Audio...

...from Dean's comments to reporters, mentioned in the previous post, available here. I can't quite decide if he was slightly irritated by the (my) "Beltway elite" question.

Brief Dean Q-and-A

Dean made a quick exit after the meeting adjourned, but he did answer a few reporter questions as he walked through the Omni lobby to his waiting town car:

Reporter: Do you think the election results are a total vindication [of the DNC's 50-state strategy / broad approach to spending campaign funds]?

Dean: The best thing to do instead of speaking about things like vindication is just say, 'Look, we won, everybody had a huge contribution to make, including some of participants in all the feuding that was going on.' We ought to take comfort in the fact that we all worked hard, we all get some credit for it and we need now to move ahead.

Is there anything to fix in the 50-state strategy? Everything needs fine-tuning, right?

Well I’m sure there is. But that we won’t be sharing that with you [laughs].

Governor, do you ever think you’ll be fully embraced by the DC Beltway elite, or the Democratic elite, for lack of a better term?

You know, that’s not high on my agenda. High on my agenda is electing a Democratic president and making sure the gains we had in this past election cycle are gains that we maintain and expand on. I just… [laughs] ... those kinds of questions just don’t compute with me. I don’t think like that.

Much love for the 50-state strategy

[Current post was delayed by dead battery/lunch]

The overriding theme of the meeting here is how well Dean's broad strategy paid off in the election.

"Well as long as we're having a lovefest for the 50-state strategy..." Dean said at one point in response to yet another glowing endorsement by committee members.

As for the the candidates who benefited, Tim Walz told the committee, "Thank you for your vision that I know has been somewhat controversial." He called the plan a great use of resources and said, "because of that we're sitting in the majority."

Nancy Boyda, who "has said some wonderful, unprintable things about consultants," Dean said (clearly a woman after his own heart), told the committee that "this would not have happened had the DNC not gotten out there and done the right thing."

In a culmination of what one committee member called "a Dean lovefest"--closely tied to the aforementioned 50-state strategy lovefest--the committee passed a resolution applauding Dean and saying his strategy is "now a blueprint for building the institutional infrastructure that will strengthen our national party, maintain our recent gains and position us for success in upcoming and future elections."

Dean returned the love: "There's no 50-state strategy without the 50 states."

An unrelated aside: A funny moment came when technical difficulties delayed a presentation on the huge investment the DNC has made in technology. See Kathy Kiely's excellent notes on the DNC's PartyBuilder--a Web-based tool that "activist kids who care about something" can use to organize, Dean said--as well as other elements of the party's technological efforts.

Coming up: a reporter asks Dean a question that doesn't "compute with me."

Lunchroom duty good training for Washington

That's what new Rep. Tim Walz, a high school geography teacher tells the committee. Line of the day so far.

Brief speech by Dean

About 8-9 minutes, just the facts from Dean as he recapped the on-the-ground approach that the DNC is crediting with shifting the balance of congressional power last month.

He talked about how Democrats went out and won in places in which they've seldom won before. But with new power comes new responsibility, he said.

"Our biggest challenge now," he said, is Democrats will be judged on "what we do, not what we say."

More quick hits:

--Dean is "hoping to catch a ticket" to the historic swearing-in of Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), the first female Speaker of the House. Much applause ensues.

--The mid-term results will spur Republicans to pay closer attention to districts and races they once took for granted. "We have a long way to go," he said.

--Dems need results, Dean says. Elections "loan a party power for two years," Dean says. "We have to earn it back in 2008." He also warned that "the going will be harder than the campaign."

--Dean is proudest of the strides the party made with "faith voters."

Tim Walz (Minn.) and Nancy Boyda (Kansas), two new Democratic reps who say they directly benefited from Dean's 50-state strategy, are up next.

The Dean Scene

WHO: Gov. Howard Dean and the rest of the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee

WHAT: Meeting to discuss/perhaps bask in the glow of the mid-term elections

WHEN: 11A today (Saturday, Dec. 2)

WHERE: Omni Shoreham Hotel in northwest Washington, DC.

Howard Dean was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee in February 2005 and was soon catching grief over his 50-State strategy, which spread campaign funds and resources across the country in order to broadly re-strengthen the party, rather than focus most of the cash and staff on important races.

Some say he was vindicated by the Democratic takeover of Congress during last month's mid-terms. (The results boosted his profile to the point that a bunch of Canadian politicos had him up last week to advise them on how to resuscitate the Liberal party up there. Video here.)

But he's still catching heat from Beltway insiders who say Democrats should have won even more seats than they did in November. It will be interesting to see if he touches on this in his speech today.

And let's just get this out of the way now: Here's video of his infamous "I Have a Scream" speech embedded within a pretty fair explanation of the whole thing by CBS News.

Updates to come.