Reply #13: Transcript [View All]

MR. RUSSERT: During the campaign you said that Howard Dean did not have the credibility or judgment to be president. Do you believe he has the credibility or judgment to be chairman of the Democratic National Committee?
SEN. KERRY: Sure, absolutely.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you support him?

SEN. KERRY: I think Howard Dean proved during this campaign that he was really a loyal and go-to person. He campaigned his heart out for me. He wanted us to win. And I'm very grateful to him for that--as did every other member who's running, incidentally--every other person running for the chairmanship. They worked hard. They're capable people and I think any one of them would be able to lead our party and be helpful. And, you know, we're not looking for a spokesperson in the chairmanship. I think if you talk to any of my colleagues or any people in the House or Senate or others, what we're looking for is somebody who's going to help the party modernize and do the things we need to do in order to be able to technically, organizationally, structurally be able to catch up to the Republicans. We're behind.

And I think that--you know, if you figure--I mean, Karl Rove really had six years to prepare for Election Day. We in many ways had only a few months, notwithstanding the outstanding work that Terry McAuliffe did, but Terry McAuliffe was struggling uphill. We didn't have a president, we didn't have a House, we didn't have a Senate. He did an amazing job of raising money, getting voter lists, putting the committee in the best position possible. But he'd be the first to tell you, we still have a distance to travel in order to catch up. And I think whoever is chosen as our new chairman, we're going to have a united Democratic Party that is working overtime to put those pieces in place.

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