Democratic Party's 'Unity' Remains Intact

HOWARD DEAN: I think they're very representative. You should have been at the interfaith service we had yesterday, which was the first official opening of the Democratic National Convention.

There were people -- pro-life Democrats proclaiming why they were pro-life and why they were Democrats. There were people on the other side calling for the abolition of the death penalty.

Look, this party is a big, broad coalition of people. And the common ground that we have is we really want change in America, and we want economic fairness for ordinary people. And we think that George Bush and John McCain are fundamentally unfair to ordinary Americans.

HOWARD DEAN: Absolutely not.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... with these lingering feelings towards Sen. Clinton?

HOWARD DEAN: No, they don't. I know the press finds it necessary to write about that, but it's not true. There is no one more than Hillary Clinton who's tried her best to bring this party together.

If you want to see a great document, look at the platform. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama worked together on that. It was approved unanimously.

It has a whole lot of stuff about women's rights in there and a whole lot of stuff about fighting sexism. And it's got the imprint of both candidates firmly on it. Both candidates have just been terrific.

I don't think we have a unity problem at all. I think there's a few people who can't be satisfied, but we've got some very happy delegates with our ticket.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What do you think Sen. Obama needs to do to appeal to those Democratic voters who are telling pollsters they are still reluctant to vote for him...

HOWARD DEAN: The same thing...

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... they're just not sure who he is?

HOWARD DEAN: Look, Sen. Obama is going -- we're going to reach out and appeal, Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden, and the Democratic Party, are going to appeal to independents, Republicans and Democrats.

This is a broad party. We're getting right now a huge amount of support from Republicans who believe that you've got to have fiscal support when you're governing the country.

We're getting a huge amount of support from independents who love the fact that Barack doesn't take special-interest money, and then he sees John McCain's campaign being run by special interests and lobbyists.

So there will be plenty of -- lots of different kinds of people voting for different tickets here, but I believe, at the end of the day, Americans want a change. And Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden represent change.

HOWARD DEAN: The fundamental difference is that we -- this campaign doesn't take money from special interests. And the McCain campaign not only is bought and paid for by special interests; it's run by special interests.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Governor, one of the your -- I guess the themes of your leadership of the party has been a so-called 50-state strategy...

HOWARD DEAN: Right.

JUDY WOODRUFF: ... where you've tried to spread the Democratic message and the Democratic infrastructure into all 50 states. How does that connect with what Barack Obama's going to need to do?

HOWARD DEAN: Well, we're now campaigning seriously in Alaska, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and, of course, the West -- Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, Nevada, and even Arizona we have a shot.

So, you know, we're working hard in states that we have never worked in before, not for 30 years. I think that really represents change in the Democratic Party.

If the Democratic Party wants to be a national party, we've got to ask everybody for their vote, including people in really conservative states, and we've got to ask conservatives for their votes.

One of the biggest mistakes that George Bush made as president was to decide to be the president of only half the people. And Barack is going to be the president of all the people, even those who disagree with him.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean. Governor, thank you very much for talking with us.

HOWARD DEAN: Thanks for having me on, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Jim, back to you.