Pictured: Dean at Sidetrack. Sidetrack co-owner Art Johnston welcomed the audience. Johnston introduced the Lt. Gov. of Illinois, Pat Quinn, who then introduced Dean. Photo by Tracy Baim.
Perhaps for the first time in Chicago history, one of the frontrunner candidates for the Democratic nomination for president attended an event at a gay bar.
Howard Dean, who is leading in most polls and is benefitting from a major fundraising effort fueled by hundreds of thousands of people giving small donations over the internet from people under 30 years old), spoke to an enthusiastic crowd at Sidetrack, 3349 N. Halsted, Dec. 4.
Sidetrack co-owner Art Johnston welcomed the audience to an historic event in Lakeview, in our city, and as part of the most exciting grassroots campaign ... [loud applause]. This event tonight, and all of the related events, are all about the
involvement of everyday citizens, you and me, in a process that will affect all of our lives.
Johnston introduced the Lt. Gov. of Illinois, Pat Quinn, who then introduced Dean. Howard Dean really does believe in people, and wants to give power back to where it really belongs, to everyday citizens who live from paycheck to paycheck, Quinn said. Twelve years ago I was the first statewide official to endorse William Jefferson Clinton for President. President Clinton put people first, and he served two good terms and helped a lot of people.
Dean, interrupted frequently by loud applause and screams of support, spoke on a
range of mainstream and gay issues, and even answered a few questions shouted out from the audience.
Dean was gracious in receiving the roar of support from hundreds packed into the bar, and also announced that he had just received the endorsement of former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon. While many in the crowd were gay, a lot were not it was a mix of young and old, gay and straight, men and women.
Dean attacked President Bush head-on with a range issues, saying what his own plan would be. He received loud applause when he emphasized that he did not support the recent war, and explained he has supported past military efforts, when justified, including Afghanistan and the first Gulf War.
Near the end of his speech, after dealing with foreign relations, the economy, education, the environment and other topics, Dean also addressed a bigger vision for America.
Let me say one more thing about what we need to change, and this is probably the most important thing I'm going to say, Dean said. When I was 21 years old, toward the end of the civil-rights movement, America had suffered terribly. Martin Luther
King had been killed. Bobby Kennedy was dead. A lot of other people had gone to the South to try to get equal rights for everybody ... including killing the four little girls in a Birmingham church. So that all of us, all the people in Chicago and elsewhere, could have equal rights under the law. But it was also a time of great hope in
America. Headstart passed, Medicare passed, The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act ... the first African American justice of the United States Supreme Court. It was a time that we were all in it together.
'And what this president has taken from us, more than anything else, is our sense of community. [applause] And when we say we want our country back, what I mean is that we want people to come together again. We want a country where we know that, if one of us is left behind, the country is not as strong as it could be or as good as it could be. It is not my responsibility just to have good schools in Vermont ... or your responsibility ... just to have good schools in Chicago, you have a responsibility to America, and so do I, to have good schools in Chicago, good schools in Vermont, good schools in Mississippi, good schools in Alabama, good schools in Brownsville, Texas, good schools in Oakland, California. It is all of our responsibility together as Americans. [applause]
'The president ran as a uniter, not a divider. There wasn't any evidence for that, either, was there [he was referring to his comments earlier about the lack of evidence for going to war with Iraq]? When the president used the word 'quota' five or six times on the evening news talking about the University of Michigan affirmative action program, not only did the most conservative Supreme Court since the Dred Scott decision disagree with him on that one, but every politician and every pollster in America knows that the word 'quota' is a race-coded word which is deliberately designed to appeal to people's fears that they are going to lose their job or their place in the university to a member of the community of color.
'I am tired of being divided by race in this country, Mr. President. [applause] I am tired of being divided by gender ... . Who knows better than an American woman what kind of reproductive healthcare she needs? [loud applause] I am tired of being divided by sexual orientation [loud applause] ... . When the president of the United States can put his arm around Rick Santorum and say 'what a fine inclusive senator he is,' when he can say Antonin Scalia should be the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ... [boos] I would like a president of the United States to start to appeal to the very best in us and stop appealing to the worst in us. [applause]
'This election is not about changing presidents. It is about changing Washington.
We've got to a point in our history which we've seen before ... where corporations dictate who we are. Corporations are neither good nor bad. ... They care about the bottom line. But the problem is that the people in this country are afraid of their employers because they know that they are not American corporations any more.
That they will take their jobs and put them anywhere in the world to maximize their bottom line. There is no loyalty from corporations for their employees anymore. They pay well and give good benefits, but if you can be thrown away or gypped out of your pension like they were at Enron after 40 years or 30 years or 20 years and have nothing, we need a new social contract in America. [applause]
'What this president and his right-wing friends in Washington don't understand is that capitalism is the greatest system in the world, but that it doesn't thrive without regulation ... . Efficiency is important but ... efficiency can be taken too far. Because in the end, human beings are spiritual beings, we are not meant to be cogs in the big machine.'
People began shouting a few questions.
'What about labor, Howard?' 'I think Democrats ought not be afraid of their roots,'
Dean said. 'The reason we lose is not that we are too far to the left. The reason we lose is that we forget who brought us to the dance. At the start ... African Americans, Latinos, women and trade unionists. ... And if the president continues to be the way he is, we're going be adding the GLBT community to the core constituency of the Democratic Party as well. How about ... 90 percent of the LGBT votes for the Democrats this time [applause]?'
'Howard, what about gays in the military?' shouted one man from the back. 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell doesn't work and we ought to get rid of it,' Dean said. 'I should have added that in my list when I first was talking because ... about the president's security? You know, we don't have enough Arabic language translators in this country, and a lot of stuff fell through the cracks before 9/11 because we weren't interpreting the chatter, it was kind of put aside because we didn't have enough Arabic language interpreters. So the president responds by firing six Arabic language interpreters because they happened to be gay ... What kind of national security policy is that?' The man asked Dean if he would sign an executive order removing the ban, but Dean said that while he would do that, it would do no good since the order needs to be reversed by Congress.
Answering a question about medical marijuana, Dean said 'I'll give you the bad news first, which isn't really bad news and that is that I don't like legislators and political staff going around scientific inquiries. The hallmark of this administration is that, if they have a theory and a fact and the fact contradicts the theory, they throw out the fact. ... All I ask about marijuana is that we make sure it works before we do it. I will, as president, order the FDA and the NIH to do the studies and review the studies that have already been done, in a one-year period, and when they give us the studies, we'll then approve whatever they recommend. I'll tell you what I think the position that they will recommend will be: that you use medical marijuana for cancer and HIV patients, but they will not OK it for things like glaucoma, because there are other drugs and the benefits do not outweigh the risks, and that is how drugs ought to be to be evaluated.'
'The biggest lie told to people like you by people like me at election time is that, if you vote for me, I'm going to fix your problems,' Dean concluded. 'Because the truth is, the power to change this country is in your hands, not in mine. Abraham Lincoln said that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth. You have the power to take back the Democratic Party so we can stand up and start being Democrats again. You have the power to take back this country so the power no longer belongs solely to John Ashcroft and Rush Limbaugh. ... Together we have the power to take back the White House in 2004, and that is exactly what we are going to do.
Dean jumped down from the stage and began shaking hands with people in the crowd, many of them pushing forward to touch the man they want for U.S. president.
