‘We’re Going to Fight and Fight and Fight’

This is the speech that Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean gave to supporters at the Val Air Ballroom in West Des Moines on Monday night, shortly after learning he had placed third among four leading candidates in the Iowa caucuses.

Dean: Well, you guys, you have already got the picture here. I was about to say, you know, I’m sure there are some disappointed people here. You know what, you know something, you know something, if you had told us one year ago that we were going to come in third in Iowa, we would have given anything for that.

And, you know something, not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico. We’re going to California and Texas and New York. And we’re going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we’re going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House! Yeah! We will not give up.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: We will not give up in New Hampshire.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: We will not give up in South Carolina.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: We will not give up in Arizona.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: Or New Mexico.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: Oklahoma.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: North Dakota.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: Delaware.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: Pennsylvania.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: Ohio.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: Michigan.

Audience: (In unison) No!

Dean: We will not quit now or ever. We want our country back for ordinary Americans.

And we’re going to win in Massachusetts and North Carolina and Missouri and Arkansas and Connecticut and New York and Ohio.

Let me -- wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait. Wait a minute.

There are some polite things we have to do here. And the first is to thank some people. I want to thank Jeani Murray (Dean’s Iowa campaign chief) and her extraordinary Iowa people. She has worked so hard. Come on up here, Jeani. Yeah, come on up. Jeani Murray, come on. Let me thank Jeani and all her people in Iowa. You worked hard. You got our ticket punched to New Hampshire, and I appreciate it. You should be so proud of it. You are a hard-working Iowa staff.

Let me thank Tom Harkin. You are so lucky to have a United States senator who understands what it is to stand up for ordinary Americans, and he is the leader in the United States Senate to take our country back for ordinary Americans again.

Let me thank Berkley Bedell and Dave Nagle, two former congressmen from Iowa who have been all over Iowa for us, helping us. I don’t know where Dave is tonight, but I want to thank him.

Let me thank the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades for standing up. Let me thank the American Federation of State and County and Municipal Employees for all the help they’ve been. The Service Employees International Union, the SEIU, thank you so much.

But, most of all, let me thank you, from all over America, coming to change this country. We haven’t seen this in 30 years.

Now, in my generation was the last time I saw all this stuff going on with people your age, under 30 years old. When I was your age -- when I was your age we did change two presidents and changed the foreign policy of the United States of America. Now the only difference is it took six years, and we’ve got six months to go before we’re going to do it here.

This is the changing of the generations, the passing of the torch to the new generation. It is your generation, and it’s your generation that’s fueled this campaign, because you know that the half-trillion-dollar deficits this president is piling up are going to be billed to you and your children, because of the terrible damage this president is doing to the environment are going to be things that you’re going to have to live with, and we’re going to change that.

And you have the power to change that, and we are starting right tonight.

We have just begun to fight. We have just begun to fight. And we’re going to fight and fight and fight until the country becomes a place where we’ll put more money into small children and their families than we will into prisons.

Where instead of giving $16 billion worth of tax breaks to oil companies and gas companies, we’ll put it into renewable energy and ethanol and bio-diesel.

Where instead of giving $200 billion to the HMOs and insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies, we’ll give seniors a real prescription benefit.

I would have liked to come in first tonight, and so would you. But you know what, I want to thank the people of Iowa. I do. I have spent two years here. I’ve gone to all 99 counties. This is a wonderful, wonderful state with wonderful, wonderful people, and I appreciate it very, very much.

I have called Sen. [John F.] Kerry and Sen. [John] Edwards and congratulated them, and told them we would see them around the corner on the other side of the block starting tomorrow morning.

I have called Rep. [Dick] Gephardt and thanked him for a courageous run. I worked for him in 1988. I still feel some loyalty to him. He did the best he could, and I appreciate his long career of service for the United States of America.

And now, I want every single one of you who can do it to go to New Hampshire. And if you can’t go to New Hampshire, I want you to go to Arizona or New Mexico or Oklahoma or Delaware or South Carolina or North Dakota. Viva New Mexico. Viva. Si, se puede. Si, se puede. Si, se puede. Si, se puede. Si, se puede. Si, se puede. Si, se puede. (Applause.)

I’m just going to close the way I always close. Because we’ve got to get on a plane. We’ve got to fly to New Hampshire, because you know what? We’re going to have a big rally at 3 o’clock in the morning when we land in New Hampshire.

(Applause.)

You have the power to take back this party, so we’ll stand up for Harry, what Harry Truman put in the 1948 Democratic Party platform: health care for everybody.

You have the power to take back the flag of the United States of America so that it does no longer belong solely to Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft, and together we have the power to take back the White House in 2004, and that is exactly what we’re going to do.

(Applause.)

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you.

*

Source: CNBC News Transcripts and Federal News Service.

Video of Howard Dean’s Iowa concession speech and the audio remix accompany this story online at latimes.com/deanspeech.