Iowa's done. What does it mean?

I would have loved for Dean to have won Iowa.

But this is actually fine.

Gephardt is gone and with him goes his strategy of distortions, fear-mongering and extremely negative attacks. Negative works on it's target, but it also comes back to bit the hand that delivers it. Gephardt leaving the race is great news.

Kerry is pumped up to take on Clark in New Hampshire. This is good news for Dean. Will Kerry go negative on Clark? Where does Kerry go after New Hampshire?

Edwards is pumped up to take on Clark in South Carolina. This is also good news for Dean. Will Edwards stay positive? What does Edwards organization look like beyond South Carolina?

Dean has the money and the troops to campaign in every state. We believe in Dean because of his stand against the war, his deep understanding of the health care crisis in this country, his vision for children, the way he ties environmental policy to foreign policy, and a hundred other reasons.

So why didn't Iowans get the message about Dean. I talked to hundreds of Iowans in the last week. They were on total information overload and many of them had just shut off the noise. Everyone's message sounds good. Politicians always tell everyone what they want to hear. Sometimes, however, a doctor will tell you things you don't want to hear.

None of us expect Dean to win every contest. Any more than we expect our favorite baseball team to win every game. So while there is a lot of disappointment out there, there is also hope and determination and commitment.

Update from Iowa

Update from Iowa City.

Kris Allen called from the Dean rally. He’s not there yet, but the place is so packed that the stormers were asked to go to another room to make room for Iowans. The energy is through the roof.

They spent the day knocking on doors. It’s 10 below with wind chill. Kris says that her group knocked on 500 doors today and that 9% of the people they talked to are going to caucus for Dean. Given that typcially only 3% of Iowans usually go to caucus, that is outstanding. Iowa City is very liberal and someone told her that a Democrat can’t win Iowa without winning Iowa City. She also reports that the Iowans are exceptionally nice.

She hasn’t seen any other campaigns out walking. Dean apparently has at least three times as many people in the state as anyone else. She also has the feeling from the people they’ve talked to that Kerry is going to do better than Gephardt, but that the whole thing is going to be tight. She will call tomorrow night as soon as the campaign has any results. Since they have some one at every precinct with a cell phone, this could be earlier than the media.

Calling Iowa

The invisible primary is over. The voting has started.

The best way we can help Dean this month is by reaching out where they need us in Iowa, New Hampshire and beyond. Last night I spoke with a guy on the ground in Sioux City, Iowa. It is too rural there for canvassing to be effective. The rural parts of the state are where Gephardt and the others have an advantage. Dean could sweep the cities and still lose the state in the rural areas, because it is precinct by precinct.

Right now DFA is asking for letters to rural Iowans, but these guys desperately need phone banks to identify likely caucus goers. He said it was 3 degrees, and a lot of these people won't go to their caucus without a little encouragement. DFA just needs to find two or three additional people per precinct and make sure they go to the caucus. They provide the script and the names. These are not "telemarketing" type calls. They only take a couple of minutes each. I am going to do this next weekend.

If you can't go to Iowa, please join me in making these critical calls. This could be the most impactful thing any of us do. We can't lose Iowa, not after everything we've done so far.

Happy New Year. Time to get back to work.

The big ag industry in PA, as elsewhere, is busy trying to make sure there are no roadblocks to the establishment of large, contract "farms" - i.e. "factory farms". These are corporately owned, huge concentrations of animals, where the "farmers" pork on contract for the vertically integrated chicken/hog/dairy corporation. Al Franken has a particularly graphic description of these in "Lies and the Lying Liars..."

Maybe these operations have a place somewhere in some form, but we should have a say locally about what kinds of operations we have in our neighborhoods. If you live in Pennslyvania, please ask Gov. Rendell to NOT SIGN the piece of "stealth legislation" that got passed on the Friday evening of Dec. 19 - HB 1222.

The bill is supposed to be an amendment to title 42 - something about judiciaty and jucidial procedure. 2/3 of the way through there is a section "Adding a section to read #8550.1 Unauthorized enactment of enforcement of local ordinances governing normal agricultural operations" which basically says, if your Twp brings an action against any ag operation, the Twp has to justify that position in court and pay all attorney fees and court costs. This is the same as putting the kybosh on all resistance to these large operations because a Twp will not want to risk the financial consequences. The bill passed and is on the governor's desk. you can call, fax or email him. It will only take a second. (My emailed comments to him are below.)

Independent farmers and consumers are all in this together to try to maintain an iota of control over our food supply and integrity of democratic process in our communities! Thank you!

email http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Governor/govmail.html
Toll free phone 1-800-932-0784
Local phone 717-787-2500
Faxes (all 717 area code) 787-4590; 772-8284; 787-8614

My comments:
Dear Governor,
Please do not sign HB 1222 because it contains a section of "stealth legislation" effectively eliminating local township regulation of agricultural operations. This section, inserted into the middle of HB1222, is unrelated to the purported main issue of the bill.

This clause is a rehashed version of proposed legislation sponsored by proponents of "factory farms" who wish to see no public debate or influence over their operations. This same verbiage has already failed twice when standing alone and openly debated in pprevious bills. These "farms" are actually on par with industrial installations both ecologically, socially and economically. Townships and citizens should have the right to a voice, including unrestricted legal recourse, should these installations have, by their view, undue negative impact on local quality of life.

Howard Dean's vision for Families

Keeping the Promise of America: Creating a New Social Contract for America's Working Families

The following text as prepared was delivered by Governor Dean in New Hampshire at the Manchester Public Library this afternoon:

About two years ago, I began my campaign – as all candidates do – here in New Hampshire and out in Iowa meeting with small groups of voters to talk and to persuade, but mostly to listen. I ate with Iowans in their diners, gathered with families in their living rooms in New Hampshire, toured factories and farms, and spoke in town halls.

I engaged in one of the great traditions of American presidential politics – listening – really listening to the people at the heart of America.

I heard their hopes and their fears. They shared their concerns and their dreams.

And what I heard truly surprised me. A level of anger and despair I never imagined. About jobs. About working conditions. About making ends meet. About the stress of day-to-day life.

More than anything, I was surprised by the outrage of working Americans at the corporations that employ them and toward the government that serves them. They sense that neither their employers nor their government really care about their problems. That all that matters to business is the bottom line and all that matters to their elected representatives is re-election and collecting campaign contributions.

It became clear to me that there is a fundamental disconnect between the working people of America, corporate America and our government. The social contract that binds us has frayed and stands in desperate need of redefinition and repair.

More than two hundred years ago, the American people launched a new era of self-government. In the words of the Constitution, “we the people” committed to each other to “promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”.

These words created the promise of America – a pledge by a people to uphold the principles of justice and fairness.

At the heart of those principles was the promise of equal opportunity for all in the land of opportunity. The land where a person born with little can grow to great wealth. The land where the children of immigrants can rise to the highest offices.

I know from the families I’ve spoken to here in New Hampshire and out in Iowa that for too many Americans, the promise of America today is largely unfulfilled.

I believe that fulfilling that promise today requires a new social contract.

The starting point for this new social contract must be a fresh understanding of the way American families live today. A lifestyle that is far different from the family of even a few decades ago.

In 1960, one parent was at home in 70% of all families with children. Today, it’s just the opposite. 70% of today's families with children are headed by either two working parents or a single parent who works. And they’re working harder and longer.

Parents have 22 fewer hours a week outside of work to spend with their children than they did just 35 years ago.

Today’s economy is different as well. One quarter of all American workers are temporary employees, self-employed or part-time, employed in jobs with little security, often without health insurance or pensions.

Too many workers reach 45 or 50 years of age and find that the pension they counted on is greatly reduced or even gone for good.

The average family health insurance policy now costs about $670 a month. To put that in perspective, the average family of four spends $750 a month on its mortgage. The way things are going, the average family without employer-sponsored benefits will soon be paying more for health insurance than on the family home.

Families see their debts increase and wonder how they will pay for their children’s education or their own retirement. They know too well that a single tragedy – the loss of a job, a divorce or the illness of a parent – could spell the end of all their plans for the future.

At the start of a new century, as we shift from the industrial to the information age, it is once more time for “we the people” to form a more perfect union. It is time for us to spell out a new social contract – a fundamental renegotiation of the rights and responsibilities of the critical actors in the American economy: families, corporations and government.

The New Social Contract

Seventy years ago, the Democratic party of Franklin Roosevelt helped create a new Social Contract for American families. In the face of unprecedented economic hardship, FDR assured families certain basic freedoms. And he created Social Security and a range of programs to provide jobs and opportunity to those who earned them by working or raising children.

Today, it is time for a new vision for the Democratic Party and for a new Social Contract for America’s families.

Our party must offer a new vision that speaks to working families. Working families who make just too much to qualify for assistance, but not quite enough to make ends meet.

Republicans seek to dismantle the basic building blocks of our nation’s social contract with working families. They hope to privatize Social Security, dismantle Medicare, and to end public education.

Republicans claim to be helping average Americans with their tax cuts.

The Bush Tax

But let’s look at the facts. The average wage earner did get a few hundred dollars back. But the refund didn’t come for free.

President Bush never told you about the “Bush Tax”. He never mentioned that over the next six years the typical American family will take on $52,000 more in its share of the national debt. That’s a part of the “Bush Tax”. But there’s a lot more.

Take a look at your property taxes. They probably went up. In New Hampshire, property taxes went up an average of $270 per family last year. That’s part of the “Bush Tax”. Or look at your state budget. Is it in crisis? In most states, it is. That’s part of the “Bush Tax”, too.

Getting fewer services and paying more for things like state college tuitions or special education – that’s the consequence of the “Bush Tax”.

The “Bush Tax” is huge – many times greater than most people’s refunds. And it’ll be here for a long time to come. Just add the “Bush Tax” to all the other things the President never told us.

Some Democrats have accepted the Republican notion that the Social Contract cannot be preserved, let alone made stronger.

While Bill Clinton said that the era of big government is over, I believe we must enter a new era for the Democratic party – not one where we join Republicans and aim simply to limit the damage they inflict on working families.

I reject the notion that damage control must be our credo. I call now for a new era, in which we rewrite our Social Contract. We need to provide certain basic guarantees to all those who are working hard to fulfill the promise of America.

First, every American family must have access to affordable health care. The centerpiece of my campaign is a health care plan that gives every American the right to the same private health insurance that Members of Congress and federal employees have, at reasonable rates.

A refundable tax credit will help lower-income people afford the premiums. It’s health care that stays with you and goes with you, whether you work or not.

Second, every American family must have access to affordable quality child care. Right now, only one in seven working poor families do. American families have come to recognize that child care is no luxury item – but a necessity for parents who work and an enormous benefit to children who can start school ready to succeed.

The new Social Contract respects our responsibilities to care for our children. I propose that we make the investment necessary to fully fund Head Start, offer pre-K to every four year old, and expand other child care options to almost a million and a half more children. I call it Investing for Success.

Third, every American family must know that their child will be able to afford to go to college. The cost of college should not be an obstacle that prevents any child from working hard and finishing school.

The new Social Contract acknowledges our responsibility to educate our children. That’s why my College Commitment guarantees $10,000 a year in college financing for every student in a mix of grants and loans that depends on family finances. No one will ever pay more than 10 percent of their income after college to repay their loans. And every loan will be fully paid off after ten years. Those who give back to their communities – working as nurses, teachers, policemen for instance – will pay even less.

Fourth, every American family must know that their retirement will be secure. The Democratic agenda here must be broader than simply preserving the critical commitment of Social Security.

We must offer working Americans new incentives to save for the future. The Republicans and President Bush may be planning to propose yet more benefits to protect the income and savings of the wealthiest Americans. But I want to target workers and middle class families instead. I will soon propose a new savings program that will help millions of Americans save for their retirement.

Taken together, these are four new rights the Democratic Party must establish as its new social contract with the families of America.

But no contract comes solely with rights and without responsibilities. Each party to this new social contract must fulfill some basic responsibilities.

American citizens have a responsibility to participate in our country’s civic life. That duty starts with the vote. It continues in our neighborhoods and communities – through an ethic of service. That service is promoted through efforts like Americorps in which government provides incentives to serve for young people.

But more importantly, it is through places of worship, charitable organizations and schools at the community level – and on a voluntary basis. Helping neighbors when newborns come home from the hospital, participating in volunteer fire departments, pitching in when disaster strikes. When we lose that tradition, when we forget our responsibilities to each other, we endanger the promise of America.

Corporations too – as fundamental partners to the Social Contract – must recognize and fulfill certain basic responsibilities. And the new social contract must redefine the role of government in establishing appropriate limits for corporate behavior.

The American economy is, of course, the engine of our society, providing jobs and opportunity to American workers. But, today, economic power is concentrated in too few hands, and not very clean hands, at that.

The Boards of Director of too many corporations are governed by the buddy system; the compensation of some top executives could put 19th century Robber Barons to shame.

Economic power has too often become political power, corrupting the very process that is supposed to guarantee our rights. Corporate lobbyists outnumber the Congress many times over.

The new social contract must include stricter accountability for corporate behavior, and a return to a stronger role for government in protecting the public interest.

First, we need to prevent corporate misconduct with laws to make sure corporate boards of directors and auditors are independent of management. And we should reward whistleblowers who expose corporate wrongdoing.

The standards that are on the books must be backed up by regulations with teeth. The fines and penalties imposed for breaking the law must be equal to the potential financial gains. It is absurd that the penalty for promoting an illegal tax shelter worth millions is only $1,000.

We need sound, full and open accounting practices. We should expand the concept of “full disclosure” for corporations. Of course corporations must be held to the highest financial fiduciary standards. But beyond finances, why shouldn’t companies be accountable to investors and the public on other important matters, like environmental standards, and labor relations? Knowledge is power.

And it’s time to look behind the fiction that allows corporations to become “citizens” of places like Bermuda, and avoid paying income taxes on their foreign income. They are Bermuda citizens, yet they still get US corporate welfare, like special tax breaks, while Bermuda protects their directors and executives from liability under American law.

I want to restore protection in the marketplace for all Americans. The regulatory system must be free to work as designed. Our laws deserve to be enforced, and to be free of moneyed interests and their Washington lobbies. This is the only way to ensures opportunity and fair competition for our nation's entrepreneurs and honest business people.

Time after time, the Bush administration and their Republican cronies have removed important safeguards – in the environment, in energy, in finance and consumer protection.

They have rolled back the nation’s clean air standards to allow increased pollution from the oldest and dirtiest power plants. Blocked the investigation of 70 power plants suspected of violating clean air standards. Permitted logging in old-growth forests, but done little to protect homes from wildfires.

Under this administration, Enron took advantage of utility deregulation to rip off California before ripping off its employees and shareholders. Mutual fund companies are cheating their investors; mortgage and credit schemes are putting families deeper in debt; worker safety standards are being lowered.
Americans deserve better. It’s time for corporate America to clean up its act.
And an important step is ensuring that American workers are allowed to organize to protect their interests. Organized labor played a critical role in building the middle class of this country. Yet the Bush administration is doing all it can to make it harde, not easier, for workers to join unions today. Workers should be able to join unions if they freely choose to sign a union card. We need card check legislation, so that workers can organize without enduring coercive anti-union campaigns.

We need to protect the rights of employees to be paid overtime and defeat the outrageous attempt of President Bush and the Republicans in Congress to take overtime pay away from 8 million American workers.

And it’s time to recognize another reality of the 21st century – the fact that there are nearly as many working women as there are men.

The average woman starting out today will be paid half a million dollars less over the course of her lifetime than her male counterpart. That’s unfair and unacceptable. Closing the pay gap will be one of my top priorities as President.
Let me be clear: My program is pro-business and pro-jobs. It will help small businesses and emerging businesses. Entrepreneurs built America. They have always understood the promise of our nation, and seized the opportunity.
Small businesses create more jobs than big business. They’re part of our communities – they don’t move their headquarters or their jobs offshore. Fourteen million American women own small businesses – we must do more to help them grow and succeed.

Small businesses have the right to expect equal access to capital. I have proposed the creation of a major new financing tool for American small businesses, built on the model of the home mortgage finance system that has made our nation a leader in home ownership and the envy of the world.
Business also has the right to expect that government will help keep the nation’s economic engine focused on the future. This means investments for the future not only in our nation’s human capital, but also in the research, science and technology that builds a common base of knowledge for the future.
For instance, America should be a leader in developing and using alternative energy. It’s a major industry ready to take off – ready to create thousands of jobs and major sources of power. Whether it’s wind power, or solar energy, or hydropower, or other new technologies, all we need to do is open the market, take away the old subsidies and corporate welfare, and let them compete.

Taxes

Taxes are what we pay to be Americans – to live in a democracy, to have opportunity, and to use the vast resources of America – the highways, the schools, the national parks, the internet, the medical centers and scientific breakthroughs of government research. No one likes the idea of payroll deductions or writing a check to the IRS, but the truth is our taxes are the membership fees we pay to belong to the world’s greatest society.
And that responsibility includes corporations. Two generations ago, American corporations carried 30-40% of the tax burden in this country. Twenty years ago, under Ronald Reagan, that number went down to less than 20 percent. Today, the corporate share is less than 10 percent, and individuals are shouldering over 90 percent of the tax burden for the country. That balance has to change.

The New Social Contract I am proposing will include fundamental tax reform to ensure that every wealthy American individual and corporation is paying their fair share of taxes – and that the tax burden on working families is reduced.
Not paying your fair share is equivalent to turning your back on being an American. And that’s what American companies that move to offshore shelters are doing. They’re avoiding $70 billion a year in taxes – enough money to bring a real tax cut to every family.

Better and fairer tax enforcement could collect another $30 billion a year from known tax cheats. Closing corporate loopholes and ending unnecessary tax subsidies would bring $100 billion into the US Treasury each year – money that the rest of us are paying today.

I want to get rid of the Bush tax program and repeal the “Bush Tax”. Let’s start over with a real tax reform plan to make the code fairer and simpler, based on a few simple principles:

• We must eliminate abusive tax shelters and crack down on corporate tax evaders.
• Corporations and inherited wealth should pay their fair share of taxes.
• Individuals and small businesses should spend less time dealing with taxes, and the tax code must be simplified.

Our government is the guarantor of the future of America. It is the repository of our trust, and the ultimate keeper of the promise of America.
If our government is to be there in the future – if it is to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”, we must be responsible stewards, not profligate spenders.

This administration has ignored that fundamental responsibility. It pretends that deficits don’t matter and that tomorrow will take care of itself. They have turned us from a beacon of financial strength to the world’s greatest debtor. Foreign investors now control our currency. We are running a credit card economy.
Balanced budgets matter. They lead to economic growth. Social progressives should be fiscal conservatives, because only fiscal responsibility guarantees that the American people will have the government they need when they truly need it.

Part of the New Social Contract will be controlling spending and bringing budgets into balance. I know it can be done. I did it eleven times as governor.
Building this New Social Contract won’t be easy. The interests that oppose change are deeply entrenched. They have built longstanding political relationships. Each hand has washed the other in the basin of Washington politics.

But in our nation, the people are sovereign, not the government. It is the people – not the media, or the financial system, or mega-corporations, or the two political parties – who have the power to create change.
The biggest lie that candidates like me tell people like you is, “Elect me, and I’ll solve all your problems”. The truth is -- you have the power to change this country.

You have the power to write a new social contract that keeps the promise of America.

And you have the power to take our country back and take back the White House in 2004.

Economic Recovery or Set Up for a 2004 Crash?

Is the economy coming back? The nightly business shows and commentators would have us all thinks so. Certainly the Bush administration is hoping so. Manufacturing is up. Growth is up. The DOW back up around 10,000.

But a little reading and research raises some questions.

Bear market rallies:
These types of rallies have four characteristics:
1. Low prices aren't that low
2. The hot stocks are the same type as during prior bubble
3. The upswing is sharp, speculative and persistent
4. Investor confidence bounces back.

Doing a little more online reading I found out that right now:
1. The low in September 2002 wasn't that much lower than the highs during the bubble.
2. The leading sectors are growth and tech stocks, same as during the bubble.
3. The rally has certainly been sharp and persistent. Speculative? Well apparently NASDAQ margin debt is at an all time high.
4. Newsletters are as confident as they were in 1999 while cash holdings are far below normal.

Looks like a sucker rally to me.

Some point out, however, that this rally has gone on much longer than other bear rallies. What's going on? Maybe this really is a recovery.

Well this is where it gets interesting. Apparently there is something called the presidential cycle, in which the administration stimulates the economy in year three so year four will be good. Since 1932 on average years 1 and 2 are down by 4 points, year 3 is up by 8 points, and year 4 is flat or up a tick. This administration has done a really good job of artificially stimulating the economy. So we're in the middle of Bear Market Bubble being propped up by year three of the presidential cycle. But historically the presidential cycle effect pretty much disappears by year four. Could we be looking at a spectacular "correction" sometime next summer or fall?

Saddam's Capture

This is great news. I woke up this morning to this news on NPR. Actually I woke up to my son yelling, "It's snowing. It's snowing." But then I heard the news.

But the meaning of it is unclear. Now NPR is saying that some areas are celebrating while others are angry and resentful. Some experts are worrying about a counter attack. It doesn't sound like Saddam was in a bunker directing the attacks. And when his sons were killed that actually led to an increase in attacks. What a mess.

Hosting a Meetup

A million developments in the last few weeks.
I got a mysterious package from Burlington. Surprise! It was an autographed Dean baseball bat.
Thanksgiving.
My son's birthday. My first experience with hosting a kid's birthday party.
My first shot at hosting a Meetup. Our regular host couldn't be there, so I volunteered to fill in. It was great. We had new people, heard some great stories and wrote a lot of letters.
Then the Al Gore endorsement. That was a happy day.
Then I sent out my first mailing. I wanted to make sure everyone who missed the Meetup got a copy of "Common Sense." I had to laugh at myself. All along I have been talking about how when you volunteer for a traditional campaign, they stick you in a corner stuffing envelopes. So here I was stuck at the dining room table, stuffing envelopes. But it felt great going to the post office with a box of envelopes to go out into the world.

Governor Dean Announces National Invest for Success

Early Childhood Initiative Gives Equal Opportunity To Every Child

Democratic presidential candidate Governor Howard Dean, M.D. joined today by national children’s advocate and film director Rob Reiner, announced his plan to give every child an equal opportunity to learn. Governor Dean toured the Des Moines MACC Child Care center before discussing his Invest for Success initiative.

"We like to think that every child starts kindergarten with the same opportunities, but the truth is, some kids have great preparation and others have nothing," said Dean. "By the time those kids start kindergarten, even the best teachers can't make up for 6 years when a child was never read to, or never taught the alphabet, or never even saw a doctor."

Governor Dean's plan, based on successful initiatives he created in Vermont, will provide all families with young children early access to health care, early education, and other supports critical to children’s health and working families. The Dean Invest for Success plan will double the current investment in early education so that parents will have the resources to be their child’s first teacher without having to struggle to pay for childcare or preschool. This $110 billion commitment over 10 years for community-based services will ensure all children start school ready to succeed at age six.

"The truth is that when we help parents who have young children, the benefits reach far beyond those families," Dean said. "Kids who start school ready to learn do better in every grade. They're more likely to graduate. They're more likely to go to college. They help build a strong workforce and a strong economy. In fact, every dollar we spend on childcare produces $7 down the road. So when we invest in helping parents raise smart kids, we’re really making an investment in our future."

In 1992, Governor Dean created the Vermont Success By Six initiative, which includes a Welcome Baby program. Community-based partnerships offer Welcome Baby Activities such as meeting new parents at the hospital or in their homes on a voluntary basis. These visits provide community partners with an early opportunity to share information about the local resources available to help families raise healthy, successful children. Since then, Vermont has seen a 43% decrease in child abuse, and a 70% decrease in sexual abuse of children.

DEAN’S NATIONAL INVEST FOR SUCCESS:

Equal Opportunity for Every Child

This nation has not developed adequate options for the care of children, even though we know that investment in young children yields a return of seven dollars for every one dollar invested. While society has changed, our leaders have failed to provide adequate early care and education options for children of working parents.

The first six years of a child's life are critical for brain development and preparation for success. America's children are not starting kindergarten having had equal access to quality resources that will prepare them for school. By the time a child starts kindergarten, even the best teachers cannot make up for 6 years when a child was never read to or never taught the alphabet, or never saw a doctor.

We must help children in the early years, otherwise they will not reach their full potential, and our country will not reach its potential. For some children, what they miss before kindergarten can trap them for the rest of their lives. Now, we have an opportunity to make the most of the time that young children must spend away from their working parents.

National Invest for Success will address equal opportunity for every child.

Governor Howard Dean announced today that as part of a new social contract for the 21st century he would make a significant new investment in educating our next generation by creating a national Invest for Success initiative that will provide all families with young children early access to health care, early education, and other supports critical to children’s health and working families.

The Dean Invest for Success plan will double the current investment in early education so that parents will have the resources to be their child's first teacher without having to struggle to pay for childcare or preschool. This $110 billion commitment over 10 years for community-based services will ensure all children start school ready to succeed at age six.

The Dean plan to educate a generation is based on his success in Vermont.

In 1992, Governor Dean created the Vermont Success By Six initiative, which includes a Welcome Baby program. Community-based partnerships offer Welcome Baby Activities such as meeting new parents at the hospital or in their homes on a voluntary basis. These visits provide community partners with an early opportunity to share information about the local resources available to help families raise healthy, successful children. Since then, Vermont has seen a 43% decrease in child abuse, and a 70% decrease in sexual abuse of children.

Dean's Invest for Success gets kids ready to succeed in school.

Governor Dean's plan will expand his signature Vermont initiative, Welcome Baby Activities, to interested new parents in communities across the country, and make a significant down payment on universal preschool activities for all interested families.

To address the needs of children ages 0-6, the plan sets aside $2 billion over 10 years for Welcome Baby activities that will help parents during their child’s first year, and puts $108 billion in a Fund for Early Childhood which states can use to meet their largest early education needs.

These two components--targeted funds for the first year and a flexible, well-funded plan for children ages 0-5--together will provide parents the resources they need from the day their baby is born until they day that child enters kindergarten.

Welcome Baby Visits

The Welcome Baby Visit plan will make it possible to offer new parents information about community resources and services available to help them be their child’s first teacher.

In communities across the country, local partnerships of nonprofits, local government, health providers, and others will be able to apply for funding to support Invest for Success activities that incorporate Welcome Baby Visits. Qualifying partnerships will commit local funding and in-kind contributions to support the initiative. States can also provide the matching resources as part of a state plan to develop or expand Invest for Success initiatives.

States and communities will be expected to work closely with the non-profit community to build on existing networks to create partnerships that will sponsor the Welcome Baby Visits. The $200 million a year proposed for this initiative will provide matching money to communities to take on this challenge.

Fund for Early Childhood -- preparing children for lifelong success.

This new investment makes a very significant down payment on providing preschool options for every child.

This plan is effective because it:

• Makes a real financial commitment--It is no longer acceptable to cover half of our children that need help and call it a solution.
• Will give parents the resources the need--because parents are their child’s first teacher and the key to engaging young children.
• Is comprehensive. It will support parents at the three points in their child’s life when parents need it most: when they bring their newborn home, when they go to work and need high quality childcare, and when they want to put their children in pre-kindergarten.
• Protects children from falling behind beforethey reach kindergarten.
• Does not mandate one solution from Washington, D.C., but lets states focus on the most pressing needs facing their communities.

Using these guiding principles Governor Dean has developed an ambitious plan to transform how we treat early education in America.

Over the next 10 years, his plan will double the nation’s spending on early education.

That's enough money to:

• Double the number of children in Early Head Start,
• Fully-fund Head-Start,
• Offer child care for another 1.4 million children,
• Offer pre-kindergarten to every 4 year old.

The Dean plan means success.

Parents will finally get the support they need to be their child's first teacher.

Children will start kindergarten ready to succeed, and do better in life – regardless of their parents' income.

Not only will America have a strong workforce, we will live up to the promise that all children will have equal opportunity in America, and will restore America's community by giving every American a stake in the success of every child.

Sunday is for Pancakes: the best pancakes ever

My own recipe. After years of experimenting, my quest for the perfect pancakes has finally been achieved. Pancakes are either moist but a bit soggy and dense, or big and fluffy but kind of bready — until now.
The secret for pancakes that are moist, tender and fluffy is in the order in which the ingredients are combined.

2 cups of flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter, melted
2 eggs, well beaten
3 cups buttermilk
1/4 tsp baking soda

Heat griddle to medium. Melt butter and set aside to cool slightly. Sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Set aside. Beat two eggs until foamy. The secret step is to put baking soda in bottom of a medium bowl and add buttermilk to it, then beat a few stroke with a whisk. Add eggs to buttermilk and beat until combined. Add melted butter to buttermilk mixture and beat to combine. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture all at once and mix until combined, but don't over beat. I use a spoon first to fold in all of the flour mixture, then use the whisk to get rid of the big lumps. Batter will still have some small lumps. Pour by the 1/3 cupfuls onto hot griddle and cook until small bubbles start to appear, then flip and cook for another minute or so. Cover with real maple syrup and eat. Make 8-10 four inch pancakes.

Okay, this has nothing to do with electing Howard Dean president except that it is a good sign of good things to come. Plus it makes my family very happy so they don't mind all the time I spend writing letters and online working to get Dean elected. I do it all because I love them, and want the world they live in to have sane, rational leaders at the helm. But they also need pancakes. My family, not the leaders. Well maybe leaders need pancakes, too.

Our Victory Day for Iowa

We had our Victory Day event and wrote plenty of letters. I wish someone could have taped our conversation.

One person was 69, a reformed Green who has had to return to work fulltime after seeing his retirement slashed by the Bush recession. Next to him was a college student who had just changed her registration from Republican to Democrat so she could vote for Dean. She has a weak immune system and is rightly worried about health insurance after graduation when she won't be covered by her parents anymore.

And then there was my husband, the cynical journalist, who wrote such a beautiful letter about being a dad and how Gov. Dean has given him hope for the first time. It made me cry. Those who think Dean is all about anger should read that letter.

Even my 3-year-old got into the act before his bedtime by insisting that he wanted to write his own letter to Howard Dean. I overheard him earlier telling the babysitter that he was going to vote for Howard Dean and expected the sitter to do likewise.

Writing these letters is a powerful affirmation of hope and commitment. I am coming to believe that the physical act of writing out these positive messages by hand over and over again is somehow powerful in and of itself. If you haven't already please sign-up for a Victory Day event for Saturday.

Here is the text of my husband's letter:

This isn’t a form letter from a campaign office. It’s a personal request from an ordinary Pennsylvanian and father of two small boys who’s concerned about the future of our country:

Please join me in supporting Howard Dean.

I’m 36, a lifelong registered Democrat, and never have been inspired by a candidate— until now. Dean has me excited about a campaign for the first time. Why? Because he’s the best choice to become our next president and help reverse the destructive path the current administration is taking this nation.

Simply put, Dean’s views make sense to me. He wants health care for all. He’s against saddling our grandchildren with a huge debt and squandering our resources on tax cuts for the rich. And he believes in being a world power that works with its allies instead of alienating them.

But sound ideas alone aren’t why I’m behind Dean. I’ve always been skeptical, even cynical, of past presidential candidates. They all droned on about "plans" for the future but rarely seemed to understand them, let alone believe in them.

Dean is different— passionate, direct, and motivated not out of political ambition or ego but by his concern the safety and welfare of all Americans. He’s not promising to be a savior; in fact, he’s quite clear about saying the real power of change lies with people like us. It’s a message that has already energized more than a half a million, including me.

That’s why I think Dean is going to oust Bush in the fall. He’s awakened not just anger, as some reports would have you believe, but real hope in a wide range of voters – from students to labor unions to people like my father, a Democrat and retired business professor who voted for Nader in 2000 in disgust. I look at Dean and picture a brighter future for my children. I see a country living up to its promise at home and abroad. I see better times for America— enough to take pen in hand and ask you to help Howard Dean help us all.

The rest of the letter is about going to Deanforamerica or calling the toll free number, voting in the caucus, and writing back.

Letter writing tonight

This evening, several local Dean supporters are coming over to eat apple pie and write letters to undecided voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. I am so eager to see new polls from Iowa. Maybe if I sent them some pie. It's an old old family recipe, with crisp yet tender, flakey melt in your mouth crust — the way pie should be. I so much want to go New Hampshire and go door to door with my boys and ask people to please vote for Howard Dean.

Kids are the future

My toddler will be two at the end of the year. Right now I understand less than half of what he says, but it's getting clearer all the time. Yesterday he came up to me, put his little hand on my arm and said clear as day, "Howard Dean." He said it with conviction, with certainty.

My three year old has added George Bush's name to the list of bullies at his school. He even told his cousins that George Bush had bit him on the leg. We were off to the store this weekend, and I was putting on my Dean button. He insisted that he needed a Dean button, too. As I was strapping him into his car seat, he announced, " Mommy, I'm going to vote for Howard Dean. Who are you going to vote for?"

Democratic Party or Fox Survival Show

Letter sent to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Election watchers last week witnessed a fascinating media made cannibalism
show called, "When Democrats eat their own."

Presidential candidate, Howard Dean made a poignant remark about poor white
people being racially manipulated to vote Republican against their economic
interests. But it wasn't the Republicans, African Americans or Dixiecrats
who threw the hissy fit. It was liberal language control freaks.

Dean's mistake? He used the apparently banned term "Confederate Flag."
Democratic opponents fell all over themselves to score political correctness
points while pundits editorialized Dean's meaning beyond recognition. The
liberal anti-offensiveness disease became so epidemic that even some Dean
supporters asked for an apology.

Did I miss something? Has the Democratic Primary suddenly become a Fox
survival show where the PC police think they decide who gets voted off the
"electable" island? Now I know why seasoned politicians like Al Gore sound
so robotic. They have learned to pass language through the "offensiveness
checker" in their "conflict avoidance brain software" before they dare
speak.

As a standup, Truman-like, give 'em Hell doctor Democrat, Dean has the
potential to become the greatest populist politician of his generation if
the language sensitivity gurus would just leave him alone.

As more people TUNE IN, they are increasingly TURNED ON by Howard Dean¹s
courage, honesty and directness. We can only hope it¹s the PC
perfectionists who end up DROPPING OUT.

Common Sense Mom
www.commonsensemom.com

The real story behind Howard Dean's Confederate Flag Flap.

I've been so busy with Mom stuff and Dean stuff, but I just read a powerful letter written by another mom on the official blog. CommonSenseMom writes about Dean and the Confederate Flag comment lamenting that the Democrats are more willing to sacrifice on their own on the altar of Political Correctness than do what is best for the party and the country. I want to take her analysis one step further, taking my inspiration from Cythnia Tucker's insight into the character of one of the lead actor's in the drama — John Kerry.

Here's what really happened:
For months Howard Dean has been saying: I intend to talk about race during this election in the South, because the Republicans have been talking about it since 1968 in order to divide us, and I'm going to bring us together, because you know what, white folks in the South who drive pick ups with Confederate flag decals on the back ought to be voting with us and not them because their kids don't have health insurance and their kids need better schools too. This is the quote that started all the trouble. Seems pretty clear that Dean is attacking the insidious use of racism by the GOP. In fact this was a big applause line in Dean’s stump speech, even in front of African American crowds.

All was well until the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, was on the verge of endorsing Dean. The prior week stories ran in the press about Kerry, Gephardt, and Edwards conspiring to stop the endorsement.

Then Jesse Jackson Jr. endorsed Dean. In steps Al Sharpton who has his own history of using race to cause discord and division. Sharpton has long seen himself as the heir to Jesse Jackson Sr. His run for the presidency is supposed to emulate Jackson’s run in 1988, which elevated Jackson to the unofficial but very powerful position of national leader for African Americans. Sharpton also has a long simmering feud with Jackson, probably having something to do with the fact that Jackson isn’t ready to give up his leadership role, and certainly not to Sharpton.

Enter Jesse Jackson Jr. who endorses Dean thus denying to Sharpton the mantle of undisputed leader. The son of the man he is aiming to replace has endorsed his rival, a white man. So Sharpton reverts to form and attacks Dean as having an "anti-black agenda."

In defending himself against this attack and one by Kerry on gun control, Dean cites the line from his speech about pick-ups with Confederate flag. Kerry, Gephardt, and Edwards seize the remark and with feigned PC liberal outrage go for the jugular, hoping that by playing the race card themselves they can stop the ethnically diverse SEIU from endorsing Dean.

Not only does the SEIU endorse Dean, but AFSCME also decides to endorse Dean. Furthermore, a number of prominent African Americans come to Dean’s defense, including Constance Rice and Cythnia Tucker, as well as Paul Krugman, economic columnist at the New York Times.

Who is the real leader here? Howard Dean is the first politician to talk honestly to the American people about how racism is used to keep both blacks and whites in poverty? And what do the egomaniacs competing with him do? They lie, twist and distort this important message that everyone needs to hear.