The Unlikely Rise of Howard Dean

A long article so I'll digest what I liked.


He’s a strict fiscal conservative (he consistently balanced Vermont’s budget); he’s a staunch health-care advocate (he made sure the state provided health insurance for all children); he’s a dedicated environmentalist (he protected thousands of acres of open lands); and he’s a social liberal (he signed the controversial legislation permitting same-sex civil unions). In political style, he’s notably candid, and he’s got executive experience-he just stepped down as Vermont’s governor after eleven years in office-no small thing given that four of our last five presidents have been governors. All of this has suddenly vaulted Dean to the political forefront.

Howard Dean is still loudly proclaiming, at candidate forums in New York and Iowa and New Hampshire, that attacking Iraq is a mistake. “I’m not a dove,” he hastens to add; he just doesn’t believe this particular battle is one that America should take on alone. “I don’t think the president has made his case. He’s got to show Saddam possesses nuclear weapons, and I don’t think there’s a shred of evidence for that.” Dean says he sees biological and chemical weapons as insufficient grounds for a unilateral attack, and he favors the French proposal to triple the inspectors and further pressure Iraq rather than launching missiles in March, adding that he would back an invasion if authorized by the United Nations. “Nobody can run for president without being willing to use the full and maximum power of the United States,” Dean says. “But I’m one president who would be very careful if I had the opportunity.”

“The only people who call civil unions ‘gay marriage’ are poorly informed reporters and the right wing of the Republican Party,” Dean replies. “Civil unions mean gay people get to have the same rights I do. Such as if I get sick, my wife can visit me in the hospital; if I die, my wife gets the estate without probate.”

More outspoken than front-runner Kerry, more liberal than the charming Edwards or the well-known Lieberman, a fresher face than Gephardt, and without the baggage of Sharpton, Howard Dean, at least for the moment, has the attention of the chattering classes. “You can’t move people unless you stand for something,” he said that night in his mother’s living room. “When I get done with this campaign, I don’t know if I’m going to win or lose, but everybody in America will know what I stood for.”