, Dean said he’s “not worried” about those young voters in the general election, in which he fully expects Clinton to be the Democratic nominee. He said polls already show the majority of young Sanders voters planning to vote for Clinton in November should she win the nomination. He predicted most of the others would come around.
Young voters are “not as polarized, not as ideologically intense as our generation. They’re not ideological warriors,” Dean remarked. Watch his full answer, as well as his response to questions about what Clinton has or should have learned from the strong Sanders challenge, in the above video.
Dean was also asked about a conflict he had with then-Congressional campaign chief (now Chicago Mayor) Rahm Emanuel when, as national party chairman, he launched a “50-state strategy” in 2005 for building local Democratic parties. Emanuel blasted Dean for wasting money and time flying to red states rather than concentrating on strengthening the party’s base. Dean argued that the Democrats needed to recruit better candidates and become competitive in more states by nurturing the grassroots.
“I did get crap” from Emanuel, Dean recalled. “He has his ratings, and I’ve got different ones now. Second of all, they wouldn’t have taken back the [U.S.] House without the 50 state strategy.” Both Clinton and Sanders have spoken on the trail about the importance of a “50-state strategy.”
Dean said he expects that Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a leading critic of corporate malfeasance and political influence, will have greater influence in the Democratic Party as a result of Sanders’s run.
Connecticut Clinton campaign press team member Jack Miller and field organizer Mandy Lewis at the event.
Bernie is more than "a natural politician": the message that powers him and his supporters is that the economic and political systems are rigged and we need a revolution in which the people take back the power.
Once elected, he will attract others at all levels of government to implement change.
And ignore the media bleatings. He does have numbers and plans. If anyone had been listening during the last 9 months they's have heard multiple times ALL the details.