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Aug. 21, 2008
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DEMOCRATIC CHAIRMAN: Dean rallies crowd for Obama

Actor Kal Penn, Lakers' Derek Fisher also urge 'neighbor-to-neighbor' push

By MOLLY BALL
REVIEW-JOURNAL
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Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean greets students and activists rallying Wednesday for presidential candidate Barack Obama at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Dean told the young audience that they had the ability to determine the course of the November election.
Photos by Craig L. Moran



Derek Fisher, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, speaks Wednesday during an event at UNLV featuring Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

Even when appearing with a Hollywood actor and a Los Angeles Laker, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean was the biggest celebrity to about 80 UNLV students and Democratic activists who gathered Wednesday to rally support for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Dean, himself the standard-bearer for a youth-fired presidential campaign in 2004, told the young audience that they had the ability to determine the course of the election.

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    • "You are more powerful than Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, all those right-wingers," Dean said, to hectoring boos from a small group of Republican protesters gathered in the back of the university's Holbert Hendrix Auditorium.

    Dean's hallmark as Democratic chairman has been his "50-state strategy," an effort to make Democrats a force in all areas of the country, even those where they are severely outnumbered.

    The strategy has sometimes been controversial within the party, with critics saying resources are wasted in places where Democrats can't possibly prevail. But it dovetails nicely with Obama's strategy, which seeks to put nontraditional states like Virginia and Alaska in play.

    Dean told the group the key to states like Nevada would be a combination of rural Americans' disenchantment with the Bush administration and an aggressive, innovative effort to get people to vote.

    Under his leadership, Dean said, the Democrats experimented in 2006 with different methods of reaching out to voters, using Virginia as a laboratory. Six "control groups" were set up to try different campaign techniques and see which was most successful in getting people out to vote.

    One group got fliers in the mail; another had "college kids knocking on doors for three weeks" before the election; another got automated phone calls. Turnout increased by 1 or 2 percent, he said, except for the group that had "neighbor-to-neighbor" campaigning. Its turnout increased 12 percent, a stunning amount.

    That's the technique Democrats hope to use in this election, Dean said. It involves canvassers not merely making an impersonal stop to drop off a pamphlet, but connecting individually with 30 or 40 people and then returning to them three or four times.

    "They're going to believe somebody they know and trust before they believe something they see on television," Dean said.

    His speech was the kickoff for a voter registration drive, with volunteers fanning out into neighborhoods afterward. He's on a cross-country tour that began in President Bush's hometown of Crawford, Texas, as Democrats try to convince voters that Bush and the Republicans' presumptive nominee, John McCain, are one and the same.

    Dean, a physician and former governor of Vermont, was accompanied by actor Kal Penn, of the "Harold and Kumar" movies, and basketball player Derek Fisher, who compared the election to Game 4 of the NBA finals.

    With the Lakers up substantially over the Boston Celtics in the fourth quarter, Fisher was benched, and sat on the sidelines "watching the lead continue to evaporate and continue to evaporate," he said.

    With two minutes left, he was put back in, but "at that point I wasn't able to do enough to help our team win that particular game," Fisher said. "I should have made my voice heard earlier. ... That moment has now passed me by, and I can't get it back again. Right now is that moment for you. You can't sit on the bench for this election."

    University of Nevada, Las Vegas student Medina Mahmoud, 19, came to Wednesday's event to hear Dean and said he motivated her to volunteer in the campaign for the first time.

    "A lot of people want to believe Nevada is a conservative state, but I think it's very liberal-minded," she said, citing the "Sin City" attitude of tolerance for gays and minorities.

    Mahmoud said Obama has a chance in Nevada as long as McCain does not pick former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate.

    But Matthew Jarzen, 20, was one of a handful of College Republicans who lined the back wall of the auditorium to make the statement that not all students are Democrats.

    As Dean talked about ending the Iraq war so that military spending could be redirected for domestic purposes, they hooted, "For welfare?"

    "Many young people do want change, but not the kind of change Barack Obama says," Jarzen said. "They don't want to see more government. They don't want to see socialism creep farther and farther into the government."

    Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball @reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.

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    My Love to All Who Post Here wrote on August 21, 2008 10:49 PM: "b" wrote: "If Howard Dean is the biggest celebrity to 80 unlv students, it's no wonder students are failing miserably." Funny, "b" missed capitalizing unlv and somehow believes these students are "failing miserably." Just so you know, Howard Dean got his undergraduate degree in political science from Yale before becoming a physician then one of the most powerful politicians in the country.

    Jack sez: "What is really sad here is that Democrats are proving that they will support the devil himself as long as he or she is a democrat." It sounds like Jack just switched the words in that particular argument from "Bush" to "Obama" and from "Republican" to "Democrat" (before Jack misogynistically lashes out against women below). Jack, how do you feel about your mother?

    "Tom, Burbank" should also note that Obama was a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Perhaps you've heard of it, Tom. It's actually a little more prestigious than CSU Northridge.

    "Sally" sez: "I will never vote for anyone who hates America and white people." Sally, anyone who believes AM radio propaganda will not be allowed to vote in this election, so you have nothing to worry about anyway.

    "ted" sez: "A vote for Obama is one step closer to socialism." Ted is red-baiting, the old right-wing trick that worked so well for Senator Joseph McCarthy until he drank himself to death. By the way, glad you're not drinking anymore, Ted. Too bad we can't say the same for your wife.


    Honesty wrote on August 21, 2008 01:44 PM: Sally, you had better not be voting for McCain, then. He hates America enough to want to get people killed and he doesn't discriminate--he'll help kill white people and black people.


    ted wrote on August 21, 2008 10:56 AM: A vote for Obama is one step closer to socialism.GO OBAMA!


    sally wrote on August 21, 2008 10:51 AM: I will never vote for anyone who hates America and white people.


    Michael Green wrote on August 21, 2008 10:27 AM: Tom, I am trying to think of one since disloyal southerners were plotting secession in the winter of 1860-61. While I can think of many who I would say did the wrong thing, I cannot think of any who did that wrong as part of an effort to destroy the country. However, events of the last eight years have led me to believe it's possible we could say that of a president and vice-president, so I can't discount the possibility.


    Tom, Burbank wrote on August 21, 2008 10:21 AM: Michael, setting aside the specific question of Obama's patriotism, you're naive to think that being a Senator proves anything, including patriotism. Throughout history, people have worked within their systems to destroy them from the inside for their own benefit.


    jake wrote on August 21, 2008 10:14 AM: they ought parade this idiot Dean out in fron of every obama rally. what a jerk. loser plus loser equals loser. thank a democrat for the high food and gasoline prices in NOV VOTE NO NO NO


    Honesty wrote on August 21, 2008 10:09 AM: Good, Jack. Support the guy who can't name how many houses he owns with his mistress-turned-wife, whom he has publicly called a %$#@. The guy who goes to Iraq, has to be surrounded by soldiers to move two feet, and announces it's safe. The one who is so desperate to be president that he will kiss up to anyone he once disagreed with. Stick with the clean ones. As if you would have voted for any Democrat, given the hate you spew.


    Jack wrote on August 21, 2008 09:17 AM: What is really sad here is that Democrats are proving that they will support the devil himself as long as he or she is a democrat.
    Obama is simply a racist, apologist who hates America. Because of his associations with known anarchists and terrorist he could not even get a clearence to sweep floors in the federal courthouse. That Democrats continue to support this man is a slap in the face to people like John Kennedy, FDR and Harry Truman.
    And PS Nancy, I won't call this dirtbag president elected or not he is a slimy lying sack of excetement. Anyway, after all the women inthe country voted the last man that got your panties all damp, Bill Clinton, he refused to call Bush president out of complete disrespect...expect the same from me toward the newest "cute" candidate women are going for...


    Michael Green wrote on August 21, 2008 09:03 AM: Gee, somebody else questioning Obama's patriotism when the guy is a U.S. senator, for heaven's sake. I guess class and decency are in short supply when you get exposed to John McCain.


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