Dean means it when he says grassroots...school board in TN.

[madfloridian]

He can't be there so he is holding a press conference for Tony Ford, running for Rutherford County school board. He has a dual website with Jared Barrett, running for road board.

http://www.blogforamerica.com/archives/004831.html
SNIP..."Change Coming in Rutherford, Tenn.
Tony Ford is a Dean Dozen candidate for school board in Rutherford County, Tennessee. This afternoon Governor Dean will be holding a press conference with local media to talk about why Tony is the right kind of candidate. Tony sends in the following dispatch for Democracy for America supporters.

I am proud to be a Democrat and honored to have been selected as a Dean Dozen candidate. On Thursday, Gov. Dean is conducting a press conference to show his support for me. We will discuss my quest to take back Rutherford County for progressive Democrats and win the White House back for Sen. Kerry. My campaign for the Rutherford County School Board has been a wonderful learning experience for me in dealing with local politics.

When you run on a platform that represents change within your community you meet resistance from those who fear losing control. Gov. Dean gave me the courage and strength to run against the grain in order to help our community's children. Here, like most school systems in the country, there are two school systems—one for the well-funded schools in the wealthier areas and another made up of under-funded schools in the poorer areas. I promise to fight to update all the schools and give every child a real equal education...."END SNIP

I know what he means about underfunded schools in poorer areas. I taught in one my last few years of teaching before I retired in frustration. We had almost no textbooks except reading, no science, old math texts, aged spelling texts, and no social studies or geography texts. Well, there were 10 of them from 1980.

I bought paper, pencils, and crayons for a lot of my students, as the schools no longer furnish them. I would order paperback books and gave them to some kids, because there was no other way to get books home on level. Library funds were being cut my last couple of years as well.

Some schools of choice and magnet schools,which are NOT required to keep students who make poor grades, had two sets of texts in some areas. They had a set for home and a set for school.

Go, Tony Ford, I do hope you can make a difference.

[Still_Loves_John]

1. School boards are so important

and for too long the Christian Right has been stocking them with stealth candidates. It's good that he's targeting them. Do you know anything about this county though? Depending on what part of Tennessee it's in, the Dean endorsement could do more harm than good.

[madfloridian]

2. Doesn't matter to him or most of the candidates.

He says they may not win, but they will make their presence known for the future.

I think people in TN are a lot like people everywhere, they are as a rule angry.

Most of the Dean Dozens are not expected to win right now, but it is a start.

[GumboYaYa]

5. Dean took Jeff Smith from a "Who's that " candidate

to one of the leaders in the race. He has helped the campaign in so many ways that I can't even begin to list them. We are going to elect a progressiove democrat to Congress in Missouri's 3rd District. That is just one race. His influence around the country is tremendous.

[Claire Beth]

6. Rutherford County is in middle TN....

geographically speaking it *IS* the middle of TN. I used to live there before moving back to Nashville. East TN is where mostly republican territory.... Also, Williamson county is goper country. Rutherford, Davidson and the remainder of middle tends to be more democratic. West Tennessee is mostly democratic.

I have seen LOTS of John Kerry bumper stickers and only one or two Bush bumper stickers. Tennessee is split even on Kerry vs. Bush at 47.5 percent each. Most people I talk to are fed up with Bush.

[WI_DEM]

3. Good for Dean

we need to start at the bottom and work our way to the top.

[Zynx]

7. Yeah and I'm sick of the Religious Right filling up the school boards with

nutcases.

[GumboYaYa]

4. A friend of mine ran for the library board in St. Louis.

When Dean was here he mentoined my friend. Dean said, "I hear that we have a member of DFA in Missouri who is running for the library board and that's great b/c if he wins the right-wing Republicans will not control the library board in St. Louis anymore."

My friend won. Now the right-wing Republicans don't control the library board in St. Louis.

GO DEAN! GO ALL PROGRESSIVES RUNNING FOR OFFICE THIS CYCLE!

[madfloridian]

8. It appears to help in getting publicity for the candidate.

Even if it is like Dana Rasch in Volusia County, FL. His opponent is not doing well against him, he dissed Dana in the Orlando Sentinel, and the reporter had to backtrack. He printed 5 letters in one day from Dean supporters throughout the country.

It gets attention for them, even if he can't actually have a rally.

[Crachet2004]

9. This is the wave of the future.