Thom Hartmann: Welcome back, Thom Hartmann here with you live from the Take Back The American Dream Conference here in Washington DC. A whole group of extraordinary organizations and people coming together to take back the American dream. And one of my favorites, one of my heroes, one of my friends. Jim Dean is with us. He’s the chairman of Democracy For America, DFA, DemocracyForAmerica.com, one of the websites that you constantly hear me telling you to go to. And Jim, Welcome.
Jim Dean: Thom, thanks for having me on. How are you?
Thom Hartmann: Just great. You guys are still doing trainings around the country on how to be an activist?
Jim Dean: Sure are, we actually just finally got to Anchorage Alaska about two weeks ago. So we’ve got about four more states to go to but we’re going to still keep pushing this and…
Thom Hartmann: Four more states before you’ve hit all 50?
Jim Dean: Yeah.
Thom Hartmann: Holy cow.
Jim Dean: Yeah, so it’s been a long haul at it but we’ve got to keep coming back, you know. We’ve got to keep getting people involved and making it easier for people to take responsibility over the political process.
Thom Hartmann: Have you become a frequent flyer miles junkie?
Jim Dean: Well I’m on a lot of different airlines so they don’t really treat me better, one doesn’t treat me better than the others.
Thom Hartmann: That’s unfortunate. I’ve actually played that game for years. Anyway, the Take Back American movement, the Take Back the American Dream movement, I think actually, and that’s an important distinction because you know, pre-Reagan we all understood that the American dream was the life that my dad and most of my friends’ parents had, I grew up in Lansing, Michigan, a blue collar working class town. My dad worked in a tool and die shop, my next door neighbor’s dad worked at Oldsmobile, the guy across the street worked at Fisher Body. I mean you know, that was. And on that one single salary you could raise a kid, raise a family, put your kids through college, my dad and mom had four sons, and have a pension and retire. How do we take back the American dream?
Jim Dean: Well I think it’s a lot of different things all coming together at once. You know you’re seeing it with the spontaneous actions that are going on all over the country with the Occupy Wall Street and that’s really important. These folks are keeping this thing alive, just like the folks in Wisconsin did in February and January of last year which was very, very important. You’re seeing labor, with a renewed vigor right now. And it’s not just within their membership, it’s outside of their membership with a lot of people who are empathetic with the idea that if you work for a living in this country you ought to be able to make a living. And they’re empathetic with the fact that labor does offer the kinds of opportunities. It wants a society that offers not just a living wage but opportunities for people to have advancement and opportunities for our kids. So you’re seeing a resurgence there. And then, you know listen, there are a lot of other great progressive groups out there right now offering different ways to get involved. But the important operative word here is get involved. It’s not about one organization or the other, it’s about all of us taking back control of the political process and taking back control of our country from big business.
Thom Hartmann: DemocracyForAmerica.com, the website for your organization. I want to say that again, because I want A: people to go there, and B: I’d like to talk to you about beyond that. This conference, your participation in this conference, your sense of this conference, why are you here, what do you see going on here?
Jim Dean: Well it’s always helpful for us to be at places where there are other groups doing other work. So we can understand that better and again a lot smarter about what’s going on out there and also get smarter about how to be effective. You know, we were very, very involved in the Wisconsin recall elections, just went up and giddy-upped over to Ohio where we’re working with a broad coalition of groups to repeal the anti-collective bargaining legislation that Governor Kasich passed.
Thom Hartmann: SB5?
Jim Dean: SB5. And kudos to the folks who got the voter suppression reveal on the ballot, that’s not going to happen until 2012 but that’s very important for this election. We have a lot of other opportunities in other states for forward thinking legislation. You know we’re not about just fighting back against these folks. You know, we have a lot of states that are going to be setting up these healthcare exchanges. And that may include some of the government option stuff as Vermont did in this bill last year.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah, Montana, Governor Schweitzer came out last week or the week before saying he wants to do that.
Jim Dean: Yep. And we have other states that are talking about public financing of elections which in my home state of Connecticut has been a home run for everybody.
Thom Hartmann: But the Supreme Court just knocked that down in Arizona. Did they knock it down so narrowly that it can be done in a different way or?
Jim Dean: They knocked it down basically because what they’re saying is that you can’t tell a candidate that they have to pay an extra penalty or that they can’t spend all the money they want on an election. So in fact, in Connecticut for example, if you have a billion dollars and want to run for legislature, you can do it. But the fact is in two short cycles, Thom, what this has already done is it created a culture among the voters where they don’t really particularly appreciate candidates who are spending a lot of money on races, particularly when their opponents are taking public financing. That’s why Governor Malloy got elected over a free spending republican and it’s one of the reasons why Richard Blumenthal won his race against …
Thom Hartmann: So you already have public funding in Connecticut?
Jim Dean: Yeah we’ve had it for two cycles.
Thom Hartmann: I didn’t know that.
Jim Dean: For the legislative races and the governors races. Last year was the first governor's race that had been in place.
Thom Hartmann: Right. What’s the threshold to get in? How many signatures, how many dollars do you need?
Jim Dean: Well in the legislative race, and this may have changed because it’s going to change from one cycle to the next, but you had to raise 15 thousand dollars in $100 contributions, a lot of it had to come from within your district. You had to get a certain amount of signatures on the ballot and then you qualify for an $85,000 grant. So instead of millions of dollars on a legislative race, we’re basically having legislative contests for less than $100,000 right now.
Thom Hartmann: Amazing. That’s amazing.
Jim Dean: Yeah. It’s taken all the big special interest money out of politics.
Thom Hartmann: So what happens if, you know, one of Carl Rove’s GPS whatever comes in and just runs you know a half million dollars worth of ads against somebody?
Jim Dean: Well Linda McMann did the same thing against Richard Blumenthal last year and Richard Blumenthal won. Tom Foley did it against Governor Malloy and Governor Malloy won. So…
Thom Hartmann: So do they get outed as a result of this?
Jim Dean: Sure.
Thom Hartmann: The process increases the transparency?
Jim Dean: Sure. And actually the polling shows that people, when they start hearing these commercials, all they’re being reminded of is that these opponents have a lot of money.
Thom Hartmann: Oh that’s interesting.
Jim Dean: So and it happened to Meg Whitman in California.
Thom Hartmann: Sure.
Jim Dean: So if we can keep more states adopting this, we can get more states to adopt it, which is an opportunity next year, we can start dumbing down Citizen’s United in a different way. And listen, I’m for a constitution amendment, but we’ve got to get everybody on board with this
Thom Hartmann: Yeah, corporations are not people, money is not speech.
Jim Dean: Right, absolutely.
Thom Hartmann: Amend the constitution. Jim Dean, DemocracyForAmerica.com is the website. Jim, always an honor to see you. I hope you’re doing well.
Jim Dean: I appreciate it. Yeah we’re doing good.
Thom Hartmann: Keep up the great work.
Jim Dean: Will do.
Thom Hartmann: You’re doing God’s work, man. I’m really serious. Jim Dean from Democracy for America. We will be back in just a moment. We’re live today at the Take Back the American Dream conference. More from some, some great folks here at the conference right after this.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
