Pitt students could ruin this year’s election if they’re not careful, said Howard… Pitt students could ruin this year’s election if they’re not careful, said Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

“Overconfidence would be a terrible mistake,” said Dean, during a brief visit to Pitt yesterday sponsored by the College Democrats.

Dean, in a five-minute speech during his appearance in the William Pitt Union Assembly Room, encouraged students to phonebank in support of Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama and to remember to vote.

“The stakes are enormous, particularly for people your age,” said Dean, who ran in the 2004 presidential primary and lost to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. “This is your time. Don’t blow it.”

Dean’s message struck Pitt junior Lizzie Sovia.

“It made me feel like this election is really riding on the younger voters,” she said.

It’s also hedging on Western Pennsylvania, Dean added, and both candidates recognize this.

“I don’t care what the newspapers say about the polls,” said Dean. “This election’s all going to come down to Western Pennsylvania one week from today.”

Dean compared this election to the one in 1960, when Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy and Republican candidate Richard M. Nixon ran for the presidency. McCain, like Nixon, is this election’s candidate of the past, said Dean. Meanwhile Obama, like Kennedy, is the candidate of the future.

Dean advocated for Obama’s proposed tax cuts and his platform to withdraw from Iraq.

“[Obama will] stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq when we ought to be spending that money here making sure kids can go to college and [do] not come out with huge debts,” said Dean.