By LYNN OKAMOTO and JONATHAN ROOS
Register Staff Writers
10/23/2003
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A television commercial by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean - the first to criticize fellow Democrats running for president - sparked heated rhetoric Wednesday between Dean and two competitors.
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U.S. Sen. John Kerry's campaign charged that Dean had gone negative.
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Dean's ad follows criticism by Kerry and Gephardt that Dean supported cuts to Medicare, the federal health-care program for the elderly, in the 1990s.
Dean has acknowledged that as chairman of the National Governors Association in 1995, he backed restricting the growth in spending on Medicare to keep the program solvent.
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