Howard Dean

excerpts from the Iowa Daily Report

August 1-15, 2003

… “VT GOP Chair Calls on Dean to Open Record To Public” – Headline from DRUDGE REPORT. An excerpt: “Vermont Republican Party Chairman Jim Barnett today called on former Governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean to open his gubernatorial record to public scrutiny. Dean has sealed his papers for a decade. ‘If Howard Dean plans to run on his record in Vermont, he needs to share that record with the public’ said Barnett. ‘The American people should not just have to take his word for it. By refusing to subject his record to public scrutiny, Howard Dean is telling the American people to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.’ He added: "If Howard Dean is serious about straight talk, he can start by being upfront with the American people about his tenure as Governor of Vermont. If he doesn't open his record, it obviously means there's something he wants to hide from us.’”(8/1/2003)

… Dean flames out with homestate firefighters – and, unfortunately for Dean, they seem to have a computer or typewriter and the addresses of other firefighters in other states. In yesterday’s The Union Leader, senior political reporter John DiStaso – under the subhead “Dean Getting Burned?” – wrote about the pen pal correspondence. An excerpt: “The Vermont firefighters union president is making it a little hot for his former governor, Howard Dean, advising the New Hampshire union chief that the high-flying hopeful ‘would not be a firefighters candidate for President.’ In a letter, Steven Locke, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Vermont, tells New Hampshire president David Lang, ‘While he now speaks a pro-firefighter and pro-labor message, his record just does not support it.’ Wow.  ‘I just wrote the letter to (Lang) as a courtesy,’ Locke said this week. Lang, in turn, said Locke’s letter is important, but not determinative, as his union considers whom to endorse in the Democratic Presidential sweepstakes. Lang said it will be given weight, ‘but not enough to throw the whole balance of the endorsement.’ Locke, in his letter, tells Lang, ‘I would like to tell you that Governor Dean was a friend to the firefighters and public safety in general, however, that would not be a true statement. In fact, the only positive statement that I can make about our former Governor is that he signed our Survivors Benefits Bill once we had done all the work to ensure its passage.’ Locke says Dean failed firefighters by never including firefighter training funds in his proposed state budgets; never attending the firefighters annual legislative luncheon, despite being invited; failing ‘to ever put the weight of the governor’s office behind any piece of legislation firefighters introduced;’ and seldom allowing firefighters to speak to him personally. Locke said Dean ‘almost never included firefighters in crucial committee assignments. One example of this was in the creation of a post-9/11 terrorism task force that included only police representatives.’ Dean spokesman Tricia Enright released a lengthy litany of Dean’s ‘record of support for Vermont firefighters.’ First, she said, was Dean’s strong opposition to the legalization of sparklers — an issue on which firefighters testified frequently. ‘It’s fair to call him a national advocate against sparklers,’ the Enright statement said. Enright said the ‘non-accessibility’ charge ‘is just not true,’ that Dean met with Vermont firefighters when they dropped by his office. She said, in fact, that Dean appointed Locke himself to the state’s Fire Service Training Council.” (8/1/2003)

… Latest Dean-Kerry exchange stretches from Iowa to New Hampshire – and beyond. Gephardt joins in the fray, too. Lieberman and Graham – from the front row seats – chastise combatants. Headline from yesterday’s Boston Herald: “Kerry, Dean tilt over tax issues.” Excerpt from report datelined Dover, NH by the Herald’s David R. Guarino:  “It was a political free-fire zone on the presidential trail yesterday as Democrats John F. Kerry and Howard Dean exchanged fighting words heard from New Hampshire to Iowa. Kerry, the Bay State senator, was in New Hampshire when he slammed Dean's economic policies without mentioning the former Vermont governor - his top rival - by name.  Kerry chided opponents who want to “take away a tax credit for families struggling to raise their children or bring back a tax penalty for married couples who are starting out or penalize teachers and waitresses by raising taxes on the middle class.’ Only Dean and U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri want to roll back President Bush's 2001 tax cut plan, including the child credit and abolition of the marriage penalty. ‘Real Democrats are straight about who they'll fight for. Real Democrats don't walk away from the middle class,’ Kerry said. Kerry aides made sure reporters had the remarks in hand before a ‘major’ Dean campaign address to union workers in Iowa. The combative Dean shot back that Kerry is a pie-in-the-sky candidate offering health care and tax cuts to all despite economic realities. ‘Real Democrats don't make promises they can't keep,’ Dean told the Associated Press. ‘Working Americans have a choice. They can have the president's tax cuts or they can have health care that can't be taken away. They can't have both,’ he said. A statement later released by Dean said he'll stand up to Bush, ‘even when the polls that day say it might be unpopular.’ Gephardt too called the Kerry critique unfair since his health plan would save Americans money. ‘Most people would end up with more money in their pocket if they pay less for health care - it ends up being a health care tax cut,’ said Gephardt New Hampshire spokeswoman Kathy Roeder. Kerry made his remarks at a ‘fresh air’ forum in this picturesque seaside town. While Dean and Gephardt favor full repeals of Bush's $1.6 trillion tax-cut plan, Kerry wants to preserve the child tax credit, the repeal of the marriage penalty and other, smaller credits. Dean and Kerry have been running first and second in most New Hampshire and Iowa surveys, including a Boston Herald poll this week that put Dean slightly ahead of Kerry among likely primary voters. Republicans charged that Kerry is folding under pressure from Dean's surge and charged he's changed his position on the Bush tax cuts - which the GOP said Kerry previously vowed not to roll back. ‘The pressure from Howard Dean has created a serious identity crisis for John Kerry,’ said Massachusetts GOP Executive Director Dominick Ianno.” (8/1/2003)

… More on Dean Vs. Kerry Tax Feud from the sidelines and front row seats – Lieberman and Graham join Gephardt as interested bystanders. Coverage in yesterday’s The Union Leader by AP Iowa caucus-watcher Mike Glover. An excerpt: “Jumping into the fray, Kerry strategist Chris Lehane said the tax issue was a question of ‘whose side are you on,’ and added that Dean ‘needs to be straight and explain that he intends to increase the unfair tax burden on working families.” Before Kerry arrived for his speech in Portsmouth, N.H., Dean’s New Hampshire spokeswoman, Dorie Clark, said, ‘It’s unfortunate that Senator Kerry has decided to launch an attack against Governor Dean. It also is probably not a coincidence that in the last several days two polls have shown Governor Dean in the lead.’ A Franklin Pierce College Poll this week had Dean at 22 percent and Kerry at 21 percent, while a Boston Herald poll showed Dean at 28 percent and Kerry at 25 percent. A spokesman for Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut also criticized Dean’s plan. ‘While the Bush economic plan has been a disaster for the middle class, raising taxes on the middle class would just be piling on,’ said Lieberman spokesman Jano Cabrera. ‘That’s not only the wrong path for economic recovery, but the wrong path for the Democratic Party.’ Another rival, Bob Graham, chastised both Dean and Kerry, calling their economic plans ‘empty rhetoric’ without any details or numbers. ‘Instead of attacking each other, they should be providing real details on how they plan to balance the budget, create jobs and provide middle-class tax cuts to the American people, as my plan does,’ the Florida senator said in a statement.”(8/1/2003)

… Get used to it: News accounts of the Dean insurgency vs. Kerry’s efforts to succeed aren’t going away soon. The Washington Times’ Donald Lambro notes that the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is pushing Kerry – and trying to stop the Dean momentum. Excerpt from Lambro’s column: “The Democrats' presidential primary war between diehard liberal activists and pragmatic party centrists intensified this week at the Democratic Leadership Council's meeting here. While none of the presidential contenders attended the two-day event, the talk in closed-door strategy sessions and in hotel corridors was all about the threat posed to their party by the insurgency of Howard Dean, the left-wing, antiwar, anti-tax-cut candidate from tiny Vermont. Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, the DLC's chairman, fired off the first round at the beginning of Monday's session, declaring the party was ‘at risk of being taken over by the far left.’ Mr. Bayh's question to the party's liberal base: ‘Do we want to vent or do we want to govern?’ DLC founder Al From reminded the New Democrat elected officials who packed the hotel ballroom how Walter Mondale called for tax increases at the 1984 convention to the cheers of liberal delegates. ‘We lost 49 states’ to Ronald Reagan, he said. And Democratic pollster Mark Penn, who polled for Bill Clinton, warned of a huge ‘security gap’ among voters who trust President Bush and the GOP to do a better job than the Democrats to safeguard national security in the war on terrorism. ‘If Democrats can't close the security gap, then they can't be competitive in the next election,’ he said. All of them warned that the party would lose next year's elections if it did not match the president's toughness on national defense. None of them specifically mentioned Mr. Dean, but they made it clear that's who they were talking about in interviews with reporters. Who can stop Mr. Dean? The big unreported story at the DLC’s meeting is that Mr. From is positioning his influential DLC network to back Mr. Dean’s chief rival for the presidential nomination, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. Mr. Kerry voted for the congressional war resolution to send forces into Iraq, but he has also been sharply critical of Mr. Bush's failure to build a much stronger coalition for the war and for his handling of postwar operations. Still, Mr. From points to Mr. Kerry's centrism on issues such as free trade, his support for welfare reform, and hints that school choice vouchers may be worth trying on an experimental basis. ‘I think Kerry could be a very effective nominee. I think Kerry could run as a New Democrat [in the general election],’ Mr. From told me in an interview. The DLC does not endorse candidates, but Will Marshall, who runs the DLC's Progressive Policy Institute, has been advising Mr. Kerry. And Al From's embrace of Mr. Kerry is the closest he has come to publicly backing a candidate. Notably, he mentioned no one else in the Democratic pack. What worries Mr. From most is the party's weakness on defense in an age of terrorism. ‘The problem with [the Democrats] is that we're not in the debate on national security,’ he said. ‘We're at a time when our country is in peril. The Democratic nominee for president in 2004 has to first cross the threshold on national security so that voters will listen to him on the economy. If we do that we'll have a chance of winning. If we don't, we won't,’ he said.”(8/1/2003)

… “Dean in S. F. for 1st major speech on environment …Address will urge tougher standards on factory pollution” – Headline from yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle. Jane Kay, the Chronicle’s environmental writer, previews speech that Dean delivered yesterday. Excerpt: “Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean is calling for an environmental policy that relies more heavily on wind and solar power, cracks down on pollution from older factories and pushes automakers to improve fuel efficiency standards. Dean, the leading Democratic presidential candidate in the latest big California public opinion poll, is expected to deliver his first major environmental address of the campaign today at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in San Francisco. The Chronicle obtained an advance copy of his speech. ‘Environmental issues are economic issues,’ he said in the prepared text. ‘The right-wing radicals want us to believe that we must choose between having a healthy environment or a healthy economy. I believe that a healthy environment will support a healthy economy.” Dean, 54, a former governor of Vermont, has been a strong critic of President Bush's record, attacking what he describes as conflict of interest in the Bush administration when former industry representatives hold important regulatory positions with oversight over former colleagues and old friends. ‘Today, we have a Republican president who seeks to destroy (a bipartisan consensus) and reverse decades of responsible environmental policy,’ the speech said. ‘We have a president who seems to regard public resources as gifts to be handed out to special interests.’ Dean characterized the Bush administration's naming of its environmental programs as ‘Orwellian doublespeak,’ and said it ‘might be amusing if it weren't so dangerous.’…In a telephone interview Wednesday, Dean said he was coming to San Francisco today to speak on the environment because of the state's attitudes. ‘California has an enormous number of voters who're very sensitive to the environment,’ Dean said. ‘California is often the leader in the country in environmental legislation.’ The environment ranks among his top four issues with jobs, health care and education, Dean said. Vermont joined California in a consortium, along with New York and Massachusetts, in expanding the use of electric cars, he said. He ordered emissions in Vermont to be reduced to levels below those required by the Kyoto Protocol, which he believes the U.S. should sign and adopt. He supports a polluter-pay system for Superfund cleanup, a requirement that 20 percent of electricity come from renewable sources by 2020 and a fuel- efficiency standard of 40 miles per gallon by 2015, plus closing the loophole on SUV gas mileage standards. Asked how he'd handle the powerful lobbying groups in Washington, D.C., that contribute to campaigns and influence laws and policies, Dean said, ‘They're not contributing anything to my campaign …This whole campaign is about getting out from under special interests.’”(8/1/2003)

... Dean drills in Bush Country – TV spot (produced in Council Bluffs last week) set to begin airing tomorrow in Austin. U. S. News & World Report’s Roger Simon says the ad, taped in Iowa last Wednesday, has Dean facing the camera saying: “I want to change George Bush’s reckless foreign policy, stand up for affordable healthcare, and create new jobs…Has anybody really stood up against George Bush and his policies? Don’t you think it’s time somebody did?” Additional coverage by AP’s Nedra Pickler: “Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has chosen Bush country as the site for a second television advertisement that will begin broadcasting before any other candidate has gone on the air. The ad will begin airing Monday in Austin, Texas. The goal is to show that Dean won't back down from President Bush, even in the city were he served as governor before moving to the White House. The commercial will broadcast while Bush is vacationing at his ranch in western Texas and before any other presidential candidates have gone on the air. The Dean campaign revealed few details of the ad, which was announced Friday on his Web site. ‘The people of Texas know George W. Bush better than anyone,’ said the announcement. ‘Throughout this campaign, Howard Dean has been standing up to George W. Bush, and what better place to stand up against what George W. Bush has done to the economy and our nation than in Bush's home state of Texas.’ The ad is being paid for with donations raised last week in a challenge to the Bush-Cheney re-election team, the posting said. Dean raised $508,640 in mostly small donations over the Internet in a four-day push to raise more than Vice President Dick Cheney could at a private $2,000 per plate event Monday in Columbia, S.C. The ad will cost a fraction of that, well under $200,000, according to the campaign. Dean's growing support largely has been organized on the Internet. The ad will include a toll-free number so people who do not have Internet access can call to get more information about his candidacy. Austin is one of the more liberal areas in the Republican stronghold of Texas…Dean is the only candidate who is advertising on television so early in the race. His first ad ran in Iowa this summer and cost the campaign more than $300,000. ‘When we've said we're building a grassroots campaign in all 50 states, we've meant all 50 states,’ the Dean posting said. North Carolina Sen. John Edwards plans to air his first ads later this moth to boost his stagnating campaign. Other candidates are waiting until closer to primary season that begins in January to launch ads.” (8/3/2003)

… The Great New England Sparkler Dispute: “Dean under fire from Vermont firefighters” – Headline from yesterday’s The Union Leader. Excerpt from report by Union Leader senior political reporter John DiStaso: “Facing criticism by the top firefighters union official in his home state, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean agreed yesterday to clear the air in a meeting with officials of the New Hampshire firefighters union. In a letter inviting Dean to the meeting, David Lang, president of the Professional Firefighters of New Hampshire, wrote: ‘While I appreciate your willingness to protect the public from the potential dangers of sparklers, we are more interested in what you did as governor to secure adequate fire protection resources for your state, Pre and Post September 11.’ A Dean spokesman this week called the Presidential hopeful ‘a national advocate against sparklers’ in response to criticism of Dean’s record by Steven Locke, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Vermont. As the Professional Firefighters of New Hampshire considers its key endorsement for the state’s leadoff Democratic Presidential primary, the [Union Leader’s] ‘Granite Status’ political column reported on Thursday that Locke had written to Lang warning that Dean “would not be a firefighter’s candidate for President. Locke charged that Dean did not help firefighters and public safety in general during his 10 years as governor. Locke said Dean did not include firefighter training funds in his budgets, did not attend firefighters’ legislative luncheons, did not ‘put the weight of the governor’s office behind any piece of legislation firefighters,’ and seldom allowed firefighters to speak with him personally. Dean spokesman Tricia Enright responded with a lengthy statement she said showed Dean’s ‘record of support’ for firefighters.” (8/3/2003)

… In San Francisco, five wannabes outline health care plans with two – Kucinich and Moseley Braun – favoring universal approach over private insurance system.  Excerpts from coverage of forum – at the United Food and Commercial Workers’ convention – by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Victoria Colliver: “While all promised to reduce the number of uninsured, two of the 2004 candidates -- Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois -- supported throwing out the private insurance system in favor of a universal, single-payer plan in the style of Medicare with a prescription drug coverage. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who joined the forum from Washington, D.C., via satellite, proposed expanding government programs to cover more people. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri offered a plan to extend tax credits to businesses to subsidize coverage to all employees. While it's estimated to cost more than $200 billion its first year -- more than any of the plans on the table -- Gephardt promises it will cover 97 percent of Americans. Gephardt wants to repeal the Bush tax cuts, which he called a joke, and put that money into health care…While Gephardt sees keeping the health coverage for those who already have it as an advantage, candidates with a more purist approach to universal coverage criticized his plan for retaining too much of what they considered a broken system. ‘I'm recognizing unless we get the private sector out of health care, we will never have health care for everybody in this country,’ Kucinich told about 4,500 UFCW delegates gathered at the Moscone Center. The union is concerned about health care benefits, especially in light of its efforts to unionize Wal-Mart Stores Inc…Kucinich's proposal to establish a single-payer system would cover all Americans, but critics question whether there is the political will to pass such a sweeping change. Moseley Braun, who also supports such a system, said she wants to shift the cost burden from payroll taxes to income taxes because that would decouple health care from employment. ‘Part of the problem is we have an employment-based system,’ she said, adding that the high cost of health care puts American businesses at a competitive disadvantage with businesses from other countries that do not have to pay for health care. Dean, also a physician, touted the fact he has passed a state budget that included extended health care coverage to Vermont residents. ‘The advantage I have is I have done it,’ he said…Kerry said his plan lowers the cost of premiums by having the government cover ‘catastrophic’ or high-risk cases instead of allowing them to remain in the employee risk pool. He said his plan, which he says would cover 27 million people immediately, would also help people pay for 75 percent of the cost of COBRA, or Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which allows employees who leave or who were laid off to pay for their group coverage for a limited time. Kerry said the country needs to stop considering health care to be a privilege. ‘Health care is a right for every single American. We have to cover it.’” (8/3/2003)

… Dean-Kerry battle now reduced to dispute over Kerry’s plan for an Internet petition drive on overtime proposal. Dean manager responds by saying the Mass Sen is taking a page “straight out of our book.” Headline from this morning’s The Union Leader: “Kerry to launch Internet petition drive on overtime” Excerpt from report by AP Iowa caucus-watcher Mike Glover: “Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry planned to launch an Internet-based petition drive today aimed at protesting the Bush administration’s proposal to revamp overtime pay standards. Kerry planned to use a meeting with key labor activists to launch the drive, becoming the first to sign the protest petition on his campaign’s Web site.  In remarks prepared for delivery at the event, Kerry warns that under the proposed standards, as many as 8 million workers — including firefighters and police officers — could lose the ability to collect time-and-a-half pay when they work more than 40 hours in a week. ‘For more than 60 years, the 40-hour work week and overtime pay have protected workers from exploitation — and rewarded hard work,’ said Kerry, in remarks provided to The Associated Press. ‘But under the radar screen, while everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere, George Bush has launched a sneak attack on basic worker rights.’ Kerry was launching the petition drive after a private meeting with leaders of the largest union representing state workers, an important player in Democratic politics in the state where precinct caucuses will launch the Presidential nominating season next January. Representing more than 20,000 state workers, Council 61 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has a long history of political activism. Kerry was courting favor by focusing on the overtime issues close to the hearts of organized labor.  In addition, Kerry was following in the footsteps of one of his Democratic rivals by using the Internet for his latest effort. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean has aggressively used the Internet to build a network of 200,000 volunteers and surpass his Democratic rivals in raising money, much of that money being generated online. Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi dismissed the latest Kerry move.  ‘It’s taking something straight out of our book, and that’s all right,’ Trippi said. In his speech, Kerry focused his fire on Bush, hoping to build backing in one of the cornerstones of the Democratic coalition, in a race that’s increasingly competitive. Polls have shown Dean and Kerry bunched together in New Hampshire, evidence that Dean’s campaign has built some momentum.” (8/4/2003)

… Dean, who is making a practice of disrupting plans of other wannabes, now has Kerry campaign divided over whether to go on attack or just go with the flow. Headline from Saturday’s Boston Globe: “Kerry camp split on issue of Dean… Tougher approach winning out, but some have doubts” Excerpt from coverage by the Globe’s Kerry-watcher. Glen Johnson: “Howard Dean's strong fund-raising and recent rise in public opinion polls have created a divide within Senator John F. Kerry's presidential campaign, between aides who want to attack the former Vermont governor to stem the tide and others who believe his wave of support will crest on its own. The views of the more aggressive group, represented by campaign manager Jim Jordan, were reflected this week when Kerry criticized any rival for the Democratic nomination who favors repealing all of the tax cuts enacted since President Bush took office in 2001. At least three of the nine candidates fit that billing, but aides circulated the Massachusetts senator's prepared text before a speech in Dover, N.H., and made it clear that Dean was the intended target. ‘Real Democrats don't walk away from the middle class,’ Kerry declared Wednesday night. ‘They don't take away a tax credit for families struggling to raise their children or bring back a tax penalty for married couples who are starting out or penalize teachers and waitresses by raising taxes on the middle class.’ A more reserved group of advisers is typified by David McKean, chief of staff in Kerry's Senate office. He is among those who believe that Dean's current political celebrity will fade with closer media scrutiny; they foresee an inevitable misstep for his campaign, and they argue that engaging Dean only helps him. Both camps are united in believing that Kerry has built a strong campaign organization, and has successfully husbanded resources for an eventual showdown with Dean and the other Democrats, according to interviews with members of each group and other aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The senator is largely focused on executing a game plan that calls for a mid-September public declaration of his candidacy, a round of policy speeches and endorsements aimed at differentiating himself from his fellow Democrats and President Bush, and his first purchase of television time to air campaign commercials in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other early-voting states, several aides said. Dean's political strength was evident last month when he more than doubled his support in a poll of likely voters in California, the state with the most electoral votes. He and Kerry were both in the mid-teens, steady performance for Kerry but an improvement of 8 percentage points for Dean from a similar survey in April. At the same time, Dean raised more than any of his Democratic rivals during the second three months of the year, taking in $7.6 million for the period ending June 30. Kerry raised $5.9 million, which placed him second for the second consecutive quarter, but Dean's finish was a marked improvement over the $2.6 million he raised during the first three months of the year. Dean's rise has prompted the internal debate within the Kerry camp, but Jordan refused to discuss it. ‘I have no comment whatsoever on internal campaign conversations,’ he said in an interview. Jordan professed respect for Dean, saying, ‘He's a serious candidate, as we suspected all along.’ One campaign aide said Kerry's criticism on Wednesday followed reports from Iowa that Dean was planning to attack Kerry. Throughout the week, though, Jordan displayed the sharper tack in dealing with Dean. One flashpoint was the governor's criticism that Kerry and other Democrats in Congress did not sufficiently question whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before approving a war resolution. ‘Governor Dean is simply reinventing his own position and that of others, and that's the rankest kind of politics,’ Jordan told The New York Times. ‘He was an unemployed doctor with no responsibilities, and it was easy to sit there and take political potshots from the outside.’ The New York Post also quoted Jordan as saying of Dean, ‘Ultimately, voters are going to decide a small-town physician from a small and atypical state is probably not qualified to lead this nation in a dangerous world.’” (8/4/2003)

… “Dean keeps critical focus on Bush in Salem speech” – Headline from yesterday’s New Hampshire Sunday News. Dean refers to Bush educational initiative as “No Teacher Left with a Behind.” Excerpt from Sunday News report from Salem by correspondent Janine E. Gilbertson: “Dozens of local residents crammed into the tiny American Legion Hall on Millville Street yesterday to meet Presidential hopeful Howard Dean.  So packed was the hall that some had to stand outside in the wet grass and listen to the candidate’s speech broadcast over a speaker. Dean, a physician and former Vermont governor, spoke for about 30 minutes, touching on topics such as his criticism of the war in Iraq, the need for healthcare for the nation’s uninsured and the need to make America less dependent on oil. ‘I would never send U.S. troops abroad without telling them the truth,’ Dean said, blasting the Bush administration. He spoke of the need to further internationalize the American and British occupation of Iraq and said help is needed in that country from all the other countries we insulted on our way into the war. Dean also touched on the need for the country to improve its international reputation with rumors swirling around Washington that the war in Iraq was based on lies. ‘Our power is not based on military strength,’ Dean said. ‘That kind of rule is based on fear. In two and a half years, the current President has taken our good reputation away. We need to start cooperating with other countries. We need to stop saying play my way or I’ll see you on the playground after school. We should have higher expectations.’ Many in attendance applauded during Dean’s remarks, including one woman who cheered his criticism of Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ initiative and bellowed ‘yuck’ when the initiative was mentioned. Dean referred to the initiative as ‘No School Board Left Standing’ and also nicknamed it ‘No Teacher Left with a Behind,’ which drew laughs from the audience standing in the hot hall.” (8/4/2003)

… The Dean Gang pulls off another political guerilla raid – just as Kerry announces he’ll devote most of week to New Hampshire campaign, Dean strikes with TV spot starting today. Excerpt from this morning’s Union Leader: “Democratic Presidential hopeful Howard Dean will begin airing a third ad Tuesday in an attempt to reach voters in New Hampshire, a critical primary state where he is running close with rival John Kerry. The ads, which will cost close to $400,000, follow commercials that began airing Monday on President Bush's home turf of Texas and in Iowa earlier this summer. It is unusual for a candidate to begin airing commercials so early in the campaign, especially in a state such as Texas which is not an early primary state. No other candidate has gone on the air yet, but Dean is looking to build momentum off his early start in raising money and organizing supporters through his Web site. The latest ad will air in New Hampshire and on Boston stations, which are watched by many southern New Hampshire voters. Dean is running close to Massachusetts Sen. Kerry in New Hampshire, which has the nation's first primary, tentatively set for Jan. 27.”(8/5/2003)

… Under the subhead “The Deanocrats,” the Sun-Times’ Sweet also reported on the Dean campaign riding at high tide in the campaign ocean this week. Excerpt from Sweet’s column: “The Deanocrats are riding a wave. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is on the covers of Time and Newsweek and leads a new Des Moines Register Iowa poll. His top strategist, Joe Trippi, remains in Chicago on Wednesday and Thursday to work the labor, money and elite Dem precincts. There is a Dean "meetup.com" at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Charlie's Ale House. Dean returns to Chicago Aug. 17 for two big funders, including one hosted by Niranjan Shah, a top Dem donor, and an Aug. 26 rally.” (8/5/2003)

… Dean – darling of the Dem radical fringe – was once considered fiscal conservative as VT governor. Headline from weekend report on WashingtonPost.com: “As Governor, Dean Was Fiscal Conservative…Presidential Candidate Imposed Discipline as Vermont Legislature’s to Spend.” Excerpt from report – datelined Burlington, VT -- by the Post’s Michael Powell: “The new governor faced a roomful of fellow Democrats in 1992, liberal warriors eager after two years of Republican rule to right every perceived wrong in Vermont. But Howard Dean issued no call to arms. All of your progressive ideas, Dean told his party caucus, won't amount to anything if Vermonters don't trust you with their money -- and they don't. We're seen as tax-happy liberals who spend money unwisely. Dean's words foreshadowed years of acrimonious battles with his party's formidable liberal wing, which controlled the legislature. From 1991 to 2002, Dean issued more vetoes than any previous governor. But he slowly bent Democrats to his will. When he left office in 2002, Vermont had a fairly balanced budget, while states across the nation bled fiscal red ink. ‘He made us very disciplined about spending, even if we didn't really like it,’ said former state Senate president Dick McCormack, who sat in that caucus room in 1992. ‘I was a liberal Democrat, and I fought him a lot, but he made the Democrats very hard to beat.’ Dean's emerging national reputation as a liberal tribune, a man whose rhetorical fires have seared President Bush for invading Iraq and cutting taxes for the wealthy, obscures the centrist course he steered during his tenure as governor of Vermont. In this small, northern New England state where the sole House member is a self-proclaimed socialist and the state legislature tends to come in three ideological flavors (moderate Republicans, liberal Democrats and left-wing Progressives), Dean gained a reputation as a careful, even cautious, steward. That gubernatorial record could turn off some liberal true believers. Or it could allow Dean to execute a political pivot in next year's presidential primaries. A New England governor with a budget-balancing reputation might prove useful as the primaries move south of the Mason-Dixon line. ‘The national role reversal is that Democrats have become the party of the balanced budget,’ said Eric Davis, a Middlebury College political scientist. ‘Howard Dean can lay claim to that.’…Dean's governing style was not cozy. He has a doctor's bluntness about him, an astringent style that owes more to his native Manhattan than to some fuzzy Vermont country doctor stereotype. ‘Doctors are used to being high priests,’ said John McLaughry, a former Republican state senator who often dueled with Dean. ‘If they tell you it's psoriasis, by God it's psoriasis. That's Howard.’ Dean, whose smackdown style is much remarked upon as he runs for president, would accuse the Democratic-controlled state senate of inhabiting La La Land, dismiss conservatives as mastodons and sometimes do all of this while speaking very loudly.”(8/5/2003)

… If only People-Powered Howard had a little more confidence – says “we’re the only ones who can beat George Bush.” Excerpt from Associated Press report: “Howard Dean said Tuesday he has the best chance of beating President Bush because he appeals to supporters of former independent candidates John McCain, Ross Perot and Ralph Nader as well as to Democratic Party faithful. Dean said he believes his candidacy will energize millions of young people and independents who have been turned off by standard electoral politics. ‘We've got to bring new people into the electoral process,’ Dean said on NBC's ‘Today’ show. ‘We're going to say that to the people of Ralph Nader... people who voted for John McCain and Ross Perot… and that's the beginning of the coalition that I think can change the occupancy of the White House.’ Dean was asked about his current high ride in the polls and his high-profile standing in the Democratic contest, evidenced by cover stories in major news magazines. ‘All you can do is be who you are and say what you think,’ Dean replied when asked if he was vulnerable to the plight of the short-term political phenomenon who fails when the party caucuses and primaries arrive. ‘We have an enormous number of supporters,’ he said. Asked about assertions by some of his opponents that his candidacy is doomed to failure, Dean said, ‘Well, I'm sure those guys wish it were a ticket to nowhere. But we're the only ones who can beat George Bush.’ Dean repeated his oft-stated assertion that he, in contrast to such rivals as Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and Bob Graham, offers a clear alternative to Bush. ‘We opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning,’ he said, ‘so it turns out that the four Washington candidates all supported a war which turns out to be based on things that weren't so.’ President Bush's misstatement about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa, made in last January's State of the Union address, hurt the administration's credibility, he said. Dean also took issue with contentions that he represents too liberal a point of view to attract mainstream voters. ‘If balancing the budget means I'm too liberal, then call me liberal,’ he said. He also said he thinks Bush has squandered much of the United States' goodwill around the world and said that needs to be changed. ‘I supported the invasion of Afghanistan but I think the president's job of trying to keep peace in both places is pretty dismal,’ he said. ‘... We're not going to be able to leave Iraq for many, many years, contrary to what the president has told us.’” (8/6/2003)

… Bozell identifies Dean as a “raging leftist,” but says the media is trying to soften his image. Headline yesterday on townhall.com: “Dean’s no civil centrist” Excerpt from column by Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research center: “Should we feel sorry for the press as they try, frantically, to apply a barrel of pancake makeup to Howard Dean and present this raging leftist to America as a soggy ‘centrist’? This is a really tough job. The entire political spectrum is going to have to be dragged off to the left of Massachusetts. It's hard not to snicker at the thought of newspapers like The Washington Post declaring in a Sunday front-page headline: ‘As Governor, Dean Was Fiscal Conservative.’ Liberal reporter Michael Powell (last noticed in a furious fit of powder-puffing Senator Hillary Clinton) trotted out an assortment of Vermont ‘liberals’ to declare that Dean was far too moderate for them. It should have come with a disclaimer: ‘The following story was gathered in Vermont, where the acceptable middle can be defined by the persistent re-election of Congressman Bernie Sanders, a flaming socialist.’ Let's review a smidgen of what the networks and news magazines have desperately tried to explain away or paper over in the last few weeks. Dean is agnostic on the closing of Saddam Hussein's totalitarian torture house, and has to be poked and pushed into acknowledging that Saddam was a bit of a bad egg. Dean obediently followed the leftist judicial activists of Vermont's Supreme Court into providing gay ‘civil unions,’ which has led to a Republican electoral surge. Dean, according to the Cato Institute, led one of the nation's highest taxing and spending states. Dean backs partial-birth abortion, and thinks the whole issue of skull-sucking infanticide is ‘phony.’ Perhaps most ridiculously, reporters make excuses for Dean's fierce attacks on President Bush. They make Democratic hearts ‘soar.’ They are not described as ‘red meat’ for ‘Bush haters,’ although those words would apply. They use words like ‘brusque,’ ‘feisty,’ ‘testy’ and ‘in-your-face.’ What they're not doing is dipping into the vocabulary they used for conservatives, for example Newt Gingrich. CBS called Newt ‘bombastic and ruthless.’ NBC chided him as a ‘rabid attack dog against anything liberal.’ ABC claimed that his ‘slash-and-burn rhetoric against Democrats has made him the poster boy for political resentment and rage, and he's proud of it.’ Network reporters wrapped these attacks in ‘news’ stories on Gingrich, and now Dean is only ‘feisty.’ If any of these outlets breathe a word about the need for Republican ‘civility’ in politics, please direct them back to everything Dean has said this year already. And he's just getting started.”(8/7/2003)

… “First Lady Wouldn’t Be Her Full-Time Job…Judith Steinberg has no intention of changing her lifestyle if her spouse, Howard Dean, is elected. That includes her medical practice.” – headline from yesterday’s Los Angeles Times. Excerpts from coverage by the Times’ Johanna Neuman: “Dr. Judith Steinberg, an internist in Shelburne, Vt., cherishes her privacy. Fond of taking solo rides along nearby Burlington's lake-hugging bicycle path, the wife of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is — by her own account — a private person who has not made a public speech in nearly 20 years and has never given a radio or television interview. And Steinberg says she has no intention of changing that behavior just because her husband is running for president. Except for an occasional interview, Steinberg said she had no plans to give speeches or stump on the campaign trail. If Dean is elected president, she hopes to move her medical practice to Washington. Asked whether she would use the bully pulpit of the White House to advocate policy, perhaps on medical issues, Steinberg demurred. ‘I really enjoy people one on one. I enjoy listening to them,’ she said. ‘I'm not that comfortable speaking to groups. I have my opinions, but they are from a narrow point of view, a doctor's or even a patient's.’…’I would have to broaden my viewpoint’ before speaking out on policy, she said. Steinberg, 50, does not seem inclined to do so. ‘I don't think I'd have much of a staff,’ she said. ‘I don't think I would normally travel because that would take me away from my practice.’ And her husband said that if he won the White House, he would not expect his wife to abandon her career. ‘Why give up a job she loves?’ Dean asked. He seemed certain that his wife's passion for privacy would raise eyebrows in Washington. ‘Undoubtedly it will. We might as well get it out early.’ Dean's candidacy has surged in the last month — he is leading among likely Democratic voters in California in the latest Field Poll — and some moderate party leaders fear that if Dean wins the nomination, he could steer the party to the left in a replay of the Michael S. Dukakis and George S. McGovern election routs. Some political observers believe his wife's absence on the campaign trail — and likely nonattendance at the White House — could hurt him politically. ‘America wants a first lady,’ said Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report, one of the capital's best-read political newsletters. ‘If this is a viable candidacy, if by September he looks like he's got a real shot, this is going to become an issue.’ But the couple are confident, as are some analysts, that they can turn his wife's independent life into a campaign asset. ‘It will hurt and it will help,’ Dean said. Traditionalists may object, he argues, but working women may rally to a first lady who also works outside the home. ‘We have a true partnership based on mutual respect,’ he said. ‘She is going to be different than most first ladies.’”(8/7/2003)

… “Only the Dean camp perceived early on that Democratic voters wanted no optimistic messages of growth, but attacks on the president who has been demonized ever since the Florida recount.” – Sentence from following column by Robert Novak. Headline from yesterday’s Chicago Sun-Times: “Dean tapped into pure hatred by rank-and-file Democrats of the reigning Republican” Excerpts: “Not until Howard Dean, the 21st century candidate of the Internet, achieved old-fashioned 20th century laurels of simultaneous Newsweek and Time cover stories did the skeptical realize he really may become the Democratic presidential nominee. The party's establishment, however, still cannot understand the phenomenon, which is perfectly clear to his own managers. Dean utilizes the technology of 2004 to solve the insurgent's usually fatal fund-raising shortcomings, while his opponents are mired in 1992. He also benefits from the institutional memory of campaign manager Joe Trippi, who understands the historic importance of the Iowa and New Hampshire tests that his opponents have downgraded. But the former governor of Vermont is now the Democrats' recognized front-runner mainly because he is the Anti-Bush. Dean's campaign is a remorseless assault on George W. Bush, far exceeding his opponents'. Humorless and unsmiling, the country doctor with upper-class roots pummels the president. He has tapped into pure hatred by rank-and-file Democrats of the reigning Republican that I have never seen in 44 years of campaign watching. Not Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan or even Bill Clinton generated such animosity. Dean stays far in front of the nine-candidate pack in Bush-bashing. His latest coup was a television ad, run in the president's home state of Texas, showing Dean on camera denouncing Bush (‘The only way to beat George Bush is to stand up to him’). That feeds Dean frenzy among Democrats. Every other candidate, even the pleasant Sen. Joe Lieberman, bashes Bush regularly. Nobody, however, does it with Dean's relish. Only the Dean camp perceived early on that Democratic voters wanted no optimistic messages of growth, but attacks on the president who has been demonized ever since the Florida recount. Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Richard Gephardt caught on belatedly, and Lieberman less vigorously. While Trippi is celebrated for harvesting big money through contemporary technology, he is also a 47-year-old politician who remembers the recent past. I first interviewed him in 1984 when he worked for Walter F. Mondale in his second presidential campaign. Trippi had not been engaged in such an effort since 1988, but he is a rare political operative who always appreciated the potential of New Hampshire and Iowa. Those early states have not been determinative since 1988, but Trippi knew that second place in Iowa and first in New Hampshire would put Dean in front and a win in both states probably would nominate him. Dean's strategists sensed that quite apart from the 2004 front-loaded primary election schedule, the campaign was off to a very early start. This nomination could be clinched by Feb. 10, and slow starters are doomed. With Lieberman still narrowly leading in the national polls, his strategists still seem to be running in a non-existent national primary…Dean is actually in the mainstream of the party, with all candidates enunciating the same liberal line. Although Lieberman calls himself a centrist, his liberal rating in the Senate last year was measured by Americans for Democratic Action at 85 percent (actually higher than the 80 percent for Iowa's supposedly ultra-liberal Tom Harkin). What makes Dean so distasteful to his Democratic detractors is that he is not part of the establishment and unlikely ever to become part of it. The native New Yorker has become a flinty Vermonter, looking a little like a Calvin Coolidge of the left. But how to stop him from being nominated? Former Clinton (and current) Lieberman pollster Mark Penn predicts Dean would lose 49 of 50 states to Bush, while a former Clinton colleague (unwilling to be quoted by name) told me: ‘Mark is wrong. Dean would only lose 40 states.’ This ‘he can't win’ argument did not stop Barry Goldwater, George McGovern, Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter from being nominated, and the last two actually were elected. The party faithful liked the purity of those candidates and did not care about electability, and the same might be proved true of the Anti-Bush.”(8/8/2003)

… Kucinich forces Dean to concede position change on Social Security retirement age – and then takes on both Dean and Gephardt on trade. Headline from yesterday’s Des Moines Register: “Kucinich takes aim at Dean” Excerpt from coverage by the Register’s Lynn Okamoto: “The presidential campaign for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean on Wednesday acknowledged that Dean has changed his position on whether to raise the age at which retirees qualify for full benefits under Social Security. ‘Governor Dean in 1995 was open to the idea of raising the retirement age to balance the budget,’ said Sarah Leonard, a spokeswoman for the Dean campaign. ‘He then learned from Bill Clinton that it was not necessary to do so. Now, in this campaign, Governor Dean has never proposed raising the retirement age and has no plans to do so.’ The statement came in reaction to criticism launched Wednesday by Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich. According to Kucinich, Dean said on ‘Meet the Press’ that he would consider moving the retirement age to 68 or 70. He later denied it. ‘We must find out what his real position is on Social Security,’ said Kucinich, speaking at a Des Moines union hall. Kucinich's economic plan calls for moving the retirement age from 67 back to 65…Kucinich also criticized Dean and U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri for their positions on trade. America has lost 2.4 million manufacturing jobs in the past two years, but none of the other candidates would cancel the North American Free Trade Agreement and the United States' membership in the World Trade Organization as Kucinich would. ‘Our trade laws have permitted and even encouraged a race to the bottom,’ Kucinich said. Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Gephardt campaign, confirmed that Gephardt was the key negotiator for the World Trade Organization. ‘He thought it would be a powerful force in raising labor standards throughout the world,’ Burton said.” (8/8/2003)

… So much for the recent flurry of news reports and columns contending that People Powered Howard was a “fiscal conservative” during tenure as Vermont governor. Headline from yesterday’s Washington Times: “Dean’s budget-balancing act left taxpayers in red” Excerpt from report by Times’ political ace Donald Lambro:   “Vermont had one of the highest per capita tax burdens in the country when Howard Dean left the governorship in January to run for president. Mr. Dean, a Democrat who calls himself a ‘fiscal conservative,’ says he balanced all his state budgets by cutting spending. And allies and critics alike praise his budget-balancing record. Vermont enjoyed a budget surplus this year while most states were in the red because of the recession that began three years ago. What the former governor doesn't say is that he raised hundreds of millions of dollars in higher taxes, including sales taxes, cigarette taxes, property taxes and corporate taxes, to balance the books while paying for his social welfare proposals. After 11 years under Mr. Dean's governorship, Vermont now ranks in the top tier of high-tax states, a fiscal legacy that President Bush's campaign strategists say they intend to highlight should Mr. Dean become the Democratic presidential nominee next year. Congressional Quarterly's Governing magazine, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, ranks Vermont second highest among the 50 states in the amount of tax revenue collected as a percentage of personal income in 2001 — about 9 percent to 10 percent. In a separate ranking that measured state tax revenue per capita in 2001, Vermont was in second place with six other high-tax states, including Massachusetts and California. Another ranking in June by the Government Finance Officers Association put Vermont in 12th place when state and local tax burdens are combined, well ahead of more populous industrial states such as New Jersey, Michigan and Illinois. Vermont's budget has climbed sharply, too, from $662 million in 1991 to $1.8 billion last year. Between 1997 and last year, inflation and population growth combined totaled 18.1 percent, but spending rose 51.7 percent. Once known for its Yankee thrift, the state has become a mecca for affluent liberals from neighboring New York. Vermont's sole congressman, independent Rep. Bernard Sanders, is an avowed socialist. ‘Roughly 20 percent of the population does not depend upon jobs for income, people who are trust funders or independently wealthy,’ says Michael Quaid, executive director of Vermonters For Tax Reform. Tiny, bucolic Vermont, with a population of 610,000 — about the size of Austin, Texas — does not many of the problems of other states. More than 96 percent of Vermont residents are white; only 3.8 percent are immigrants. The unemployment rate is barely 4 percent. The birth rate is the lowest in the nation, which means Vermont requires less spending on education and welfare than other states. With a median age of 37.7, the population is the third oldest among the states, and its under-18 population (24.2 percent) ranks as the eighth smallest. Analysts give a mixed assessment on Mr. Dean's fiscal record. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank that rates the fiscal performance of the states, gave him a grade of B from 1994 to 1996. By 2000, his grade had plunged to a D.”(8/8/2003)

… Under the subhead “Labor Infighting,” columnist Robert Novak reports that Dean secured a “political victory” by sidetracking union endorsement of Gephardt. Excerpt from Novak’s column in today’s Chicago Sun-Times: “Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's campaign scored a political victory, with the help of his newly named labor operative, by stopping the AFL-CIO's immediate endorsement of Rep. Richard Gephardt for the Democratic presidential nomination. Gephardt, backed by 11 unions, pushed hard for the labor federation's endorsement at the AFL-CIO meeting in Chicago this past week. Bob Mullenkamp, Dean's new labor aide, worked to postpone further consideration of the issue until another meeting was called for October. Mullenkamp was an aide to former Teamsters president Ron Carey and is on poor terms with the union's present leadership headed by James P. Hoffa, a strong supporter of Gephardt. Mullenkamp is married to Karen Ackerman, currently political director of the AFL-CIO.”(8/10/2003)

… Dean vs. Lieberman – a Capitol Gang Perspective. Excerpts from transcript of Saturday’s discussion on CNN’s Capitol Gang involving Margaret Carlson, Mark Shields, Robert Novak and Al Hunt: SHIELDS: Margaret Carlson, what was the impact of Joe Lieberman's attack on Howard Dean?…CARLSON: Zero, I think, because Howard Dean is not susceptible to conventional attacks, because he's in virtual reality land of campaigning. Listen, Joe Lieberman is still ahead in South Carolina. He's staked out the center. But in this race, being anti-Bush is probably the only way to get the nomination. And if you were to put Dean and Lieberman into a Cuisinart, you'd come out and have one normal candidate, in that Dean is so angry, and no matter what Joe Lieberman says, it comes out as reasonable and considered and decent, not the kind of stuff that's going to energize activist Democrats. And for the next 60 days, I think this is the last time we're going to see Gore and Lieberman, a speech covered by them, because the next 60 days, all politics is California…SHIELDS: And -- good point. And Bob Novak, I was in Chicago for the [AFL-CIO] debate, or whatever you want to call it, the day after Joe Lieberman makes his attack on Howard Dean, and the -- it, it's -- that's it, he never says -- picks up that theme again…NOVAK: He (UNINTELLIGIBLE) cannot win a Democratic nomination by saying the ideological leader can't win, or that he is off the mainstream. It just doesn't work. And Joe Lieberman's campaign is, is, is, is the most dysfunctional, because he seems to be running in a nonexistent national primary. There is no national primary. He's not going to win South Carolina. I don't know who is, but it isn't going to be Joe Lieberman. But they have to -- the establishment has to figure out a way to stop Dean if they're going to stop him. They're not going to stop him with Joe Lieberman…SHIELDS: One problem, Al Hunt, with trying to stop Howard Dean is, there's no establishment front-runner consensus candidate around whom to organize…HUNT: Well, that's right, Mark. Of course, Dean is driving the insiders crazy. Look, this is not about ideology. It is true that Howard Dean opposed the Iraqi war. So did that notorious lefty Robert D. Novak. It strikes me that the greatest passion that Dean brings when it comes to issues is fiscal responsibility. And he's actually to the right of Democrats on some issues. But what Dean -- the tsunami that Dean has caught, as Margaret alluded to a moment ago, is this deep and pervasive anti-Bush current. Now, that may not be enough to win a general election among Democratic voters. That may not be enough to win a general election, but it's sure a requisite for winning the primary. And Joe Lieberman better understand you can't win primaries campaigning as Bush lite.”(8/11/2003)

… Best of Web’s James Taranto notes that Dean has never written a “Conscience of a Liberal” book  -- and adds “Dean's foreign policy seems to consist entirely of denouncing the president for liberating Iraq.” Under the subhead “AuH2Oward Dean?,” Taranto wrote in yesterday’s column on OpinionJournal.com: “A favorite pastime of political commentators in this pre-presidential-election season is to come up with historical analogies to explain the Howard Dean phenomenon. In the end, of course, we will all conclude that Dean was sui generis--or, if he loses the nomination, that he wasn't important anyway. Still, analogizing is a fun intellectual exercise, so let's indulge a bit. The most obvious analogy is to George McGovern, the antiwar 1972 Democratic nominee.  Al Hunt suggests Jimmy Carter (‘outsider’ governor, who by the way won the election)…Then there's Barry Goldwater, the conservative Republican LBJ crushed in 1964. A Wall Street Journal editorial in June alluded to Goldwater when it noted that Democrats may ‘next year decide they want a choice, and not an echo.’…Let us suggest one problem with this analogy, as well as one additional reason why it may be pertinent. The problem is that unlike Goldwater, it's hard to say that Dean has any coherent philosophy of government. There's no ‘Conscience of a Liberal’ by Howard Dean; indeed, Dean insists he's actually a ‘centrist’--an epithet it's hard to imagine Goldwater applying to himself. But here's the similarity: Dean, like Goldwater, has no answer for the greatest issue of the day. In Goldwater's case it was civil rights; and although he was no segregationist himself, his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made him the de facto segregationist candidate. Along with his home state of Arizona, he won five other states, all in the Deep South—‘the wrong ones for the wrong reason,’ as The Wall Street Journal's Vermont Royster observed in a postelection column. Similarly, Dean (and to a lesser extent all of his Democratic opponents, with the possible exception of Joe Lieberman) has no strategy for dealing with the great issue of our day, the battle against Islamist terrorism. Dean's foreign policy seems to consist entirely of denouncing the president for liberating Iraq. Though he grudgingly concedes that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power, what really seems to spark his passion is the various procedural objections to a ‘unilateral’ or ‘pre-emptive’ war. Goldwater was in many ways a man ahead of his time; certainly he helped lay the groundwork for the GOP's revitalization as a conservative party. On the other hand, it seems fair to say he had an ideological blind spot in that he failed to grasp that the enormity of segregation was such that it justified an exercise of federal power that would otherwise have been an anathema. Similarly for Dean, who views the liberation of 24 million Iraqis as a trivial matter in comparison to the lack of an 18th U.N. resolution.”(8/12/2003)

… Boston Globe report: Dean stands out among the wannabes because of “the intensity of his Internet operation.”  Globe reporter Joanna Weiss ventures to the heart of the Dean operation – Burlington, VT – to report the campaign’s success, which features some interesting campaign staff positions such as “head blogger” and “head of Internet outreach.” An excerpt: “Of all the technological tools they have used to draw people to Howard Dean's presidential campaign, staffers never expected to get so much buzz from a baseball bat. As cyber things go, it's not especially high-tech: a picture of a bat, posted on Dean's website, www.deanforamerica.com during the June fund-raising drive. Supporters who reloaded the campaign website every half-hour could watch the donations grow, like mercury rising in a thermometer. When it was first proposed, some staff members thought it was, frankly, a little cheesy. But ever since the June drive ended, die-hard supporters have posted pleas on Dean's campaign ‘weblog,’ begging the staff to ‘bring back the bat.’ Soon enough, it returned, as a cheerleading tool for one of the campaign's more audacious ideas: last month's ‘Cheney Challenge,’ in which the campaign famously earned nearly $500,000, surpassing the $300,000 Vice President Dick Cheney took in at a South Carolina fund-raiser. It's a small sign of the how the online masses have managed to steer Dean headquarters in Burlington. Dean has stood out among his rival candidates because of the intensity of his Internet operation; online donations drove his unexpected fund-raising performance in this year's second quarter, when he bested Democratic rivals to raise $7.5 million. In recent months, his campaign has staffed some Internet-related positions that wouldn't have existed in the 2000 race: “head blogger,” “national meetup coordinator,” “head of Internet outreach.” And some of the ideas that have most defined Dean's online operations -- and some of the computer programming behind them -- have come not from hired hands, but from volunteers. ‘It was really driven from the grass-roots side,’ said John A. Miller, 34, a New York volunteer and electrical engineer. ‘People with technical skills, they were impressed by his message and his delivery and just started doing what they knew how to do, which was technical stuff.’ So Miller and other New York volunteers helped the campaign develop a tool that helped supporters organize their own events without direction from headquarters. Another renegade crew of programmers set up hack4dean.org, dedicated to helping people set up their own pro-Dean websites. Someone else set up a site that turns Dean icons into iron-on T-shirt decals. To be sure, the Dean campaign has made use of some already-developed grass-roots tools and paid its share of Internet consultants -- including a key player in MoveOn.org, a Democratic political action committee that has organized people in opposition to the impeachment of President Clinton and the war in Iraq. In June, MoveOn.org held an online primary, which Dean won with 44 percent. But Dean's ‘Internetization’ has just as often been an unplanned, unruly process for a campaign that didn't start out with a technical agenda, or even a technically-savvy candidate. (In 2001, the Rutland (Vt.) Herald reported that, according to Dean's lawyer, the governor didn't use a computer in his office or have a state e-mail account.) Now, as Dean has proved that riding the Internet wave can be effective, rival campaigns are scrambling to catch up. And political consultants are struggling to define exactly why Dean has become the Internet candidate, whether that support can extend beyond a wired core, and if others can reproduce his early success.”(8/12/2003)

… “He May Not Be Tops With Party Brass, but Dean’s the One to Watch” – Headline on Ron Brownstein’s “Washington Outlook” column in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times.  An excerpt: “Topic A for the politically sophisticated local businesspeople who lingered after Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt's speech to the Greenwich Village Chamber of Commerce last week was the race for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. But the name on most lips in the room wasn't Gephardt's; it was that of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who has caught the imagination of activists here, as everywhere, with his stinging denunciations of President Bush and the Democratic leaders Dean says the president has intimidated. Mr. Dean, as they say in Hollywood, is ready for his close-up. The Bruce Springsteen treatment he received from the national news magazines last week (simultaneous covers of Time and Newsweek) confirms the verdict suggested first by his breakthrough at using the Internet to raise money and support and then by the recent polls showing him narrowly leading local favorites Gephardt in Iowa and Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry in New Hampshire. Starting from obscurity, Dean has become the central figure in the 2004 Democratic race. Whether he's the front-runner in a conventional sense is another question; although surging in money and at the polls, Dean lacks the support from party leaders and institutions that usually marks a front-runner. But he's clearly emerged as the race's pacesetter and driving force. More than anyone else, he's forcing the other candidates to react to his actions…Yet Dean is as much target as model. Kerry recently attacked him from the left, complaining that Dean's call for repealing all of Bush's 2001 tax cut (which Dean wants to apply to a new drive to cover those without health insurance) would raise taxes on the middle class as well as the rich. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, desperately seeking a foothold in the race, last week attacked Dean from the other direction, portraying his rival as too liberal to win a general election…Lieberman's speech jabbed at Dean's weakest point: The fear that Dean could lead the party off a cliff in the general election may be the biggest hurdle he faces in the primary. Privately, much of the Democratic establishment — elected officials, strategists, leaders of the most powerful interest groups — share Lieberman's conclusion. And as long as they do, it will be tough for Dean to attract much of the institutional support critical to surviving the tightly compressed primary calendar. Eventually, the anxiety among insiders might also spill over to average Democratic voters. So, in the weeks ahead, the top priority facing Dean could be convincing the party leadership that he's not a sure loser against Bush. The terms of the argument between Dean and his critics are already emerging…Dean's supporters believe his critics are trapped in static thinking that ignores his potential to reshape the electorate. His backers are optimistic that he will encourage a huge turnout among core Democratic voters and appeal to swing voters less on ideological than stylistic grounds — as a straight-shooter like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). In effect, as CNN analyst Bill Schneider has observed, the debate comes down to whether Dean is more like McCain or George McGovern, the liberal antiwar senator who suffered a landslide defeat against Richard Nixon in 1972. Who's right? One early clue may be in whether Dean can broaden his support in the primaries beyond the well-educated, socially liberal, relatively upscale voters who usually sustain insurgencies like his. If Dean can't win blue-collar and culturally conservative voters who still consider themselves Democrats, he's unlikely to convert their independent or Republican-leaning neighbors in a general election. Dean will likely need to make inroads with downscale and morally traditional voters just to capture the nomination. But he'll definitely need strength beyond the National Public Radio set to avoid a McGovern-like blowout if he wins the chance to challenge Bush.”(8/12/2003)

… Dean – after visiting Iowa’s 26 most rural counties – to outline his rural development plan today. Headline from South Carolina’s The State: “Dean’s Policy Would Uproot Megafarming” Excerpts from report filed by AP’s Iowa caucus watcher Mike Glover: “Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean is proposing tax and investment aid for farmers, corn-based ethanol in all gasoline and limits on giant farm operations to help a rural economy he says is falling apart. Campaigning in Iowa, site of next year's leadoff campaign caucuses, the former Vermont governor said he was familiar with farm problems – ‘I come from the most rural state in the country,’ he declared - and ready to do something about them. ‘The truth is, the foundation of our rural economy is crumbling,’ said Dean, in remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday. ‘In rural communities across the country, unemployment has jumped over 50 percent and there are now 600,000 more people looking for work. We can do better.’ Polls have shown Dean bunched with the front-runners in the Democratic presidential field after he started off as a relatively unknown former governor. He gained early attention with vocal opposition to the war in Iraq and now is trying to broaden that base to include more traditional Democratic constituents. Much of his farm policy is aimed at heading off the increasing trend toward megafarm concentration. He said that four companies control 81 percent of the beef market, and one company - Smithfield Farms - controls 30 percent of the nation's pork production. ‘The destruction of the middle class and the widening gap between the rich and poor is being played out right before our eyes with the concentration of the agriculture industry,’ he said in the speech. He urged new restrictions on giant factory farming operations, including giving local residents veto power over the building of big livestock confinement operations nearby. Dean called for new venture capital investments in rural areas, coupled with tax credits for farm-based business development and a boost in grants for businesses that add value to basic farm commodities. For the most part, he did not estimate costs. He also urged stronger backing for renewable energy sources such as wind and biomass, along with a requirement that there be 10 percent ethanol in gasoline. Ethanol is distilled from corn, a crop that is important to Iowa and many other farm states. Dean was to outline his policies for rural America on Wednesday at Grundy County Lake in northeast Iowa. He chose the area to underscore his commitment to conservation as part of his development plan. The appearance comes as Dean completes a tour of 26 of Iowa's most rural counties. His speech and an outline of his policy proposal were provided to The Associated Press.”(8/13/2003)

… So what? After coverage of Oklahoma Dem forum last night – with Kucinich and Moseley Braun getting better play than Dean and Gephardt – it’s unlikely the top tier contenders will return again soon, or at least until writers figure out who’s newsworthy. Who cares? Wannabes at Oklahoma State – which doesn’t do any better on debate sponsorship than playing football.  Headline from this morning’s Washington Post – “Democrats Stump on GOP Turf…In Oklahoma, Candidates Take Aim at Bush from Different Angles” Excerpts from report filed by AP’s Ron Jenkins in Stillwater: “Democratic presidential hopefuls came Tuesday to a state virtually ignored in past races, bringing with them their criticism of the Bush administration. Six of the nine candidates spoke at Oklahoma State University on health care, the economy and how they would have handled the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. ‘I say this is the time for the United States to admit it made a mistake in attacking Iraq,’ said Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who says Bush has eroded relationships with the United Nations and the world community. Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun said Bush's approach has ‘frittered away all the good will we had’ and said she wants U.S. troops out of Iraq. But ‘we have a moral obligation to at least put that country back in shape,’ she said. ‘We can't just leave, having blown them up.’ Asked about gay marriages, Moseley Braun recalled an aunt in an interracial marriage decades ago and brought applause when she said, ‘I don't see any difference between interracial marriages and same sex marriages.’ Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman drew a mix of boos and applause when he said he opposed same-sex marriages. ‘I am the one Democrat who can take Bush on where he's supposed to be strong - security and mainstream values,’ said Lieberman, and that made him the best candidate to take on the ‘right-wing agenda’ that he called Bush's weakness. Candidates challenged Bush's handling of the economy, citing recently announced job cuts at a Wrangler plant in Seminole. Vermont Gov. Howard Dean described Bush's tax cuts as perks for his wealthy corporate friends. ‘I wouldn't have cut taxes, period,’ Dean said. ‘Most people would gladly pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president if only they could have the same economy ... when Bill Clinton was president.’ Dean favored independent pension plans that travel with workers who change jobs, saying corporations can no longer be trusted to run their own pensions. Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards also were scheduled to speak at the town hall-style event. About 4,000 people requested tickets for the forum. Its start was delayed because the line of people stretched down the street. Oklahoma has not voted for a Democrat for president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. It has been ignored by primary presidential candidates in recent elections, prompting the Legislature to move the 2004 election to Feb. 3, one week after the New Hampshire primary, the nation's first. It is one of seven states planning primaries or caucuses Feb. 3. The others are Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, South Carolina, New Mexico and North Dakota…Florida Sen. Bob Graham and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry were not taking part in the forum, citing scheduling conflicts. The Rev. Al Sharpton of New York was scheduled to appear but canceled because of a last-minute conflict.” (8/13/2003)

… Dean manager: Illinois will be key to his guy’s success – and he sees the state as an important source of volunteers to invade Iowa on Dean’s behalf. Excerpt from report by Chicago Sun-Times political reporter Scott Fornek: “Howard Dean went from a team of seven paid staffers and less than $157,000 in the bank at the beginning of the year to raise more than $10.2 million, build an organization of 285,000 volunteers and find his face on the covers of both Time and Newsweek. But don't call the former Vermont governor the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race. ‘We still consider ourselves an insurgent,’ said Joe Trippi, the former Evanston resident who is Dean's campaign manager. ‘In fact, we're the strongest insurgent in the history of the party.’ Trippi was in town last week for the AFL-CIO Democratic presidential forum at Navy Pier and meetings with supporters. Illinois' March 16 primary is late in the delegate selection process, but Trippi said the state will be a crucial base for fund-raising and mobilizing volunteers to work in neighboring Iowa before its Jan. 19 caucuses. ‘Illinois is going to be critical both in the primaries and in the general [election],’ Trippi said. ‘Illinois' going to play a big role in--probably being almost a second, eventually in the general, almost a second national headquarters--in the campaign.’ Trippi, 47, grew up in Los Angeles but lived in Evanston for about four years in the early 1990s after marrying a woman from the North Shore suburb. During that time, he did some political work for Cook County Clerk David Orr, who was briefly eyeing a run for County Board president in 1994.”(8/13/2003)

… So what? After coverage of Oklahoma Dem forum last night – with Kucinich and Moseley Braun getting better play than Dean and Gephardt – it’s unlikely the top tier contenders will return again soon, or at least until writers figure out who’s newsworthy. Who cares? Wannabes at Oklahoma State – which doesn’t do any better on debate sponsorship than playing football.  Headline from this morning’s Washington Post – “Democrats Stump on GOP Turf…In Oklahoma, Candidates Take Aim at Bush from Different Angles” Excerpts from report filed by AP’s Ron Jenkins in Stillwater: “Democratic presidential hopefuls came Tuesday to a state virtually ignored in past races, bringing with them their criticism of the Bush administration. Six of the nine candidates spoke at Oklahoma State University on health care, the economy and how they would have handled the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. ‘I say this is the time for the United States to admit it made a mistake in attacking Iraq,’ said Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who says Bush has eroded relationships with the United Nations and the world community. Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun said Bush's approach has ‘frittered away all the good will we had’ and said she wants U.S. troops out of Iraq. But ‘we have a moral obligation to at least put that country back in shape,’ she said. ‘We can't just leave, having blown them up.’ Asked about gay marriages, Moseley Braun recalled an aunt in an interracial marriage decades ago and brought applause when she said, ‘I don't see any difference between interracial marriages and same sex marriages.’ Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman drew a mix of boos and applause when he said he opposed same-sex marriages. ‘I am the one Democrat who can take Bush on where he's supposed to be strong - security and mainstream values,’ said Lieberman, and that made him the best candidate to take on the ‘right-wing agenda’ that he called Bush's weakness. Candidates challenged Bush's handling of the economy, citing recently announced job cuts at a Wrangler plant in Seminole. Vermont Gov. Howard Dean described Bush's tax cuts as perks for his wealthy corporate friends. ‘I wouldn't have cut taxes, period,’ Dean said. ‘Most people would gladly pay the same taxes they paid when Bill Clinton was president if only they could have the same economy ... when Bill Clinton was president.’ Dean favored independent pension plans that travel with workers who change jobs, saying corporations can no longer be trusted to run their own pensions. Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards also were scheduled to speak at the town hall-style event. About 4,000 people requested tickets for the forum. Its start was delayed because the line of people stretched down the street. Oklahoma has not voted for a Democrat for president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. It has been ignored by primary presidential candidates in recent elections, prompting the Legislature to move the 2004 election to Feb. 3, one week after the New Hampshire primary, the nation's first. It is one of seven states planning primaries or caucuses Feb. 3. The others are Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, South Carolina, New Mexico and North Dakota…Florida Sen. Bob Graham and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry were not taking part in the forum, citing scheduling conflicts. The Rev. Al Sharpton of New York was scheduled to appear but canceled because of a last-minute conflict.” (8/13/2003)

… IOWA PRES WATCH SIDEBAR: Under one of the better subheads of the Dem campaign – “Howard Dean, Sex Machine?” – James Tartanto wrote in yesterday’s “Best of the Web Today” column: “In a gushing profile of Howard Dean, Salon's Joan Walsh offers these observations (ellipsis in original): * ‘He's also sort of… sexy, which I mention because it counteracts the associations folks have with short, which is supposedly not charismatic or presidential, and also probably because I'm shallow.’ * ‘Helen Chesser, a middle-aged grocery store worker from Dallas, said she was 'sticking with Gephardt right now, because of all the years he's been there for us.' Then she took my pen to get Dean's autograph, flirted with him a minute, and he flirted back.’ * ‘Dean positively flirts with Carol Moseley Braun at debates and other joint appearances.’ Can it be that women actually find small angry men irresistibly attractive?”(8/13/2003)

… Article of the day.  Cyberattacks fuel latest chapter of the Dean-Kerry rivalry as Deanies raid the Mass Sen’s new Internet venture. Headline from yesterday’s Boston Herald: “Dean fans flog blog, rip Kerry to threads” Excerpt from report by the Herald’s Andrew Miga: “The testy rivalry between presidential hopefuls John F. Kerry and Howard Dean has spilled over to Kerry's new campaign Web log, which has been swamped with mocking messages from Dean backers. ‘Kerry a real Democrat???!!!’ taunted one Dean supporter with ‘Sam’ as an online name. ‘That's a laugh.’  Desperate to capture some of the cybermagic that propelled the former Vermont governor to the top tier of the 2004 Democratic pack, Kerry on Saturday launched a web log, or ‘blog,’ to chronicle his travels and rally supporters. But the Bay State senator's online journal - patterned after Dean's hugely successful BlogforAmerica.com - was soon invaded by swarms of taunting Dean supporters, turning cyberspace into the latest Kerry-Dean rift. ‘Right after GWBush, I want to beat John Kerry the most,’ wrote one blogger. Several pro-Dean bloggers lashed Kerry for stealing the former Vermont governor's Internet-savvy campaign tactics. ‘When (Kerry) finds out that Dean has got momentum, he's copying everything from him,’ wrote a blogger identified as ‘copycatkerry.’  The Kerry camp, while dismissing such Internet sparring as campaign pranksterism, insisted the online rants have badly misfired. ‘The Dean trolls have actually fired up Kerry supporters, and increased their energy and excitement to organize for John Kerry,’ said Kerry spokeswoman Kelley Benander. ‘Troll’ is web slang for people who post harassing comments. Some bloggers posted a list of Kerry's missed Senate votes. Others ripped Kerry for backing the Iraq war, for not being liberal enough and for attacking Dean. ‘Kerry and his campaign manager Jim Jordan have been saying nasty things about Dean all along. They attack Dean, we speak back on their blog. Seems fair to me,’ wrote blogger ‘Dave.’  A blogger named ‘Trey Phish Head’ claimed he was a Dean backer and a ‘shallow lonely stoner that lives to spam my enemy.’ Such comments irked Kerry supporters, who responded with a volley of blistering blog entries. ‘Until this stops, I am going to raise hell on the Dean boards, and I encourage all Kerry people to join me,’ ranted a blogger known as ‘Pocki,’ who added angrily, ‘(Dean) is a traitor anyway.’ Another Kerry backer blasted Dean supporters for ‘attacking like trust fund babies.’ The cyberskirmishing prompted an online plea from Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi urging supporters not to post messages on rival blogs. Other pro-Dean bloggers apologized for the vitriolic messages from fellow Dean backers. ‘I am truly embarrassed that some alleged Dean supporters have posted nasty messages,’ wrote blogger ‘Passing Shot.’ Some were frustrated by both sides. ‘All I found on one side are potty-mouthed Deanies - and on the other, snooty Kerryites,’ wrote ‘Lilly James.’ Aides to both Kerry and Dean suggested mischievous Republicans could also be behind some of the anti-Kerry entries allegedly from Dean supporters. ‘Who knows who is actually writing this stuff?,’ asked Benander, noting the difficulty of confirming identities online. Dean spokeswoman Dorie Clark had no comment.” (8/14/2003)

… Under the subhead “Spamming Bushies,” John McCaslin reported in his “Inside the Beltway” column in yesterday’s Washington Times: “Bryan Wilkes, a member of the Bush administration, was surprised to get ‘spammed’ yesterday by Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean.  ‘I think it's interesting that Howard Dean is spamming people to try to get support, especially since he's touting his online grass-roots efforts,’ Mr. Wilkes said of the candidate's mass computer e-mailing. The former governor of Vermont brags in his generic spam message that he's attracted more than 250,000 supporters via the Internet in recent months — raising a whopping $7.6 million during one eight-day period in June.  Mr. Dean told Mr. Wilkes that, with his financial help, he can defeat his boss in 2004.”(8/14/2003)

… Without Snow White, seven Dem dwarfs show up at Drake University to discuss their health care plans (for probably the 4,850th time) and attack the president (for probably the 629,382nd time). Headline from this morning’s Union Leader: “Democratic rivals joust on health care” Coverage – an excerpt datelined Des Moines – by AP’s Mike Glover: “Seven Democratic presidential nominees used an Iowa political forum Thursday to offer deeply personal pitches for revamping the nation's health system and to bash President Bush and large pharmaceutical companies. Most of the major Democratic candidates have offered plans to expand the nation's health care system, and would finance their efforts by repealing various portions of the tax cut the president pushed through Congress. ‘America has a choice, it can have tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans or health care for all Americans,” Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry told the gathering of health care advocates. Kerry used his recent bout with prostate cancer and the expensive treatment he got for the disease as an example of why the system needs to be changed. ‘We must stop being the only industrial nation in the world that does not understand that health care is not a privilege, it is a right,’ he said. Florida Sen. Bob Graham has health issues of his own, undergoing major heart surgery before he entered the race. ‘Clearly one of the challenges facing America is making health care affordable and accessible to all,’ Graham said. ‘That is a goal to which we all should be committed.’ Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt pointed to his son's bout with cancer, and called health care a ‘moral issue.’…’It is immoral in this country to have people not have health care,’ Gephardt shouted. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a doctor, said he wanted the whole country to have health care like Vermont, which has health coverage for all youngsters and subsidized care for the working poor. ‘It can pass,’ Dean said. ‘I'm tired of having Democrats tilt at windmills.’ Dean later had one of his more colorful days on the campaign trail, as 200 people packed a local blues club to watch him play harmonica and guitar. Dean accompanied two other performers on two songs, including one written specifically for his campaign. He quietly sang along with lyrics like ‘Dean for America’ and ‘losing my mind from being left behind.’ Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich offered their pitch for a single-payer, government-run health care system, where health coverage isn't tied to the workplace…North Carolina Sen. John Edwards touted his $53 billion plan to offer tax credits to help pay for insurance costs and argued that Bush's health care plans are likely dictated by political adviser Karl Rove…Gephardt also complained that giant pharmaceutical companies influence Bush's health care plans. ‘They put $70 million into the campaigns only of Republicans,’ Gephardt said. ‘It's time to kick the moneychangers out of the temples of government.’” (8/15/2003)

… Pollster reports that tracking polls have Dean in lead – notes that he passed over traditional Dem power groups and focused on rural America. Headline on guest column in yesterday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Dean’s rural strategy creates a major player” Column by Matt Towery of Atlanta, a former Georgia legislator, pollster and syndicated columnist. Excerpt: “My company's latest tracking poll shows that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who barely registered in past polls, has catapulted ahead of Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and now leads the pack of candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. What explains the dramatic leap? Dean, who recently made the cover of three national newsweeklies, appears to be the one challenger to George W. Bush who is putting a new spin on the time-tested strategy of populism. One might even call Dean's style, with its heavy emphasis on the Internet, ‘electro-pop.’ Rather than pandering to traditional Democratic power groups such as trial attorneys, unions or urban bosses, he is focusing on rural America and the thousands of towns and smaller cities that serve it as centers of daily life. Small-town life predominates Vermont, and Dean is promising to help restore rural communities. He has tied positions on virtually every issue -- from the economy to the environment -- to the development and growth of rural areas, where he contends that President Bush's policies had little positive impact. For many people in less densely populated areas, the Web has become a primary tool, from shopping to entertainment. So it may be that Dean's ‘small-town’ thinking was the genesis of his campaign's celebrated strategy to have Web-using supporters forward campaign literature to others. This allows Dean's camp to expand its reach on the Internet without violating tough rules on e-mail spam. Indeed, Dean's campaign has built a virtual community of online supporters. Many of them rally to the call for ‘emergency’ small-dollar contributions that so far have eclipsed the amounts he has received from fat-cat contributors. A final and significant reason for Dean's dramatic emergence is that he is no longer viewed as completely out of step on Iraq. Just a few months ago, he stood virtually alone in his opposition to the Iraqi invasion. But Dean has since been joined by other Democratic presidential candidates who may not openly renounce the war effort, but are openly criticizing the Bush White House for its inability to produce evidence of weapons of mass destruction and for the continued bloody disorder in post-Saddam Iraq. We've seen many an early political star burn brightly at first, only to fizzle before the first big primary election tests happen. At the start of the election 2004 campaign, candidates such as North Carolina Sen. John Edwards were seen as the fresh new faces that might dominate the battle for the Democratic nomination. And an early victory in Iowa for a more traditional Democrat, such as U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, could steal the thunder from Dean. But for now, the Dean campaign appears the leaner, faster and more in-touch campaign organization. Our polling shows Bush continuing to enjoy a significant lead against all potential Democratic foes. But Dean's campaign should give pause to both the president and his Democratic challengers.”(8/15/2003)

… All politics is local – especially in Iowa and New Hampshire during Dem nominating season. Dean finds way to tie NH flooding to Homeland Security Act. Headline from yesterday’s The Union Leader: “Dean says NH floods these new FEMA role” Excerpt from report by UL correspondent Stephen Seitz: “Flooding in southwestern New Hampshire could be the first real test of the Federal Emergency Management Administration since the Homeland Security Act took effect, according to Democratic Presidential hopeful Howard Dean.  ‘The most important thing is to have a FEMA that responds quickly,’ Dean said in a press conference call from Oklahoma yesterday morning. ‘Homeland security has taken some of their functions. We’re going to find out if some of the bureaucratic in-fighting over the homeland security agency will effect the recovery effort in New Hampshire.’ Dean, former governor of Vermont, had to call FEMA for assistance several times during his 11-year tenure. He had nothing but praise for FEMA’s response to Vermont’s floods …Dean included emergency planning as part of a speech on rural development he delivered in Iowa yesterday. Among other things, Dean said that saving America’s family farms was a high priority. Among the ways to do that, he said, are to expand broadband Internet service to rural America, and invest more in alternative fuels like biodiesel and ethanol.” (8/15/2003)

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