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The Hope College Democrats invited Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to speak in Holland about “Faith and Politics.” He began with a story about volunteers from his office going to help out after Hurricane Katrina. Dean said that after the tragedy of Katrina, the Democratic Party stopped its fundraising efforts and offered to pay staffers to help out in New Orleans. Two women went and were teamed up with women with the Southern Baptist Convention, who after they got to know these women, said that they were a lot alike. Dean tried to stress that the story shows that “Democrats are human beings” and “young people in general want us to focus on what we can do together.”

Dean then quoted the US Catholic Conference on how morality should dictate our response to economic issues. He feels that the Democratic Party needs to reclaim the use of morality and faith and that “Republicans don’t have a monopoly on God.” Democrats over the past thirty years have been afraid to go where they might loose or where people “don’t like them,” Dean said, in reference to not speaking with people in the language of faith.

Dean said that Democrats need to tell people what they believe and then he listed what he thought the Democratic Party stood for. He said he believed in:

“…equal opportunity and justice. That no child should go to bed hungry and that health care is a right. War should only be used as last resort and that we should take care take care of our veterans. We should be good stewards of the environment and not pass on a debt to the children.”

Finally, he said “I am a Democrat because I favor funding health care over war.” Nowhere did Dean offer any clear examples or evidence that would support that these were issues that Democrats were committed to.

Dean then talked about how he has been meeting with evangelical leaders to have a dialogue on the things they can do together. He said, “We can agree that there are too many unintended pregnancy in the US. We should work to reduce the number of abortions instead of arguing over Roe vs. Wade.” He said that this is what young people are focusing on–their similarities–rather than their differences. Dean said that lived through the Civil Rights movement and that in studying King one realizes that it was thirteen years from Montgomery to the Voting Rights Act. Young people are impatient on political issues–which Dean argued is a good thing–but his generation can help young people by reminding them of the importance of keeping the long-term in mind. Dean said that “every day was not a good day for Dr. King. My generation needs to talk to your generation about the need for persistence. Succeeding and maintaining democracy is needed for the long haul. I hope that some of you will run for office, become involved in your community.” He argued that his generation hoped for a different outcome from the Civil Rights era, but that while racism had not been defeated, youth are handling diversity by being inclusive. In support of his argument, he said that across ethnic lines this generation has voted the same (~52% turnout) and majority Democrat.

After his short speech, Dean took questions submitted from the audience and selectively read by one of the student organizers. A total of ten questions were asked of Dean, two of which were about Iraq. The first Iraq question was “If we pull our military out of Iraq will it threaten national security and destabilize the Middle East?” Dean responded by saying that he thinks the National Guard and Reserves should come home. In addition, 20,000 troops should go to Afghanistan, where there is a real threat to our national security. We should have 20,000 troops in the Middle East in case we need to intervene. He said that “There will be real hardship in Iraq if we leave, but there will be if we leave or don’t.” He argued that the United States should “get out as soon as we can, but not tomorrow” and argued for a 16-24 month timeline. Dean pretty much reflected the Democratic Party’s position, which is not an anti-war position, but one of redeployment of US troops. Dean was also asked why the Democrats won’t stop funding the war in Iraq. Dean said, “We have tried, but you have to understand that the American people don’t want the funding cut off for the troops and people want to bring them home in a time table.” Dean also said that “If you really want to end the US occupation of Iraq vote for a Democrat in 2008,” even though there is no evidence that any of the current Democratic Presidential candidates are in favor of truly ending the war. Dean did mention that the Republicans can filibuster and that is part of the problem, but he ignored Democrats’ capacity to use it.

Dean was also asked a few questions about why people should vote Democrat in the 2008 election. Dean said, “we need to heal America.” He argued that the last 15-20 years has been about divisive politics and that instead we have to consider ourselves as human beings first. Secondly, Dean argued that we desperately need to restore moral leadership in the world which he asserted has been lost in the past 5-6 years. In the past, Dean asserted that “high moral values” are what made the United States get involved nationally and cited the United States’ winning of World War II and our involvement in Bosnia in the 1990s. Dean asserted that voting Democratic in 2008 will restore the world’s confidence in America’s moral leadership. There was no elaboration on this, but Dean seemed to suggest that it has only been recent that the rest of the world has viewed US foreign policy in a negative light, which would contradict a great deal of scholarship on the topic.

Dean was also asked about questions of faith and party politics. Dean said that there are issues that we all won’t agree on, but “applying moral principles is difficult.” He then went on to give the example of abortion and how they have supported Bob Casey, a Democrat, who was elected on a pro-life position in Pennsylvania. In response to the question “How much room is there for a pro-life Democrat in the party,” Dean said, “plenty.” He said that there is a significant pro-life caucus. Dean didn’t want to label Democrats as “pro-life” or “pro-choice.” He said, “What makes you a Democrat is fairness, toughness and personal responsibility/accountability – not pro-life. There is a core belief in fairness.”

In many ways, Dean’s short talk and his responses to questions was very similar to the ideas put for by liberal Christians like Jim Wallis who has been advising Democrats on “faith” with the Democratic Party or linguist George Lakoff who argues that the Democrats need to adopt a moral platform.