Slate on Dean's "Heartland" performance

By Aziz P. -
William Saletan has some feedback for Dean based on his performance at the Heartland forum in Iowa. He has some positive and some negative feedback, the most interesting of which I found to be this:

4. Responding to a question about governing a much smaller state than Texas: "Well, Texas has the 48th best education system in the country; we have the sixth. Texas has the highest percentage of children with no health insurance in America; we're No. 1. We have a balanced budget; Texas just tried to cut every single kid off health insurance … to balance their budget. I think the people of this country are going to have a great opportunity to choose between whether they want the Vermont model or the Texas model."

Dean rattled off these lines as though he's been practicing them for the general election. The Vermont half sounds pretty good, but the Texas half is a bit odd. People don't think of Bush as the governor of Texas anymore. If his election didn't give him presidential luster, Sept. 11 did. As for fiscal and financial woes, why pick on Texas—and possibly alienate parts of the Southeast and Southwest—when the whole country is in the toilet? It's the national economy, stupid.

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