Dean, sunny-side up

Now begins a real battle for Dean's image: his opponents want voters to see him as an inconsistent supporter of key Democratic causes and an unreconstructed, unelectable liberal. And Dean, who has made a concerted effort in recent days to broaden his message beyond a central anti-war, anti-Bush theme, is attempting to show more of the free-thinking, ideologically moderate policy wonk he was when he ran Vermont.

Hence, on a day when former Gen. Wesley Clark criticized him for proposing too much new government regulation of business, Dean talked about his own proposal to roll back the federal government's regulation of schools.

After beginning his day at the National Congress of American Indians in Albuquerque, Dean jetted to a middle school in Davenport, Iowa, to talk about his plan for education, which consists largely of undoing what he considers to be the "huge mistake" of President Bush's reform, No Child Left Behind. In front of a library room full of teachers, parents and reporters, he outlined a plan to do away with much of the currently mandated regimen of standardized testing for public schools, saying that it was essentially a recipe for undermining the public school system.

"What this is about is undoing public schools," he said.

He also proposed spending $25 billion to fund training programs for teachers, support programs for parents and extra help for students. Pointing to the administration's spending of federal money on tax cuts and Iraq, he said, "I think we can find $25 billion for education." As in most of his deliveries, much of the energy was spent painting President George Bush as incompetent, dishonest, uncaring. "As with almost everything from this president, this is purely political" he said. "This isn't meant to be good policy."

The other sign of Dean's stylistic evolution was a decidedly deliberate emphasis on optimistic language -- borrowing a page from the current president -- in contrast to some of his less-sunny speeches criticizing Bush policy and his Democratic opponents that have earned him the dreaded "too angry" designation from critics in both parties.

"I want to run an administration based on hope rather than fear," he said, standing under a campaign banner that said "A New Day for Democrats; Educating a Generation."

It seemed to achieve the desired effect, politically speaking -- almost on cue, a local school board member, Tim Tupper, said, "We had some representatives of the Bush administration here a couple of weeks ago. It was interesting to hear the difference. Tonight, we heard about a positive vision."