Reply #17: Welcome to the Dean Team!

[Larkspur]

I too supported Al Gore and was disappointed when he bowed out. It took Howard Dean 4 months to win my support and even after I signed on, I didn't realize what a superb candidate he was and what a super campaign organization he had. Dean does learn from his mistakes and evolves.

The final trigger that sent me to Dean was Dean's April 2003 op ed in Commondreams.org. He actually quoted Al Gore's Sep 23, 2002 anti-Iraq war speech, which was a great speech for us in the anti-Iraq war campaign.

When Al Gore called MoveOn.org to host his 2003 speeches, I had a feeling that Gore was testing out Dean's populist base. The last MoveOn.org speech Gore gave was great and he used a couple of Dean's signature stump speech lines in that speech and that is when I knew that Al was leaning Dean and would eventually endorse Howard. I just didn't know when Gore would endorse Dean.

As a former Gore supporter and current Dean grassroots leader, I'm psyched that both politicians I support are working together.