Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean spoke to ISU students Friday, bringing his fiery campaign and strong anti-Bush platform.

He spoke before an audience of 1,200. The program was originally scheduled to take place in the South Ballroom of the Memorial Union for 500 attendees, but due to crowd overflow, the walls were opened up for additional people to stand in the Great Hall.

Dean spent the evening decrying the policies of President Bush, telling the audience why he was more qualified.

“We need to stand up and be Democrats again,” he said. “We’ll never beat George Bush by being Bush-light.”

The large number of student attendees came through the efforts of Generation Dean, an arm of the Dean campaign aimed at students. They succeeded in drawing students to his speech — four times as many people showed up for this event than any other Democratic presidential hopeful who visited Iowa State in the last year.

Opponents also came to show their disapproval of the Democratic front-runner. One man stood outside the Memorial Union, dressed as a chameleon. He shouted, “I change colors as fast as Dean changes his stance on issues!”

During his speech, a few people held up a poster reading “Vote for Dean,” adorned with a large Confederate Flag. The flag was in reference to a controversial promise Dean made to be “the candidate for guys with Confederate flag decals on their pickup trucks.”

Responding to the flag, he said he “welcomes our Republican colleagues with the confederate flag.”

He mentioned his successes as governor of Vermont several times in his speech. Dean said his victories of balancing the budget, providing universal health care and expanding civil rights for gays and lesbians would be mirrored in the White House.

He spoke about tuition before the enthusiastic students. Dean said he would use tax credits so college students would receive $10,000 in loans and grants a year, depending on their financial situation. They would also never owe more than 10 percent of their annual income in loan payments and would have their debt canceled in 10 years.

Under his plan, public servants, such as teachers or firefighters, would only pay 7 percent of their income yearly.

Another focus was Iraq. He distinguished himself from the other presidential candidates, who authorized force in Iraq, saying he understood Saddam Hussein wasn’t involved in Sept. 11. He also criticized Bush’s performance in the post-Sept. 11 world.

Not all students believed in Dean’s plans for the future and past successes as governor. Cassi Johnson, president of Students for Kucinich and graduate student in sociology, said the country needs a good president, not a good governor. “Vermont only has 600,000 people — a little larger than the greater Des Moines area — and is mostly rural. It’s obviously not the same as the rest of the country. Balancing the budget and providing health care for all people will be completely different,” she said.

Some students disagreed with Dean’s fund raising because he announced he would refuse about $19 million in federal funds.

Dean doesn’t want to abide by the $45 million national spending limit for the primaries, which, if nominated to run against Bush, could make the presidential election into a free-spending battle between Dean and Bush.

Jesse Wilcox, president of Cyclones for Dean and senior in biology, said skipping public financing wasn’t about turning the race into a spend-off, but was a sign he was a candidate of the people.

“Dean has received millions of small checks from people, not a few checks for millions,” he said. “The federal funds would limit those who could support his campaign, making it less grassroots and not more so.”