The fundraiser, held in Town Hall's downstairs rooms, drew a well-heeled and older crowd that snacked on fruit, baguettes, and cheese while awaiting the candidate. Dean appeared late, and delivered a short, relatively subdued speech in which he defended liberal shibboleths like affirmative action and described President Bush's "quota system" characterization of the University of Michigan's admissions policies as "despicable." He urged attendees to stay for the ensuing free rally in the upstairs auditorium, promising to deliver "both barrels" before the larger audience.
For the main event, Dean was introduced by former Washington State governor Booth Gardner, honorary chair of his state campaign. State party chair Paul Berendt also addressed the crowd, and announced he backed Dean as well. Berendt, foreshadowing Dean's own pitch later that evening, urged the party faithful to get involved in the state's February 7 Democratic precinct caucuses to ensure a local Dean victory.
Dean, a polished speaker with a deep voice that belies his 5' 9" frame, spoke for more than 30 minutes, delivering an energetic defense of traditional party positions regarding economic and social justice, a speech that won loud applause and several standing ovations from his audience. Dean told the crowd he would make them "proud to be Democrats again." He attacked the president's unilateralist foreign policy--garnering the evening's loudest cheering--and even had the tax-happy, pro-spending Seattle audience hooting in favor of Dean's defense of fiscal conservatism.
Regarding specific proposals, Dean called for repealing three-quarters of the president's tax cuts, both to fund an $88 billion Medicare-based health care plan, and "because we need to balance the budget too."
Dean appeared thrilled by the turnout--"I can't tell you how amazed I am," he said, as he looked over the crowd. Campaign deputy press secretary Dorie Clark later described it as their "largest rally to date."
As Dean made the rounds in Seattle on May 14 and 15, hobnobbing with local party bigwigs and speaking privately with union leaders, status quo Democrats back in Washington, D.C. went on an anti-Dean attack. Practically playing right into Dean's reformist image, 50 DLC heavyweights led by Al From and Bruce Reed, the chairman and president of the group, issued a memo to "leading Democrats" denouncing Dean's burgeoning grassroots support as "an aberration." They stated that Dean's appeal is limited to the party's "McGovern-Mondale wing" of activists, which they defined as advocating "weakness abroad and elitist interest-group liberalism at home."
"Most Democrats aren't elitists who think they know better than everyone else.... They don't swoon when they hear a candidate say it's time for Democrats to dream again," they wrote.
Clark dismisses the memo. "The people inspired and motivated by Howard Dean are the people tired of having a Republican in the White House," she retorts, bringing the debate right back to Dean's no-nonsense themes. She says the more than 24,000 people nationally who have signed up over the web to support the candidate extend far beyond traditional party activists to "everybody from a single mother in Omaha to college students."
Bill Clinton, the best-known New Democrat, also undercut the DLC stance. Clinton told the Associated Press that though Dean is perceived as a liberal, people should "look at what he did as governor of Vermont," a reference to Dean's 11-year track record as a moderate Democrat willing to stand up to the state's powerful left against demands for increased social spending. Clinton also cited Dean's recently released health care plan--which is supposed to provide coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans at less than half the cost of the competing proposal by rival Dick Gephardt.
