KSCL Covers Howard Dean in Shreveport

Democratic National Committee Chairman and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean visited Shreveport this morning as part of the national Register for Change bus tour.

After an introduction by Louisiana Field Director for Obama Alex Okrent, Dean encouraged the crowd gathered to get out the vote and get involved in the campaign. Dean talked about the importance of competing in all states in this election, including states who do not traditionally vote Democrat, such as Louisiana. Standing in the stadium behind Galilee Baptist Church, Dean made an analogy to the next team who might play there; he said that if the team never made it to the field, then they would always lose. He said it was time for the Democratic party to get into the field in Louisiana and make it a blue state.


Dean also stated that it was important to register voters who might have become disenfranchised in the last election and to register voters across the board. Dean spoke about the future of politics and how the Democratic party plans to reach out to the younger generation of Evangelical Christians through the three issues that most concern them: poverty, climate change, and Darfur, which are more of a Democratic party platform. He emphasized that this was the people's election and not the politicians-- and it was about neighbor-to-neighbor, friend-to-friend discussions.

Dean said that it was time to move away from the Bush administration's divisive politics and move to a unified America. He said that although John McCain would offer another Bush term, Barack Obama wanted to be president of a unified America. A theme of the talk was that the election could and would only be won for the people and by the people, not for and by Washington. Dean said, "It's not me or Barack that's going to win this election, it's you that's going to win this election."

After the talk Dean took questions from the press (including KSCL!) and that coverage will air soon. For more information on Louisiana campaigning for Obama, please visit http://laforobama.blogspot.com/