Moving into his speech, Dean talked about his work trying to build the Democratic Party across the country, noting a stop in Mississippi. He said that the Dems need to fight in all states, particularly in the Mississippis and Kansases, not just in the Wisconsins and Michigans.
An early theme was fiscal responsibility, with Dean stating that the Democratic platform “looks like a 1970s Republican Party platform” with regards to balanced budgets. He emphatically stated one of his regular points – “you can’t trust a Republican with your money” – repeating that they “borrow and spend” and “borrow and waste.”