Populist Reform of the Democratic Party

merrily

(45,251 posts) Sun Aug 2, 2015, 06:53 AM Aug 2015

Howard Dean: Before the Scream

Last edited Sun Aug 2, 2015, 07:26 AM - Edit history (1)

So far, I've written some in this group about Bubba's earlier years and Huey Long's.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12779706 (Long)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12779385 (Bubba)

Howard Dean is yet another Democrat with whose earlier life I was not very familiar and about which I had a very mistaken impression.

Dean was born in East Hampton, where Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was raised, and where President Clinton and First Lady (now Secretary) Hillary enjoyed a couple of vacations while he was in office and where Sean Combs started his much-imitated white parties.

Of all the towns out east, East Hampton is the one of most desirable zip codes among the monied set. The town, around 105 miles from Midtown Manhattan, is home to celebrities and business tycoons alike......Find out whom Jerry Seinfeld counts among his neighbors, and which celebrity opted for an estate on the northern shore of the South Fork.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/star-map-east-hampton-2011-8?op=1#ixzz3heWKZWpo

The family belonged to the country club and also had a three bedroom pied a terre in the city--in Manhattan's Upper East Side on--wait for it--Park Avenue.

Dean attended prep schools and then a "frat boy" at Yale University. His wiki is full of references to his friends and enemies alike trying to minimize and dismiss this golden spoon in the mouth and Republican background, with friends saying he wasn't as rich as they were and Peggy Noonan saying he wasn't a typical WASP. Hello?

During the Vietnam War, Dean had a draft deferment because of an unfused vertebra. He worked as a stockbroker for a time, then decided to go to medical school, taking the pre-med courses he needed at Columbia University in NYC. Then came two life changing events: his brother's disappearance and meeting his future wife.

In 1974, Dean's younger brother Charlie, who had been traveling through southeast Asia at the time, was captured and killed by Laotian guerrillas, a tragedy widely reported to have an enormous influence in Dean's life; he wore his brother's belt every day of his presidential campaign.....

Dean received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in 1978 and began a medical residency at the University of Vermont. In 1981, he married fellow doctor Judith Steinberg, whom he met in medical school, and together they began a family medical practice in Shelburne, Vermont (where she continued to use her maiden name to avoid confusion).[22]....

Though he was raised an Episcopalian, Dean joined the Congregational church in 1982 after a negotiation with the local Episcopal diocese over a bike trail.[23] By his own account, he does not attend church "very often"; at one point, when asked to name his favorite book in the New Testament, he offered the Old Testament Book of Job, then corrected himself an hour later.[24] Dean has stated he is more "spiritual" than religious.[23] He and his wife have raised their two children, Anne and Paul, in Judaism.[25]

During his early years in Vermont, Dean opposed a condo development on Lake Champlain and fought instead for a bike trail, something that can be viewed as either indulgent or populist. (Think the criticism Senator Kennedy got for resisting wind farms around his favorite sailing waters.)

The success of the bike path campaign launched Dean's political career. He volunteered for Jimmy Carter's losing re-election campaign. In 1982, Dean ran for the Vermont House of Representatives, and won.

Dean remained in the Vermont House until being elected lieutenant governor in 1986, 1988 and 1990. Because those were part-time positions, Dean was able to continue practicing medicine. In 1991, the Governor, Richard A. Snelling died, making Lt. Governor Dean the Governor of Vermont.

After that, Dean ran for and won five two year terms as Governor. Only Thomas Chittenden has served longer as Governor of Vermont. (1778–1789 and 1790–1791). From 1994 to 1995, Dean was also chair of the National Governors Association.

Dean was faced with an economic recession and a $60 million budget deficit. He bucked many in his own party to immediately push for a balanced budget, an act which marked the beginning of a record of fiscal restraint. During his tenure as governor, the state paid off much of its debt, balanced its budget eleven times, raised its bond rating, and lowered income taxes twice.[27]

Dean also focused on health care issues, most notably through the "Dr. Dynasaur" program, which ensures near-universal health coverage for children and pregnant women in the state; the uninsured rate in Vermont fell from 10.8 percent in 1993 to 8.4 percent in 2000 under his watch.[28] Child abuse and teen pregnancy rates were cut roughly in half.[29]

By far the most controversial decision of his career, and the first to draw serious national attention, came in 2000, when the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the state's marriage laws unconstitutionally excluded same-sex couples and ordered that the state legislature either allow gays and lesbians to marry or create a parallel status. Facing calls to amend the state constitution to prohibit either option, Dean chose to support the latter one, and signed the nation's first civil unions legislation into law, spurring a short-lived "Take Back Vermont" movement which helped Republicans gain control of the State House.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dean

Vermonters considered him a moderate.

In 2003, Dean began running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, against Senators Joe Lieberman, who had to drop out early on, John Kerry, and about ten others. In March 2003, Dean gave a speech critical of Democrats, beginning with the line, "What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?" By Autumn, 2003, he was the apparent frontrunner, despite criticism from the Party's left wing that he was a "Rockefeller Republican"—socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. (The more things change, the more they remain the same?)

In January 2004, however, Dean's placing third in the Iowa caucus led to "the Dean scream" while he was firing up his supporters. Even I know what happened after that.