Hoho rocks the house...

It's no secret  I was a big fan of Howard Dean and I was as  disappointed  as anybody when DFA went knackers. DrDean, unleashed, getting his still-potent message out:

...Cops blocked hundreds of Deaniacs from entering the over-capacity Royal Sonesta Hotel Tuesday afternoon, after some had waited up to three hours to get in. But when Dean and the organizers heard about the snafu, the former Vermont governor addressed those who'd been kept out from a patio behind the hotel. Campaign for America's Future director Bob Borosage introduced Dean a second time, and apologized for not having a big enough space for everyone. "Blame me," Borosage said. "I'm amazed by your energy and awed by your numbers."

Both crowds were awed by Dean, who's still turning out hundreds of swooning supporters, most of them younger than the average convention delegate. His indoor speech was interrupted by multiple standing ovations plus lots of whoops and screams, even tears. "This is not a roomful of Democratic party regulars," Dean opened, and the crowd roared its agreement.

So he introduced them to Will Rogers' standard party punchline, "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat." But Dean didn't play it for laughs. "Everybody always laughs at that, but we'll laugh ourselves right out of existence," he warned, if Democrats and progressives don't do the serious work of organizing a base.

"It's not enough to vote, I want you to run for office," he told the crowd.

 "If you can't run for office, if you're a single mother, give three hours a week to someone else's campaign. Cough up five, 10, 25 dollars." He stopped short of former campaign manager Joe Trippi's call for John Kerry to abandon the public financing system and rely on a small-donor Internet base, but he did say "the best campaign finance reform is raising money from small donors. That's how we take this country back."

You go, Hoho!! He also bakes:

Vermont has been blessed with miraculous trees. One is the sugar Maple, which produces our wonderful Maple Syrup, and another is our apple trees, which produce an abundance of a variety of apples. In the Fall, some of the apples are pressed into cider. Combining the two flavors with Vermont ham produces a culinary experience you don't want to miss.

Who can argue with that? 



edited 2:35p