Democratic Primaries - Part III

If I have misrepresented you in any way Colin, please reference it explicitly.

But the point remains that Dean has some clearly Leftist views, which in turn has made some of my Leftist friends very supportive of him. He's not Leftist enough for you, but he is for others.

Let's talk about corporate welfare. Who gets it? Who should?

Remember, things that salaried Americans take for granted, like SS payments, are double if you are a small business owner because you make contribs as both employee and employer. Also they pay more to insure themselves (check my mom with her $300 a month med insurance policy with a $1000 deductible). The thing is, they grasp for these ill-advised Rep tax cuts because money is tight and even though she's wind-pissing £3600 a year because of the hold the insurers' lobby has on whatever government, she still votes for the people who are least likely to make changes to that.

At any rate, people who want to call me on the carpet for not paying attention to the facts and who think that Dean is any kind of hardcore Left Liberal aren't really paying attention to the facts themselves.

Suzy, do a Lexis/Nexis search on "Howard Dean", "Wal-Mart", and "Vermont".

Copyright 2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)

December 12, 2003 Friday Five Star Late Lift Edition

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A16

LENGTH: 1952 words

HEADLINE: AT HOME IN VERMONT/ DEAN AND HIS STATE LIKE TO GO THEIR OWN WAY, MANY SAY

DATELINE: BURLINGTON, VT.

BODY:
Howard Dean ,s Vermont is the sort of place where one of his biggest challenges was fending off Wal- Mart ,s plans to invade the state.

When Dean took his 1993 lobbying effort to Wal-Mart ,s headquarters, in Bentonville, Ark., same-sex unions weren ,t yet an issue. He had not yet signed the legislation that took control of school budgets away from local communities.

But that Dean cut his gubernatorial teeth tangling with Wal- Mart, the ubiquitous icon of American consumerism, was an indication of a career, and a state, that have often marched to the beat of a different drum.

The home base for the Democrat who has taken the presidential campaign by storm was the last state in America without a Wal-Mart, the first one where gay couples won full legal rights and the only one where families earning $55,200 a year qualify for Medicaid.

Howard Dean played a role in those issues and more, as Vermont ,s governor from 1991 until last January.

Critics and supporters at home have a hard time deciding whether to tag Dean as a social liberal, a fiscal conservative or something in between.

But on one point they emphatically agree: Their state is remarkably different from most of America.

It ,s not just demographics - although with just 600,000 residents, with fewer than 4 percent of them minorities, and with considerably more ski slopes than factories, Vermont is arguably the oddest launching pad in America for a presidential campaign.

It ,s also that Howard Dean ,s hometown of Burlington is an astonishingly attractive place, a mini-metropolis of 40,000 overlooking Lake Champlain with an abundance of book stores, coffee shops and trendy restaurants - a veritable yuppie-Boomer paradise where the challenges of life in modern America are addressed in miniature when they are encountered at all.

In this setting, Dean was a centrist, a generally popular governor who balanced the budget every year but who also oversaw major increases in health care coverage and spending on education and land conservation.

He was a quick study, unusually direct and often temperamental, all traits apparent in the early stages of his presidential campaign. But the bold strokes so evident on the presidential trail - his fiery denunciations of President George W. Bush, for example, and absolute opposition to the war in Iraq - were conspicuously absent from his years as governor.

On some issues, such as health care and budget discipline, Dean followed through on initiatives begun by his predecessors. On others, such as same-sex unions or education funding, he let the courts or state lawmakers take the lead.

"He ,s an implementer, not an innovator," said Garrison Nelson, a political scientist at the University of Vermont who voiced surprise, like many longtime observers in Vermont, that Dean ,s presidential campaign has struck such a responsive chord among activists and liberals.

"The irony is that he really is a man of the middle, a centrist."

Health care for all

On health care, Dean ,s record was similar to that of former President Bill Clinton. Both named task forces to address issues of coverage and cost containment, and each produced unwieldy plans that crashed and burned in 1994 when put to the legislative test.

Dean, like Clinton, was faulted for not pushing harder and for turning away when the battle was lost.

Liberal critics said he abandoned the effort as soon as the going got tough - a tendency that was often pronounced during Dean ,s gubernatorial tenure, they say, and directly at odds with the combative stance he has adopted in the presidential campaign.

"This was the one thing I never could understand about Howard Dean," said former Vermont House Speaker Ralph Wright, in a memoir that touched on his relationship with Dean.

"He always seemed too ready to abandon his cause at the first sign of defeat," Wright wrote.

Dean defenders point to how he turned from that 1994 defeat to an incremental series of reforms focused on reducing the number of Vermonters without insurance, taking advantage of new federal initiatives through Medicaid and building on existing Vermont programs.

When Dean took office, Vermont already had a program, Dr. Dynasaur, that guaranteed state coverage to children under 6. What he did was build on it aggressively, to include all children up to the age of 18 and eventually, through waivers in the federal Medicaid program, to families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level ($55,200 for a family of four).

His much-touted program Success by Six, an effort to coordinate a variety of state services aimed at children, had actually started under his Republican predecessor, Richard Snelling. Dean built on the program and did everything he could to publicize it and its results - a nine-fold increase in well-baby visits and a 50 percent reduction in lead levels in the brains of children and in teen pregnancies.

Norman Wright, a former legislator who tangled with Dean as head of the Vermont Association of Hospitals, said the Vermont success was based on shifting costs to hospitals and doctors, a trend that he said would eventually prove unsustainable.

"In fairness to Howard, a lot of his programs were good," Wright said. "The problem was that one foot didn't quite follow the other. That put a lot of strain on the system and ultimately the costs got pretty high."

To supporters like Paul Harrington, a Republican legislator who served in Dean's administration, the results speak for themselves: federal surve ys that consistently rate Vermont first or second in the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries and among the best in broader health criteria, notwithstanding hospital reimbursement rates among the lowest in the country.

"It depends on how you measure success," said Harrington. "Was Vermont in the early 1990s, using a state's resources, able to provide universal insurance? No. But was it successful at picking up the pieces, and doing what it could? Absolutely."

A paler shade of green

On environmental policy, most of Dean's home-state criticism comes from the left.

Environmentalists say he compiled an admirable record on land conservation, protecting from development about 470,000 acres representing 8 percent of the state's total land, but that on issues of water quality, energy and sprawl, he tended to put business interests first.

"He exhibited leadership on the issue of land conservation and he did it quietly and effectively, in partnership with the legislature," said Mark Sinclair, Vermont director of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental advocacy group.

"I give him A+ for that," Sinclair said. "But that's largely the whole story on Howard Dean and the environment. He was a one-trick pony. On all the other issues, from water pollution to development and fighting sprawl, he was missing in action."

Shortly after taking office, Dean went along with utility demands to enter a long-term contract for power from Hydro Quebec, a deal that ended up saddling Vermonters with some of the highest utility rates in the country.

Dean backed a much-derided commuter rail for tiny Burlington, providing a 96 percent state subsidy that lasted until this year, when newly elected Republican Gov. Jim Douglas shut it down. But on other issues, Dean was as business-oriented as any Republican, promoting a highway bypass for Burlington, for example, and helping a Canadian company, Husky Injections Moldings Ltd., cut through state environmental regulations to build a factory on a greenfield site north of Burlington.

Frank Cioffi worked on the Husky project as Dean's director of industrial development. He defended the Husky deal as more than warranted, given the 400 jobs at stake, and said Dean's efforts on Husky were typical of an extraordinary drive to bring the state new business.

"He asked us for the names of 10 businesses each week, seven in-state and three potentials, and he would cold-call them all," Cioffi said. "He was an incredible salesman for Vermont."

Eye of the storm

On the two most controversial issues of his tenure, the 2000 law that gave legal recognition to same-sex civil unions and the 1997 law that equalized education spending throughout the state, Dean played a curiously passive role.

The common denominator was that in both instances, Dean was forced to act as the result of rulings by Vermont's liberal supreme court.

His handling of the civil-union bill was especially telling, in terms of Dean's governing style.

The state supreme court had tossed the issue into the Legislature's lap, with a ruling that said denying gay couples full legal rights was unconstitutional but that it was up to the Legislature to decide whether the appropriate response was to recognize gay marriage or an alternative.

Dean immediately held a news conference to call the court's ruling a "very elegant solution," and to say that while he opposed legal recognition of gay marriage, he would sign a bill on civil unions.

He was largely silent during the legislative debate that followed, however, and when the bill itself passed, in April 2000, Dean enraged many by signing it in private.

Those who criticize Dean's alleged passivity may understate the political risks he took to press the issue as much as he did.

"He signed it knowing that it could mean he would lose the election," said Kate O'Connor, a longtime aide. "We went into the 2000 election thinking he would probably lose."

The governor who had never seriously been challenged, who viewed himself as presidential timber, very nearly got tossed from office. In a three-candidate field, with a 50 percent vote required to keep the election from going to the Republican-controlled legislature, Dean's total was just 50.5 percent.

Just 1,508 fewer votes and his Vermont career would have been over.

Coming to terms

with Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart did eventually make it to Vermont, but largely on Vermont terms.

The first store it opened was in Bennington, in 1995, taking over an abandoned Woolworth's downtown and settling for a 50,000-square-foot space less than half the Wal-Mart norm.

The Arkansas chain also built a 70,000-square-foot store in downtown Rutland credited with helping to revive that city's core.

"Wal-Mart saved downtown Rutland; it saved the whole community," said Paul Bruhn, president of the Vermont Preservation Trust.

But in Burlington, Vermont's only real urban market, Dean did little to block Wal-Mart's plans. A classic big-box store opened in the suburb of Williston, prompting a rapid run of similar development and mocking Dean's talk of putting downtowns first.

John McClaughry, a Republican who ran against Dean in 1992 and who now heads the libertarian Ethan Allen Institute, says the deal Dean struck with Wal-Mart was supposed to entail a trade-off: permission to build the store in exchange for Wal-Mart's promise to build a smaller downtown store in the northeastern town of St. Johnsbury. The latter store never got built, McClaughry said, and Wal-Mart built a big-box store just across the New Hampshire line instead.

"Dean went down to Arkansas and gave Wal-Mart something for nothing," McClaughry says. "They stole his overalls."

The Williston strip has quickly become the region's major retail hub, Bruhn said. Downtown Burlington is doing better than most urban centers, he said, with its mix of specialty shops and restaurants, but with just a single department store, it hasn't matched the success of national leaders like Portland, Ore.

"There's no question but that downtown is better off for what Dean has done," Bruhn said. "But it continues to be challenged, by sprawl and development."

anyway, colin, that non-democrats (like, say, don) still think that Dean is "left" is actually evidence that there still IS a difference b/w the 2 parties.

http://rutlandherald.com/hdean/33681
http://rutlandherald.com/hdean/17751

There's gobs of stuff out there. I don't think Dean is a bad guy at all, but he ain't no left winger.

x-post: Tad, of course you know that more than a few Democrats (and I don't mean just Lieberman) hold the Dean is a Leftist" position.

are these two facts connected?

They have to make the Democrats come to them, rather than propping up whatever status-quo/electable candidate is out there.

Don't you think this already happened? The left did not vote for Gore, the dems lost, Howard Dean surged until Kerry started behaving like a loud angry partisan, and now every second word out of Kerry's mouth is "special interests".
There's probably a limit to how much short term leftward change can actually occur; after all, far more Americans define themselves as conservatives than as liberals. But the Democrats are trying their best to shore up the left this time.
OTOH, god knows waht Kerry would actually be like as Pres. Can't be any worse, though.

There are a few different reasons for this. For one thing, some of the candidates have dropped out: ie., Gephardt and Lieberman. Gephardt's campaign in particular was the source of a lot of the attacks on Dean at his peak. So there are fewer remaining candidates nipping at Kerry's heels now. For another thing, there is now a widespread perception that it was Gephardt and Dean's willingness to go negative that caused their slides in the polls. So the remaining candidates are taking pains to moderate their criticisms. This is especially true of Edwards, who has positioned himself as the most likely alternative to Kerry, and who has also maintained a steadfastly positive tone. The criticisms coming from Clark and Dean have also been relatively muted compared to the tone of the race a month ago. Therefore, I think that Kerry's relatively benign media coverage is a result of the dynamics of the race as it has unfolded and is not due to preferential treatment by the media per se.

back to the point -- the attacks on kerry will start, it's just a question of time. you'll know that it's hit fever-pitch when maureen dowd writes her BOTOX column.

Oh well Kerry's fine too, whatever, I wish the general election were today.

Dave Barry's line about the day every four years when Americans go to the polls to see who they have to decide between, then go outside and lie down in the snow to die to thread.

I'd like to see Kerry and Edwards stretch out the primary a bit though.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2095311/

There's also a sobering piece on TNR that suggests Kerry may have already peaked in the polls that match him up against Bush. And since he's barely breaking even at this point, Dems have reason to worry.

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=chait021104

In the end I decided to vote for Dean, mostly because I dont really like Kerry that much (even from the start) and momentum is no reason to vote for a candidate. I also like Dean's contribution to the party as a whole and his attempt to bring in the young people and other people who've felt out of the whole political process. We need candidates to shake it up every now and again ala Goldwater.

Terrism = any threat as perceived by GWB
Ter = ooo scarey scarey oooo

Dude, Blount, have you seen what we call a stream over here? There wouldn't be room in it for the one horse, never mind two.

I'm pretty sure Kerry can handle whatever Rove puts in Bush's mouth, unless it's his cock.

.. Not saying in any certain terms that Kerry or Edwards did this however..

i think if the gop think kerry's another stiff like dukakis, or mondale, or even gore they're gonna be surprised BUT i will say his 'acceptance' speech last night left me underwhelmed, he spent waaay too much of the early part of the speech being gracious to edwards and dean (which was nice but coulda been saved til the end when he thanked his family, campaign staff, the people of new zealand, god), by the time he got around to stumping i think alot of people who might've tuned in to see 'who is this guy?' had flipped the channel. and as i much as i like 'bring it on' in the sense of using bushco's cocknockery against them it isn't nearly as good a line as kerry thinks it is. to be honest, and maybe it's just the shrum but he came off kind of goreish, albeit without that jerry mathers tone.

remember in Lonesome Dove, when that rider got caught in the nest of cottonmouths? Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Ashcroft is the cottonmouths.

i like America just fine. I just find Bush's leaning on cowboy and baseball metaphors tiresome, as they ring false.

not that this is really acceptable, but hey, that's parliamentary democracy for you ;)

or just a beegees song...

I didn't know abt the Bee Gees. Also see Pixies "U-Mass" and Juliana Hatfield "Feelin Massachusetts."

Anything they recorded before 1975.

They're from Manchester.

"Abhorrent"? I suppose you never had someone take notes for you when you were in college, Don. As both Edwards and Kerry have pointed out, they did not miss a single vote in which their votes would have altered the outcome. Do you think sitting politicians should relinquish their seats before campaigning? Don't you think Bush may have slacked a bit on his governatorial duties when he was campaigning in 2000?

This is bloody brilliant.

didn't vote yesterday dude. no point in it, especially given my youngest was sick as a dog, and leaving the house wasn't an option.

I suppose you never had someone take notes for you when you were in college, Don

nothing personal, but I don't see that as comparable. And for the record, I don't think I ever had someone take notes for me. Maybe once in undergrad; if I blew off class, it was because I didn't feel the need there to bother taking notes.

As both Edwards and Kerry have pointed out, they did not miss a single vote in which their votes would have altered the outcome.

translation: this way, we can tailor our views depending on the outcome and thus, claim all sides of the fence if necessary.

Do you think sitting politicians should relinquish their seats before campaigning?

It would be nice, yes. That is, it would be ethical of them to relinquish their seats if they cannot perform the duties they were elected to carry out.

Don't you think Bush may have slacked a bit on his governatorial duties when he was campaigning in 2000?

He almost certainly slacks off his duties NOW as a result of campaigning. I don't know the terms of the Texas Legislature or when it meets, but I assume he probably slacked on stuff then. In fact, I don't know offhand, but I'm guessing if I Lexis-Nexised this issue, there was probably an article written about candidates who have done this before the BostonHerald came up with the idea. Flying into a NASCAR event the other weekend was an unethical, bad use of taxpayer's money as well.

don was Kerry aware of the vote-count for that Medicare vote? On big issues these guys are hyper-sensitive to who's in what column before the vote even happens. If the outcome was totally in doubt, even to senators themselves (and it sometimes is) I'll agree that Kerry's absence showed a striking disregard for his duties to both his state and his country. But otherwise this is a non-issue (except in retrospect, when people try to make political hay out of it).

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/opinion/03GIL.html

Is there any chance Edwards would be offered the VP slot? When was the last all Senate Dem ticket? Is that a factor (having two guys from within the beltway that is).

Is there any chance Edwards would refuse it, preferring to hang on until 2008?

Wouldn't be surprised if he did, as it would take time to raise funds all over again to campaign.

Watching the Edwards pullout yesterday made me wonder though: now the voting field is that much smaller: you've got:

1) Bush: the ineffectual blowhard looking to continue a mini-dynasty;

2) Kerry: The Vets' favorite, and current hope for new blood, but I'm still undecided;

3) Nader: Does he really want the job, or just the prestige?

4) Sharpton: When was the last Brother ever voted into office?

I'm relieved this election actually gives me a choice. At least, it isn't "Who's the lesser of two evils?" Maybe this will get feet at the ballots and off the couch to actually vote.

Isn't it traditional for the incumbent Prez & VP to remain? They wouldn't go though the primary process again. So if Edwards refuses, he's waiting until 2012 if Kerry loses reelection in 2008. He'll be waiting even longer if Kerry is reelected in 2008 since his VP will probably get the nomination in 2012.

The 22nd amendment limits one's service as President to 10 years, which arguably contemplates this precise possibility (perhaps it is more likely that it contemplates a Veep becoming Prez prior to serving two terms as Prez). If Clinton were VP and later took over as President, he could not do so for more than 2 years, clearly. But it doesn't seem to me that the ten-year limit bars him from serving as Veep before he has served the ten years. But a good response is made in the comments section at the end of that link - if Clinton did become Prez more than two years before the end of a Kerry term, the Constitution appears not to provide for his succession.

Other than trimming taxes (which will prolly increase again soon after he leaves office, anyway) what else has Bush done that has lasting positive effect?

The Bush tax cuts actually have long-term negative effects on the economy in the reputable economic models that I've seen (such as the IMF report). This is due to the long-term effects on interest rates of increasing the federal budget deficit.

right-wing wacko judges, though, that's another matter. at least pickering and pryor will be gone in a year if kerry's in the oval office.

This all assumes that Edwards thinks Kerry will win; if Edwards thinks he stands a chance, then he's got to go with him, as he'll be the best bet in 2012; if Edwards poll data says it's touch and go, then Edwards presumably has a choice to make - does he stay outside and come in on his own in 2008, or back Kerry and be VP.

http://matthewdefilippis.homestead.com/files/Ghegan_with_Bill_Clinton.jpg

"And I'm feeling heavy metal, my fellow Americans."

"Payback has to be a bitch," Stern quickly added. "I ask any fan of mine to vote George W. Bush out of office. That’s the payback. He suffers. He’s got to lose. He’s gotta go back home to his dad and say, ‘I’m a loser like you. I only served one term.’ That’s all I ask. Remember me when you go in the voting booth. There is going to be a lot of spin out there. They are going to try and make you forget what they said about me and what happened to your freedom."

If he is thrown off the air, Stern said, "I would support [John] Kerry." When Robin Quivers questioned the extent of his support, Stern said he would campaign and mount a movement for Kerry. "I will devote myself to it. Let me tell you this, I’ve done it before. I did it for Governor [George] Pataki, who I still think is a great guy and a great Governor. The guy was 20 points below in the polls up until three days before the election. I said to Governor Pataki, ‘My audience will get you in office. You will go up in the polls dramatically.’ Three days before the election. That’s when it counts, last minute, that’s when people do most of their thinking. And, sure enough, he’s now the Governor."

That said, fuck George Bush. Whatever it takes. Go Howard.

More Americans now view John Kerry unfavorably. Kerry’s favorability declined, from 37% favorable/28% unfavorable to 28% favorable/29% unfavorable, a net decrease of 10 points since the late February CBS News poll. 41% of voters have never heard of Kerry or have no opinion of him.

Interesting reading. You can see why the Republican party must be scared shitless of him being their nominee in this huge Senatorial race.

http://www.randomactofkindness.com/comments.php?id=675_0_1_0_C

While Bush beats Kerry on all the questions above, respondents think that Kerry will create jobs while Bush won't (53% v. 39%) and that Kerry is likely to preserve their social security benefits while Bush won't (63% to 47%).