Monday, February 24, 2003

 
I Have Seen the Light and His Name is Howard Dean

Prior to the 2000 Election fiasco, there was the 2000 Campaign fiasco. You know, the one where the candidates' stance on the issues was completely subordinated to the candidates' hairstyles, background sighs and make-up. It was pitiful at best. Nevertheless, I paid attention and realized that, although effective leadership requires courage, intelligence, compassion and innovation, being elected to a leadership position does not. The current, "folksy" resident of the White House is the finest example of this truth.

In any event, the search is on for a candidate that can bring it all to the table in 2004. Since Bush obviously fails at everything outside of his folksy façade, we will have to look to the Democrats.

In the past, I was (and am) a Kerry/Edwards supporter. Kerry with his "war hero" status and Edwards with his Clintonian fire-in-the-belly. Unfortunately, there was something about each of them (that I couldn't put my finger on) that told me they would fail in their attempt to unseat Bush.

In fact, it was not until recently, when I watched Howard Dean give a speech on C-Span, that I realized what was missing in these candidates…the power to excite the base.

Watching Dean was an experience. This man has a presence and a demeanor like none I've seen a long time, if ever. I found myself shifting to the edge of my seat. The edges of my mouth mysteriously began to curl upward. I know what this is. It's a smile. This guy can beat Bush!

Now I always agreed with Dean's policies and thought that he was chock full of many great and innovative ideas, but it wasn't until I actually saw him performing that I was sure that this guy has what it takes. Instantly, my reservations of sending a small-state, "New England Liberal" governor to fight Bush melted away. It simply didn't matter anymore. This guy would crush Bush. He is the first true populist in decades to have a legitimate shot at the White House.

To get an idea of the intangibles, you have to see Dean for yourself. When it comes to his policy, I can help a bit. Let's take a look at Dean's positions:

Doctor Dean:

"Howard Dean became governor of Vermont in August 1991 and was subsequently elected to five two-year terms, serving as governor for more than eleven years, until January 2003. Prior to ascending to the corner office, Dean served as lieutenant governor and in the Vermont House of Representatives. Dean's training is as a doctor; before he entered public life he ran an internal medicine practice with his wife, who is still a full-time practicing physician. In November 2002, Governing magazine, terming Dean a "frugal crusader," named him as one of its Public Officials of the Year."

A Fiscally Responsible Populist:

"Under Dean's leadership, virtually every child under 18 in Vermont had access to health care as a result of the expanded Medicaid program, and the child abuse rate was cut in half, in part because of the "Success by Six" program. At the same time Dean cut income taxes and reduced the state's long-term debt. In April 2000 he came to national attention when he signed into law a civil unions bill, granting gay couples the benefits of marriage. Dean describes himself as 'a fiscal conservative and a social progressive.'"


The Issues:

Iraq:

~ Dean is the only candidate with a clear stance on Iraq that does not toe the Bush line.

~ He has said that Bush is too focused on "the wrong war at the wrong time" and that the "right war" would be to target al-Qaeda.

~ He believes Bush should be spending money for the defense of our country by hiring more emergency workers and suggesting more security measures.

~ Dean said he would be prepared to go ahead against Baghdad if the U.N. Security Council approved and if it were "clear the threat posed to us by Saddam Hussein was imminent and could neither be contained nor deterred."

~ Dean has endorsed more of "the hard work of diplomacy and inspection" as alternatives to the Bush war and noted that Bush hasn't made the case for war.


Fiscal Policy:

~ Dean is a fiscal disciplinarian who castigates Bush for "Borrow and Spend" policies that have jacked-up the deficit to $200 billion per year, a direct result of the "reckless" $1.6 trillion tax cut.

~ Dean demands solvency for the Social Security Trust Fund and berates Bush for picking its pockets to give to his wealthy friends

"The bulk of those tax cuts went to those in the top 2 percent of income earners, people like Ken Lay and others who are plundering the American economy. Left behind are middle class and working people who are paying for their tiny tax cuts by losing their jobs and their health insurance."

~ Dean supports a balanced budget and refuses to cut funding to states for things such as the federal highway fund.

~ He supports a broad repeal of the Bush tax cuts (with some exceptions in the estate and retirement areas) in order to provide the needed funding for a Medicare pharmacy benefit, education, better roads and rail systems, and stronger environmental protection.

"Ask most Americans if they would rather have a tax cut or better health coverage, roads and bridges, and schools for their children, they will choose the latter. They also understand - despite hollow Republican promises - that we cannot do both."

In essence...:

"The budget must be balanced; we must build the Social Security Trust Fund; and we must invest in Health and Education once again."


Health Care:

It is in the area of health care that Dean truly shines. It is also an area that will be relentlessly targeted by Republican spin.

"As a doctor, I understand the fear facing families without health insurance. As a Governor, I am proud that virtually every child under 18 and more than 90 percent of adults in Vermont are eligible for health coverage. But as a country, the United States can do better on this front. "

"To help finance this effort, we must repeal the President's tax cuts and balance the federal budget."

"Similar to our program in Vermont, states should be required to guarantee coverage for all children under age 23. In return, the federal government should assume responsibility for drug and acute medical care for Americans over age 65."

"In addition, older Americans deserve a pharmacy benefit under Medicare (an unaffordable impossibility under the current fiscal policies of President Bush). This would cost $450 billion over 10 years, a little more than one quarter of the value of the tax cut. With a pharmaceutical package, Medicare becomes a decent insurance program."

"Finally, to cover those between the ages of 23 and 65, we should use the present employer-based system with refundable tax credits and federal subsidies to cover low- and moderate-income Americans who lack insurance."


Education:

Ironically, Dean pushes for state independence when it comes to education, flying directly in the face of Republicans' selective support for states rights and the Bush doctrine, which imposes federal control over local school district.

"The President's [education] bill not only costs states a fortune, but also takes away local control of the schools and is essentially another unfunded mandate."

"This new federal law will result in the identification -- or mis-identification -- of between 30 and 65 percent of all community schools (depending on your state) as failing. The enormous cost of coming into federal compliance will fall on local property taxpayers. In Vermont, we may forego federal education funds altogether because in the long run this law threatens to make our schools worse rather than better!"

~ Dean supports high standard (but not standardized) testing, and annually published school-by-school results. He seeks to use professional development to help non-performing teachers and schools do a better job, allowing state's to take over a failing school. He also believes that substantial funding for school construction should come from higher levels of government.

~ Above all, Dean insists that parent involvement is the ultimate key to improving education

"…the single most important factor in how a child learns has less to do with the quality of the building, the computers or even the teachers. The most important predictor is the attitude in that child's home toward education. We must involve parents again; we must insist that they participate in their children's education; and we must make schools and school boards responsive to parents."

"But we must under no circumstances abandon the public schools, as the Bush Administration seems bent on doing."


Foreign Policy, Defense and Trade:

"Our long range foreign policy ought to embrace nation building, not run from it. I have traveled to at least 50 countries and seen first-hand that the most successful are those with democracies bolstered by a strong middle class that embraces the full political and economic participation of women. We need a solid game plan to bring those countries that are not democratic, that treat women as second class citizens and that lack a strong middle class into the 21st Century."

"One fear, for example, is that we will leave Afghanistan militarily successful, but without rebuilding that nation to ensure we aren't leaving behind a nation harboring even larger numbers of American-hating terrorists. Defense is not just about building better bombs and intelligence capacity, although these are important. Good defense policy is also about long range vision, and that means engagement with the world."

"One of our biggest security threats is our energy policy. The money which helped finance Osama bin Laden's attacks was our money. Because of our dependence on Middle East oil, the U.S. sent money to Saudi Arabia, which was used in part to fund the fundamentalist Islamic schools in Pakistan and elsewhere which teach hatred of Christians, Jews and Americans. These schools have become fertile recruiting territory for Al Qaeda."

"America needs an energy policy which stresses conservation and renewables, including wind, biomass, ethanol and solar. Not only is renewable energy good for the environment, it is a core piece of a smarter foreign policy."

~ On the labor front, Dean believes that American factories abroad should be subject to the same rules as those in the US in order to ensure competitiveness for US middle-class jobs.

"If free trade allows General Motors to set up a plant in Mexico, free trade should allow the United Auto Workers to organize that plant under conditions similar to those in the U.S. This isn't wage parity; I am asking for shared ground rules."


Environment:

"We have to make practical trade-offs. We need houses, jobs and opportunities for growth. But we don't need to poison ourselves and our heritage in order to have growth."

"I believe we must not only enforce existing clean air and water standards, but strengthen them. We must promote the use of renewable energy sources. We must conserve our wild and open spaces, strengthen our community centers to reduce sprawl, and do everything possible to ensure our natural environment isn't a threat to public health."

"Our fight to protect the environment is not limited to the borders of this nation. The U.S. must work harder to be a neighbor of the world. We should take another look at Kyoto, for example, and find ways to cooperate with other countries instead of opposing them."


Children:

Finally, someone has it right on the issue of children's well being.

"[The process of balancing the budget] involved difficult conversations with state officials, scaling back spending on programs I cared about. It was during one of these conversations that the Commissioner of Corrections came to me asking for a 14% budget increase. Everyone else, including those who provide crucial programs like health care and education, was being asked to cut spending, but prisons -- the most expensive and least effective social service investment we make -- needed more money."

"My view of social spending changed in that instant. Because studies show that any competent kindergarten teacher can make a pretty good guess about the five kids most likely to end up in prison, I decided to focus Vermont's efforts and money on new families with very young babies and children. Surely money spent before a child developed problems would be better spent than after, I reasoned."

"Today in Vermont, we invest in our children. We visit every child and new mother in the hospital at the time of birth. We offer home visits two weeks after discharge to talk about everything from nutrition to housekeeping to substance abuse to the value of reading. Last year 91% of moms accepted our visit. While most of those families didn't need help, the ones who did got the assistance before the child turned one, not when the child showed up in kindergarten with serious problems. I believe that one day this program will result in much lower incarceration rates in Vermont. But the good news is that in the first seven or eight years, we have already seen child abuse drop by 43% in the 0-6 age group, and child sexual abuse drop by 70%. Combine this with what is essentially universal health care for all Vermonters under 18, we also saw one of the largest drops in teen pregnancy in the country."


Gun Control:

I think this is brilliant. It hits the nail on the head. It will also increase his appeal in virtually every "red state".

"Vermont has the lowest homicide rate in the United States. During Dean's eleven years in office the most murders in a single year has been 25, the lowest number was 5. Over half of these have been domestic assaults, the majority are not committed with a firearm. If you say "gun control" in Vermont or Tennessee, or Colorado, people think you want to take away their hunting rifle. If you say "gun control" New York or L.A., people are happy to see Uzi's or illegal handguns taken off the streets. I think Vermont ought to be able to have a different set of laws than California. Let's keep and enforce the federal gun laws we have, close the gun show loophole using Insta-check, and then let the states decide for themselves what if any gun control laws they want. We need to get guns off the national radar screen if Democrats are ever going to win again in the South and the West, and if we can't win in the South and the West, we can't win national elections. In 2000, guns cost us at least West Virginia, Tennessee, and Montana, and with them the Presidency of the United States. Just as we resist attempts by President Bush to dictate to the states how we run our school systems and what kind of welfare programs to have, we need to resist attempts to tell states how to deal with guns beyond existing Federal law."


Abortion:

Dean tells it like it is and he recognizes the right-wing spin a mile away.

"The notion of "partial birth abortion" is nonsense. This is a rare procedure used only to save the life or health of the mother. We have had no third trimester abortions in Vermont in the past four years."

I love this guy, and at this very early stage of the game, I give him a ringing endorsement. Keep an eye on him. Of course I don't have to remind you that there is still a long way to the primaries.

Nevertheless, here is Dean, an incredibly charismatic leader with original ideas. He excites the base and offers a defined alternative to Bush. He is not afraid to speak his mind or to confront the Republicans, something the Democrats have had a difficult time doing since 911.

I don't mean to be so one-sided. As mentioned above, I also like Kerry and Edwards. Nevertheless, it is Dean that I think has the set of characteristics necessary to bury Bush in the 2004 Election.

Let me know what you think.

See also: "John Edwards: Clinton II or Empty Suit?"

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posted by Thomas Ball 4:44 PM