Nation-Building

This is another example of a principled stand by Dean on an issue. Excerpt follows: Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said Tuesday he would work to "link human rights and trade policy" as he cultivated support from labor leaders to his outsider campaign for president. ... "The WTO is going to have to care about more than just economic transactions. They're going to have to care about human rights," Dean said during an impromptu gathering with reporters. Dean was among the last of the presidential candidates to make their way to the labor group's winter meetings. Union leaders heard from Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois on Monday. As the story noted, Dean was at the AFL-CIO meeting this Tuesday, but we haven't yet gotten any transcripts or reports. Send us email if you spot one so we can put it up for all to peruse...

  Dean PBS Newshour interview

PBS' News Hour has been conducting a series of interviews with the presidential candidates. Here's the transcript of Dean's interview with Gwen Ifill (linnk courtesy of reader Philip Green) - the topic is heavily weighted towards Iraq and foreign policy: GWEN IFILL: Last night we heard from Congressman Richard Gephardt. Tonight we talk with former Vermont governor Howard dean. He is 54 years old, a New York City native, and a graduate of Yale University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After his medical residency, he and his wife, who is also a physician, set up an internal medicine practice in Vermont. He was first elected to the state legislature in 1983. Four years later, he was elected lieutenant governor, rising to governor in 1991, when Republican Richard Snelling died of a heart attack in office. Dean was easily reelected three times. He left office this year to run full time for the Democratic nomination. Howard Dean joins us from the campaign trail in Mi...

The media, grasping for easy characterizations, has cast Kucinich as the "anti-Dean" and heavies like TNR have claimed that Kucinich is Howard Dean's worst nightmare. Hardly! Besides being a world of difference in their anti-war positions, Kucinich has enormous poliitical baggage that Dean is completely unencumbered with. Joshua Micah Marshall points to a Cleveland Magazine article - it seems that besides Kucinich's noted flipflops on abortion, he has a history of playing racial politics: Basically, in the early days -- before he was running citywide, let alone nationwide -- Kucinich's political schtick was posing as the champion of the 'forgotten' white ethnic voters over against the rising force of black political power. Sort of a great white hope type, or great Slavic hope, if you will. There was plenty of acrimony between blacks and white ethnic voters in Northern cities in the late 1960s and early 1970s. So it was fertile political ground. And...

William Saletan effortlessly flays DeLay alive on the altar of his own words: That was bad enough, but Dean wasn't finished. He suggested that the United States should curb its warlike impulses to avoid offending other countries. "The White House has bombed its way around the globe," he sneered. "International respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly." As for the current war plan, Dean complained that "no one wants us to be there" and that the president's crusade "has made the Russians jittery and has harmed [our] standing in the world." Then there was the creepy way Dean kept referring to the president. He called the showdown "Bush's undeclared war" and "Bush's bombing campaign." He described it as something "the president has put us into" and warned his audience, "We should think very, very seriously whether we are going to take ownership of th...

Michael Tomansky, writing for The American Prospect has a good article about some of the “just an ultra-liberal dove” coverage that Howard Dean has gotten in the media (and I’m looking right at you, New Republic ) and why that label not only fails to describe Dean, but also totally misses why Dean is catching on with so many Democratic (and Independent) voters. He astutely notes that Beltway media types tend to focus on ideology first. They see a candidate’s position on one or two things and label that person “liberal” or “conservative” based on those positions. Sometimes, that works, but with a candidate like Dean, it fails utterly. Such an approach also fails to capture a candidate’s ability to project a personality and to relate to voters—a factor that frequently trumps ideology. This is especially true of Dean: But to see Dean's appeal to hard-shell Democrats as chiefly ideological is to miss entirely what's important about his presence in this race. His appeal is m...

New Hampshire Poll of 600 likely Democratic primary voters, January 2004. MOE +/- 4.1% Candidate % of Vote Favorable Unfavorable Unfamiliar Could Never Vote For Kerry 26% 71% 10% 16% 4% Dean 13 43 4 51 7 Gephardt 11 58 22 17 8 Lieberman 9 62 25 12 11 Edwards 2 26 10 63 5 Moseley-Braun 2 25 16 57 9 Hart 2 33 45 20 9 Kucinich 1 8 6 85 5 Sharpton 1 9 53 37 30 Clark 1 10 8 80 4 Graham 0.4 20 16 62 4 Other 4 1 Not Sure 29 5 May not total 100% due to rounding (edited by Aziz using HTML Tidy )

Coming out of the DNC cattle call shute with the momentum, the media is still trying to figure out a way to cast Dean in an "AntiWar'" mold, boxing him in: Candidates Gephardt, Lieberman Kerry and Edwards are counting on the war to be history by the time next year's Iowa’s caucuses roll around. But as they start out on the trail, it is Dean who not only is in sync with Democratic voters and fundraisers on an issue they care passionately about, but who is coming off as bold and authentic in comparison to the carefully scripted members of Congress. Republican pollster Bill McInturff put out similar poll numbers last week and gleefully predicted a "Democratic Party meltdown" over the Iraq issue. The conventional wisdom is that the Democratic anti-war message is too far to the left and candidates who articulate it will be badly positioned in a general election. But Dean isn't holding a "far left" stance, even though the Republic...

House majority leader Tom DeLay, a truly dispicable charachter and a chicken-hawk who claimed there were no spots for him in Vietnam because poor minorities had taken them all, attacks Gov. Dean for his stance on Iraq: Meeting with reporters in his Capitol office, Mr. DeLay said the Democrats were pursuing a "reckless strategy" in fighting the war and singled out Dr. Dean, a presidential candidate who last week accused President Bush of trying to wage a unilateral war. "I saw his speech on C-Span, and I think it was outrageous," Mr. DeLay said. "He either doesn't know what he's talking about when he says we're going to take unilateral action, or he's seriously uninformed, or he's just misleading the American people and his party." Dr. Dean disqualified himself for national leadership, Mr. DeLay said, by suggesting that the decision to go to war should be made by the United Nations. "If he wants to be president of the Uni...

Teddy Davis sends in this transcript of an item that appeared on Buchanan & Press yesterday. Teddy writes: Craig Crawford of The Hotline called Dean "the bull of the cattle calls," correctly pointing out that Dean has done the best at every cattle call of the season from Linn County to NARAL to the DNC Winter Meeting. There was also criticism of Dean for his foreign policy pronouncements. I think Dean's foreign policy speech at Drake University was well-thought through and offered an inspiring vision of a tough but smart foreign policy. But Dean's critics have a point when they point out the inconsistencies in his off-the-cuff comments. The campaign needs to direct people towards his official position. I think Teddy's analysis is spot-on. Dean needs to explain his positions clearly, because at present they do make him look vulnerable. Here is the transcript: PRESS: They [ABC NEWS "THE NOTE"] say the big winner was Howard Dean, fol...

Many people may not be aware that the Dean campaign has an official Dean Mailing List (signup form in the lower left sidebar). But this is ot the only email resource for Dean supporters - the New York for Dean gang have set up a new mailing list, called Dean in the News . This will be devoted to Dean news articles in the press and media. There is also a new Students for Dean group, called Generation Dean . Finally, we have been plugging the Dean Meetups for some time now - this is a fantastic resource to help Dean supporters self-organize on the local scale. There are 2327 people signed up for Dean Meetups as of this writing - compared to only 507 for Kerry and 325 for Edwards.

Michael Tomasky here, filling in for Eric Alterman (author of What Liberal Media? ) praises Dean's stance on foreign policy at Altercation blog: Howard Dean says it wonderfully in a major foreign-policy speech he delivered in Iowa on Monday. He comes as close as I’ve heard any Democrat come to laying out some of the above; he even takes a punch at Colin Powell for the “sketchiness” of his evidence. Dean is far and away the most serious of the Democratic candidates to this point. Of course, he benefits from the dynamic of being behind and needing to win press notices, so he has to say attention-getting things that will differentiate him from the pack. If he gains ground, will he then trim his sails and speak more cautiously? We can’t know, but we know right now that he’s the only one saying virtually all the things a Democrat ought to say. My ticket right now is Dean-Clark, as in General Wesley, profiled by moi in the current American Prospect but the story is strangely...

Joe Klein, who on Meet the Press had such positive comments about Dean, is in denial. Ina lengthy TIME piece ostensibly about defending Richard Gephardt, he is unable to resist praising Dean: There is a certain sadness to watching both men work this time around — especially in Iowa last week, where peace is the issue, hot is the style, and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean is rapidly becoming the flavor of the month. Ask an Iowa Democrat about Gephardt or Lieberman, and the most common reaction is a sigh. Meanwhile, Dean is wicked fun, a candidate who works without text and without net, excoriating his fellow Democrats for supporting President Bush on Iraq (while cleverly leaving a way to support Bush himself — if Saddam is found to be developing nukes, and if the United Nations is willing to go along). Dean speaks English, not focus group or legislatese. He sounds fresh — and last Friday, in Washington, he set the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting ablaze. "M...

Following is the text of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean's remarks at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting. DEAN: First, let me thank my wonderful and loyal advance team. (And did you all like the maple syrup and the cheese and all that stuff? What I want to know is why in the world the Democratic Party leadership is supporting the president's unilateral attack on Iraq. What I want to know is why are Democratic Party leaders supporting tax cuts. The question is not how the big tax should be, the question should be can we afford a tax cut at all of the largest deficit in the history of this country. What I want to know is why we're fighting in Congress about the patients' bill of rights when the Democratic Party ought to be standing up for health care for every single American man, woman and child in this country. What I want to know is why our folks are voting for the president's No Child Left Behind bill that leaves every child ...

Dean's appearance at the DNC has drawn an amazing amount of press and media coverage. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz has an article titled " Howard Dean Gets Hot " with links to stories and headlines from various newspapers and magazines around the country. In addition to print coverage, Dean got praise from Bob Schieffer and Joe Klein on Face the Nation - here is a transcript of their laudatory remarks (thanks to Teddy Davis): KLEIN: ...as when we make predictions, but I--I got to say I was at the--the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, meetings in Washington on Friday and Saturday--well, on Friday, and Howard Dean, the governor of Vermont came in and he just blew those people away. It was one of the most effective speeches I've ever seen a candidate give. Now he doesn't have foreign policy experience, but I think that at the very least, he is going to sharpen up the other candidates and he's going to make this a very, very interesting race. ...

From the James Fallows interview in The Atlantic (in the follow-up questions asked via email) Governors vs. senators. Mr. Clinton also spoke about the advantage governors have as candidates, based on their real-world operating knowledge. The one governor now in the race is Howard Dean, who is generally believed to be a long-shot. Does President Clinton think that the advantages that come with a governor's background could make Dean a serious contender for the presidency? Howard Dean has been a good governor. He has done important things, and his background as a governor does bring advantages. However, because I don't plan to endorse a candidate before the party makes its choice, I don't want to 'handicap" the race. Previously in that interview, Clinton talks about the rumor that he had called Edwards after his Meet The Press interview and told him to "hit the books before you go out in public again." Clinton says that wasn't accuracte, bu...

Subject: You're invited to a lunch honoring Governor Howard Dean, M.D.of Vermont, Democratic Candidate For President Terry Lierman, Bill Karen Bates, Pat Carolyn Fulton, Stephanie Ridder and Dana Singiser Invite you to a lunch honoring Governor Howard Dean, M.D. of Vermont Democratic Candidate for President Tuesday, March 4, 2003 12:30 to 2:00 pm Politiki "Top of the Hill" 319 Pennsylvania Ave., SE Top Floor Washington, DC Host ~ $500 write or raise Individual ~ $50 Payable to ~ Dean for America (Please print and fill the contribution form prior to the luncheon) http://www.deanforamerica.com/downloads/contribution_form.pdf For more information or to RSVP, please contact Jenny Lehner at (802) 846-6611 or jlehner@deanforamerica.com

In an article which focuses on Senator John McCain's opposition to Bush environmental policies, there's a quote from the Senator which acknowledges Dean: McCain, who loves causing a political stir, shrugs off any perception that he is a disloyal Republican. "I'd like to check with Howard Dean to see if he has any ideas perhaps in the medical area," he said mischievously, referring to the former Vermont governor, a physician, who also is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Take it any way you want, but the bottom line is that Dean isn't flying under the radar anymore. For someone like McCain (whom many have compared Dean to) to even acknowledge his existence really says something about the threat Howard poses to the Republican establishment. His momentum has continued to build as more people are exposed to his message. This was evident at the DNC's winter meeting, which Aziz blogged about directly below this post. At one point, D...

Today was the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting, where four of the Presidential candidates for the Dem. nomination made their case to the party leaders. The candidates who attended were Gephardt, Lieberman, Moseley-Braun and Dean. Kerry was also scheduled to appear, but did not make it due to recovery from his recent surgery. Edwards, Sharpton, and Kucinich will also make an appearance later this weekend. The candidates made brief speeches, and as usual Howard came off quite well: In brief talks to the Democratic National Committee's winter meeting, Rep. Richard Gephardt, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, former Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean agreed Bush had been disastrous for the economy and for relations with foreign allies. But Dean, an outspoken opponent of a potential Iraqi war, opened his speech by asking why Democrats have been so reluctant to challenge Bush on the war, tax cuts and health care policy. "What I want to know...

Reiner Endorses Dean for President The actor-director's backing is a big boost for the little-known Democratic candidate. By Rachel Abramowitz Times Staff Writer February 20, 2003 Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's active opposition to an American-led war on Iraq has earned him an early boost in Hollywood's presidential sweepstakes, in the form of an endorsement by director and key Democratic activist Rob Reiner. "Dean's the only major Democratic candidate speaking out against going to war without the support of the United Nations," said Reiner, who will be the California co-chairman of the Dean campaign. "My urgency to support him right now is to give him as big a forum as possible so that his views can be heard. It's a very dangerous time right now." Winning Reiner's endorsement is fantastic news for Governor Dean. The endorsement not only raises his profile nationally, it should make a major difference in Dean's ability to ...

Several readers have submitted this link to a Jake Tapper profile of Dean in Salon. This ia fairly big news for Dean, it was similar profiles in TNR ( The Invisible Man ) and TAP ( The Darkest Horse ) that really launched Dean's grassroots support. Unfortunately, Salon still insist on their Premium nonsense to access material, but you can circumvent this by using a "free pass". I have also sent the article to the UNMEDIA mailing list (feel free to browse/search the public archives). Caption to the photo: Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, right, answers questions at a gathering in Concord, N.H., Feb. 16. Story excerpt: ...the story Dean wants to tell me happened when he and Romer met with the Democratic House leadership, including House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash., Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and others. Dean, he recalls, was brash. He remembers telling Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the Democrats' leader on healthcare reform, that he "didn't k...

Dr. Dean is scheduled to attend the March 5th Meetup in New York! The New York Meetup is the second-largest group after Washington DC, with 92 supporters, so this will be a very exciting opportunity for Dean to see for himself just how strong his netroots are. William Finkel, who has done a lot of important legwork in getting the Dean Meetup infrastructure setup, writes: I think the fact and manner in which Dean has embraced Meetup reflects his commitment to grassroots, community and technology. All the candidates are aware of our service, but Governor Dean, personally, understands what we can do. What we can do is exemplified by what our chapters have done; create self-organized, autonomous field units that will be prepared to support the Governor, however he needs, whenever he needs them. True! The only difference being, that Dean has 1590 supporters signed up, whereas Kerry and Edwards have 499 and 298, respectively (as of this writing). Dean has pledged to try and ...

This full text of this transcript was provided by Edward "Teddy" Davis. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an online link, so I'll just reproduce it here in full. HEADLINE: Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean discusses his emphases on health care and a balanced budget From NPR in Los Angeles, I'm Tavis Smiley. On today's program, actress Rene Russo talks about saving Mother Nature one tree at a time. Also, Black Enterprise founder Earl Graves says his money is where his mouth is when it comes to Richard Parsons, AOL Time Warner's chairman and CEO. And I'll sit down with the talented Ben Vereen. But first, we continue our series of discussions with announced candidates for president of the United States. Yesterday we spoke with Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman. Today, physician and former Democratic Vermont Governor Howard Dean. A self-described commonsense moderate, Dean signed a law legalizing civil unions for gays, but...

The good folks over at DeanForAmerica.com have finally added a section for Dean's speeches. Here's a few highlights from Howard's speech in Linn County, Iowa in January: On the divisiveness that permeates the Republican Party: "I was deeply, deeply disappointed - more so than I have been in a long series of disappointments - with the Bush Administration. The President of the United States went before a national audience last week and, in response to the question of whether the University of Michigan should be allowed to continue the program that they have to make sure that their classes look like America, he used the word "quota" seven times on national television. The University of Michigan does not have a quota system, it never did have a quota system; the word "quota" is designed to foster racial divisiveness and to encourage other people to be fearful that folks are going to take their jobs. It is disgraceful for the President of the Unite...

Howard Dean gets a glowing profile on New York Metro.com. The writer, Meryl Gordon, focuses much of her attention of Dean as a person and, in doing so, puts his political stances into a personal context. For better or worse, presidential candidates are judged on their family backgrounds and they way they’ve lived their lives before they jumped into the race. They are required to be both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. They have to be simultaneously Patrician and “just folks”—those of you who remember the Al Gore “he went to St. Alban’s and lived in a hotel” meme from 2000 know what I’m talking about here. What we are shown of Dean’s life in this article bodes well for his ability to run as an above average, average guy. The son of Park Avenue blue-bloods, he’s not going to be able to run on a “rags to riches story.” However, there’s an appeal to a person who walked away from “a Park Avenue apartment serenely decorated with small African sculptures and modernist pai...

Given that Martin Sheen aka President Bartlett has endorsed Dean, I wonder if perhaps the actor could be persuaded to lobby NBC to give Dean some exposure on the show. It could be as minor as a West Wing staffer wearing a Howard Dean t-shirt, or it could be as major as having Dean himself make a cameo appearance. Could we, the DeanBlog collective, mount a campaign to get Dean on the West Wing? Use the comment thread to chime in - if anyone can find out email addresses for the show or for Sheen that would be a great start.

The Washington Post has a profile of Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D), who is apparently "exploring" a presidential bid. Kucinich is strongly anti-war, and the conventional wisdom seems to be that this represents a threat to Dean. The TNR blog as usual takes a hard line, calling Kucinich " Howard Dean's worst nightmare " : The real loser in all of this has to be Howard Dean. As the Post also points out, Kucinich will be making the very same anti-Iraq case to Iowa activists that Dean has been making for months--only without Dean's tortured qualification about supporting war if there were convincing evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, or whatever Dean is saying these days. And Kucinich also steps on Dean's unconventional-liberal schtick. Dean supporters spend a lot of time playing up their man's fiscal conservatism and his opposition to gun control. Kucinich, it turns out, opposes abortion and has voted for a constitutional amendment ...

Dr. Dean gave a major speech today in Iowa today on Foreign Policy. The speech is now up on the website. The WA Post had an early copy of the speech in their papers this morning, Dean Speech to Critique Plans for War on Iraq . Here is Dean's schedule for the coming week, for any of you that want to get out there and give us notes: Mon. 2/17 – Dean makes speech at Drake University in Des Moines; attends Iowa Federation of Labor meeting in Warren County; attends Warren County off-year caucus. Tues. 2/18 – Dean campaigns in Silicon Valley, Calif. Wed. 2/19 – Dean speaks to ITUP, a group fighting for improved insurance in Sacramento at convention center; Campaigns with Sen. Barbara Boxer, doing fundraising for her. Thurs. 2/20 – Dean in Los Angeles. Fri. 2/21 – Democratic National Committee's winter meeting in Washington. Dean speaks in the morning. Fri. 2/21 – Dean speaks to College Democrats at Hyatt Regency in Washington. Sat. 2/22 – Dean speaks a...

From AP writer Christopher Graff: SHELBURNE, Vt. - In the nearly dozen years that Howard Dean served as governor of Vermont, Judy Dean was all but invisible. No speeches. No interviews. No campaigning. That's changing now that her husband is in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, but there are still limits. Dr. Judy Dean this month gave her first extensive interview, talking about her husband, her family and her career. But she said still has no plans to join her husband on the campaign trail, and even if he is elected, she plans to continue practicing medicine. "Some of the public may be disappointed in that, some of the public may say that's terrific," she told The Associated Press. "In this day and age there are a lot of two career families." Gov. Dean, also a doctor, supports her decision. "If I win, Judy will practice medicine in Washington," he said. "That doesn't mean she will never ...

Brendan of the New York for Dean group writes: Wanted to forward the flyer we just made for the national rallies on Saturday. Feel free to let people have this if you wish. Its a double sided flyer (2 half page fronts and 2 half page backs). We're going to be handing them out this weekend and I wanted to share the wealth with other groups that may want to use it. Click to download the flyer in PDF format .

From PoliticsNH, is a report that Dean has hired experienced organizer Karen Hicks to run his campaign in New Hampshire: PoliticsNH.com has learned former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has hired experienced organizer Karen Hicks to run his campaign in New Hampshire. Dean will be attending a house party on Sunday. The event will be at the home of Gary and Meg Hirshberg in Concord from 4:30-6pm Anyone in NH who can attend the event this Sunday and send us pictures? This will be a busy weekend in NH , with candidates Edwards, Gephardt, and Dean visiting the state, as well as potential candidates Carol Moseley-Braun and Wesley Clark. Meanwhile, a poll of likely NH primary voters last week by University of Connecticut Center for Survey Research and Analysis showed the following results: John Kerry - 32% Joe Lieberman - 18% Howard Dean - 12% Dick Gephardt - 7% Jon Edwards - 3% Al Sharpton - 2% The poll also shows Kerry and Lieberman with name recognition and favora...

While Dean's commuter train may have lost money, he still left Vermont in better financial shape than most states. At the Eastern Regional Conference of the Council for State Governments, legislators from Vermont spoke about their state's fiscal situation. “As bad as this is, it could be a lot worse had we not been fiscally conservative in the past few years,” House Speaker Walter Freed, R-Dorset, said Tuesday. “I want to attribute it to our own fiscal conservatism over the last two years. … It’s important that people in the state who hear this message realize we’re here because we’ve been fiscally conservative in the past few years. Everyone’s had a piece in this.” One of those policies was to use surpluses in flush years for onetime expenditures rather than for additional programs, said Rep. Martha Heath, D-Westford, vice chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee. “I think you can give (former Gov.) Howard Dean and the Legislature the credit,” she said. “We learn...

Dean knows that it is almost impossible to defeat a Senator JFK (D) in Massachusetts. Pragmatically, he figures second-place is just fine: BOSTON -- A second-place finish in Massachusetts wouldn't bother former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. In fact, when Dean's fledgling presidential campaign rolled into Boston yesterday, the Democrat said he has no designs on beating U.S. Sen. John Kerry on his home turf. "Massachusetts is an important state," Dean said. "Obviously Senator Kerry is going to win his home state, but we're going to campaign in all 50 states, and this is one of them." Dean visited the State House yesterday to meet with supporters. He also made a surprise appearance at a rally organized by advocates for early-childhood education. "We're raising money in Massachusetts and we're doing a lot of work on issues," Dean said, adding, "I'm here both to learn from the activist community and also to talk about ...