Doctor Dean's wrong prescription for America
Bennington, Vermont Ñ National political pundits have now discovered former Vermont governor Howard Dean as a serious contender for the Democratic nomination for President in 2004. After his blockbuster fundraising in the past quarter, heÕs no longer the long shot candidate. Actually when Dean began his quest for the White House in earnest more than three years ago, I had that ÒfeelingÓ he would quickly go beyond the pleasant confines of the Green Mountains to higher things for many of the same reasons Bill Clinton did.
Howard Dean, like Bill Clinton, profits from the under the radar political near-invisibility of coming from a small state out of the glare of the national press but rather remains the magnified product of an often fawning state capital press corps.
On many economic issues and fiscal policy, Dean, much like Clinton, can quite convincingly appear as a conservative (small c) and then morph into his more traditional left wing agenda of higher taxes and fuzzy incoherent views on national security.
Dean will say, ÒWell IÕve been endorsed by the NRA, Vermont probably has the high per-capita gun ownership and the fewest gun laws in the nation, and the lowest crime rate in the country.Õ And heÕs right, but through little involvement of himself.
For any Vermont politician, Second Amendment issues remain the third rail of politics Ñ you don't tamper with it. Less obvious will be his education legacy which nearly doubled school spending in a decade after the draconian State takeover of school funding from the local districts. That policy, Act 60, triggered a divisive political debate the financial fallout of which continues to plague Vermonters to this day.
Doctor DeanÕs multifaceted prescriptions for health care saw the state share of Medicaid spending jump from $87 million to $263 million. The prestigious public policy Ethan Allen Institute advises, ÒHereÕs the bottom line on the Dean era: eleven years of dramatic expansion of government health care. The near destruction of the individual and small group health insurance market, and a higher fraction of Vermonters without health insurance today than in 1992.Ó
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Dean is now running to the left and but will then trim his sails to the center as the nomination process approaches. His real advantages rest in the smaller and early on primaries (Iowa and New Hampshire) where he can win and let the media then create the perception of unstoppable political momentum. ThatÕs If he can keep the Big Mo going.
Dean is oft derided with the McGovern deja vu Ñ namely the Democrats ill-fated 1972 nomination of liberal Senator George McGovern to run for the President against Richard Nixon. This may be a flippant analogy, but the American electorate Ñ thirty years after that election, is more far more liberal socially and politically and apt to accept Dr. DeanÕs sugar coated political prescriptions.
The scion of a wealthy Park Avenue investment banking family, Howard Brush Dean III
only moved to Vermont after his University days at Yale and a study stint in England. Later the physician turned politician served as Governor emerging as an articulate partisan of the New Democrats and the Clinton Era.
In his days in State politics Ñ a ÒmoderateÓ often only in terms of what was to his left flank, (socialist Bernie Sanders in Congress and a gaggle of Progressive Party activists in Burlington ) DeanÕs ideology was often described as Òcentrist.Ó Or perhaps more aptly Òwhatever it takes to get elected.Ó DonÕt underestimate his grassroots campaign to ÒTake America Back.Ó
Dr. DeanÕs fundraising acumen in Manhattan and California reflect his traditional liberal constituency and his thumping populist rhetoric which scares the Democratic Party insiders as much as the Bush Camp. Equally thereÕs a rarely appreciated factÑmany media producers and editors have Vermont second homes and thus have a natural affinity when covering this air brushed Òpolitical outsider.Ó
Naturally DeanÕs strident opposition to the Iraq operation, his almost theological opposition to tax cuts, and his high comfort level for bigger government on all levels, makes the good doctor the darling of the Democratic PartyÕs left wing. Yet, his genuine ability to re-package himself as a political moderate may put him in the serious running.
Nonetheless, Doctor Dean has the wrong prescription for America.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
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