from the Jackson Sun-Herald:

JACKSON, Miss. - Praying for American troops and evoking biblical images of helping the needy, Howard Dean told Mississippi Democrats on Tuesday night that the national party won't give up on socially conservative states.

"We're not going to concede the South," the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee told an overflow crowd of more than 900 people in a dining room that was set up for 800 in the Clarion hotel near downtown Jackson.

"The South will rise again, and when it does, it will have a D under its name," Dean said to applause from the diverse crowd of blacks and whites.