Susan D. Cooley ’06, left, and Emily J. Dubner ’06, right, greet former Vermont Governor Howard Dean in the Kirkland House courtyard before Dean’s appearance in the final installment of the “Conversations with the Candidates” series in Kirkland.

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean called rumors of his candidacy for chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) “premature,” but did not rule out running for president in 2008 during an appearance in the Kirkland House JCR Wednseday afternoon.

Governor Dean, who rose to national fame last year as the early frontrunner prominence the Democratic primary, was on campus to speak at a study group at the Institute of Politics (IOP) led by Fellow Jeff Amestoy, the former Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court appointed by Dean. Before the study group, Dean took questions from members of the Harvard College Democrats and other students in Kirkland.

Admitting that he had a “tough decision to make,” Dean said becoming DNC Chairman could prevent him from another possible attempt at the presidency in 2008.

“I haven’t decided to [run for chairman], and it also means that I can’t run in 2008 for President,” Dean said.

When asked to comment on what John F. Kerry could have done differently in his race for president, Dean refused to explicitly criticize the Kerry campaign, saying that every campaign makes mistakes. In reference to his infamous outburst after the Iowa Caucuses, Dean jokingly said it was impossible to find one “yahoo” moment to explain why the campaign failed.

“There is an enormous amount we can learn [from Kerry’s campaign], but it’s going to be learned privately,” he said.

Dean was more willing to openly criticize the Democratic Party as a whole. In the wake of the party’s presidential, senatorial, and congressional defeats last week, Dean said it was clear that the party needed better discipline.

“We need more discipline in the Democratic Party,” he said. “We have to be a little more serious about what we do...We are going to have to work together, stop fighting over who is going to be this and who is going to be that and realize that if we don’t work together, the greater purpose of Democrats won’t be served.”

Dean said that one of the reasons President Bush and the Republican Party were successful was that they were better organized and better able to stay on message throughout the election.

“Republicans have the ability to put 60 people on talk shows on one day and have all of them say the same thing,” Dean said. “Bush was terrific on the stump. He repeated the same four things three times a day and that’s what dominated television.”

Dean said the Democrats must present voters with a platform clearly different from that of the Republicans.

“If we let the President set the agenda, we are going to continue to lose,” he said. “We have to set our own agenda.”

The governor said the party needed to “connect with people at the local level” on issues such as jobs, health insurance, public education and security, and speak to those issues clearly.

“I am tired of having campaigns run on guns, gays and abortion, and the reason that happens is because Republicans have nothing to say about jobs or health care,” he said.

Joe Trippi, who is an IOP Fellow this year and was fired from his post as Dean’s campaign manager when it became clear that Dean would not win the nomination, did not attend Dean’s talk.