Dean supporter Cindy DeRoda, a Spanish teacher at Juan Diego High School, was first in line, having arrived at 8 a.m. She said she likes Dean for his early opposition to the war in Iraq, and "his willingness to tell the truth." Following Dean's speech, DeRoda walked over to the overflow auditorium to get a second look at her hero. Inching her way toward the stage after Dean spoke briefly to the overflow crowd, she shyly asked him to autograph the back page of a novel she had brought along to read during the long wait in line.

Dean's original speech had been presented in the overflow auditorium on a large screen, and the audio wasn't exactly in sync with Dean's lips. But that didn't bother Lauren Mermejo and her friends, who found Dean passionate and clear about his beliefs. "He tugs at my heart strings," Mermejo said.

America cannot succeed, Dean told his audience, unless the president and others reach out to the people who disagree with them. He urged his audience to knock on doors and engage their neighbors in dialogue. "Vote by vote, door by door, election by election, year by year, we will take this country back for the people who built it," he said.

The people who voted for Bush in 2004 and cited "moral issues" as the reason, are most worried not about abortion or same-sex marriage, he said, but about the TV programs their children are exposed to, the meth labs in their neighborhoods and the fact that their children come home to empty houses because both parents need to work to make ends meet. Most Americans, he said, want universal health insurance and a public education system that is not controlled by "unfunded mandates" like No Child Left Behind. Most Americans, he said, did not want the federal government to interfere in Terri Schiavo's death.

He urged his audience to purchase "democracy bonds" at www.democratic.org. The DNC's goal, he said, is to get 1 million Americans to buy a $20 bond each month, "if you want ordinary people to run America."

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com