LaFollette

You are going to hear a lot from Howard Dean during the next week on the word LaFollette.

Some background is in order.

Robert LaFollette practically defined Wisconsin politics in the early 20th century. He was a Republican, but a progressive one. He was beaten twice by Corporate Republicans, but finally became Governor in 1900. The Grolier Encyclopedia has a modest half-paragraph on his accomplishments in that office:

Wisconsin was the first state to adopt the primary for nominations for state offices. A new law taxed railroads on the value of their property, ending an inequity. Taxes on corporations permitted the state to pay its debts. A railroad commission was created to regulate rates. Funding for education was increased. A civil-service law was adopted. This legislation was drafted by political and social scientists and economists, a feature of the "Wisconsin Idea."

As a U.S. Senator, where he served for 20 years, LaFollette was one of only two votes against American entry into World War I. He won 17% of the vote as the Progressive Candidate for U.S. President in 1924, a record beaten only twice, by Theodore Roosevelt and Ross Perot. After his death in 1925, his son Robert Jr. succeeded him in the Senate, until defeated in 1946 by a then little-known war veteran named Joe McCarthy.

LaFollettism, if one can coin a term, is dedicated to honest elections, to frugality, to the public?s interest against predatory business (and firm support for the other kind), as well as to skepticism regarding blatant, self-gratifying flag-waving.

Give or take some issues, one party, and many decades, it is a description that fits Howard Dean well. It?s what we?ll be fighting for this week.