Is that he is doing to the democratic party, what Bush is doing to
the nations he has attracted a bunch of new young people to the party, who listen to everything he says as if it is gospel truth, because of "fire in the belly" he appeals to their "anger about the system" or other such excuses, out of utter naivity, for the mmost part about the nature of politics.
And rule 1 in this is that politicians, especially those who are not Washington Insiders, will lie to you whenever they want to get elected. Since Dean is telling them what they want to hear about the corruption in the existing system, they beleive that somehow Dean is going to correct that, when Deans record as governor is fairly good proof of the fact that Dean is no differnt from any of the politics as usual crowd that he is attacking. Dean has taken money from large corporations and done their bidding as other politicians have, and this sort of politics is far more prevelent at smaller government levels than it is at the national level, where the media is a bit more cautious at scrutinizing the activities of Congress.
One Key fact is that as Governor, more money came to his campign fund from corporate sources outside of Vermont, than it did from private individuals inside Vermont and Corporate interests that were wholly own Vermont Corporations. Dean got 65 percent of all of his campaighn finance from outside of his state, and many of his decisions about brining corporations into Vermont or allowing those that were in Vermont to greatly expand their activities.
To point, when it is even proven that Dean allowed corporations as like Enron, to use his state as a tax haven, his supporters tend to jump to the defense of Enron. That is a serious problem.
A WSJ/NBC poll showed that the day before the capture of Saddam Hussein, the democratic Frontrunner, Dean, if asked the question "if the election was held today, who would you vote for, Dean recieved 39 percent to Bush's 50 percent. They decided to do the poll against as soon as the news that Saddam had been captured, and initially, while while thew polls showed little increase in support of Bush, only increasing from 50 to 52 percent, the capture of Saddam was seen to have had a more drastic effect on support for Dean who droppoed from 39 percent to 31 percent in a matter of hours between these polls. Later in the day, Dean remanined stagnant at 31 percent, while Bush's support rose to 58 percent only a few hours later.
One of the key indications of the fact that no matter what, Dean will not beat Bush is that in earlier polls, when other candidates were either frontrunners or closer to being frontrunners, these Democrats showed in polls to be far closer to beating Bush in polls than Dean has ever reached. In September October, Kerry was seen to come within anc eight point margin of Bush, in a poll that had a nine point margin of error. Other Polls placed Kerry or Clark withing close striking range of beating Bush.
AS Dean has become the front runner, Dean has become the candidates said to be most able to beat Bush, but the margin is drastic, with Dean always staying below the 40 percent mark when compared to Bush who has except for a few occasions always remained in the 50 percent area or above. Clear sign that the Democrats frontrunner is someone who has a smaller chance of beating Bush.
Dean has diovided the party as much as Bush has divided the country, and most of Dean support comes from new people who may be fired up, but have little or no awareness of the political proccess and have based their love of Dean on the issue of his personality, and that he says thiungs they like to hear. The very worse and mosty dangerous way to select a candidate. Deans record as Governor contains little to recommend him as a democratic, progressive, liberal, or even moderate candidate. Most of his fiscal policy and decisions come striaght out of the Republican/Conservative parties economic policy handbbooks, which is why the Libertarian/Conservative Cato Institute gave him the highest marks any Democrat ever recieved from this Neo-Con think tank. Until 1998, when the Vermont Supreme Court forced Dean to pass a progressive, two tiered property tax that Dean himself did not support. The traidional flat propoerty tax was the one Dean supported, but the Vermont Supreme Court declared that unconstitutional under the Vermont Constitution.
While Dean passed both Civil Unions and this Progressive Property Tax, Dean did so under co-ersion, and there is no history of this Governor ever actively supporting any liberal, or progressive platform, whetther fiscal or social. Ever. He has always stuck to the typical democratic party stump speeches about civil rights for all citizens, and womens rights, and right to choose, but as governor, he was rather inactive about putting talk into action, His support wasalways from the sidelines and he never took an active role in leading other elected officials by demanding legisltion that would correct inequities. rather Dean was usually quite active in opposing legislation of a progressive nature , socially, when he had the opportunity to support it.
Dean oppposed legislation that would allow the use of methadone treatment in the state. For years he refused, until the protests outside of his office grew to such great proportion that Dean eventually relented and allowed clinics to exist in the state.
same thing with Medical Marijuana, which had more popularity than the methadone laws. but this occured late in Dean tenure, so pressure never resulted in his relenting.
Again protests against his cuts to programs to assist the elderly were called small by Dean, but 300 people in a state with 600,000 people is just as large in that state, as the million or so protestors who protested against war with Iraq last march were as a comparative part of the American Population of 280 million.
Deans statement that there far larger interest groups that two hundre people protesting:
Seniors and advocates for the poor rallied to oppose the cuts, and
Vermont Legal Aid filed suit against the Dean administration. Dean
relented on $963,000 of the cuts in November.
Headline: "Hundreds Turn Out to Protest State Cuts In Medicaid
Program"
"A grassroots coalition of elderly and disabled Vermonters is
turning up the volume in its battle with Gov. Howard Dean over his
plan to cut $1.2 million in Medicaid benefits... nearly 300 people
packed a gymnasium at the State Office Complex to oppose the cuts."
"Michael Sirotkin, a lobbyist who has represented the interests of
the Coalition of Vermont Elders for 12 years...
'I have never
seen, in the history of the Vermont Legislature for as long as I
have been there, a more horrific cut than the one that is being
proposed today."
Howard Dean on those protesting his cuts: "There are interest groups
that are far larger than 200 people. These people were put on a bus
by the advocates."
Are exactly of the same nature as Bush's calling the million American protesters in the U.S. against the Iraq War "A FOCUS GROUP"
The millions who did protest represented a far larger group in both cases than merely those who showed up to protest.
Dean himself divided the Democratic Party as Governor of Vermont:
"Certainly the Democratic caucus was never 100 percent behind him and where there were differences, it was around how progressive or how moderate he was," Chard said.
Rivers blames Dean for helping a third political party to flourish in Vermont that many say siphons votes from Democrats. "The Progressive Party gained some momentum during his years as governor because he was so conservative," Rivers said, although she said she still may support Dean for president
http://premium1.fosters.com/2003/news/may_03/may_19/news/reg_vt0519a.asp
In fact Dean so divided the Democratic Party so much in Vermont that the Vermont Progressive Party is the single most powerful third party in the state, and half of the elected third party state legislators in the United States are in Vermont, representing the Progressive Party.
This is happening again at the national level. Dean is dividing those who have been involved in politic for years, and have a carefully studied opinion of the disconnect between Dean's record as Governor, and Dean statements about what he will do as president.
Those of us who have ben around politics for a long time know full well that candidates will say many things they have no intention of following though on if elected. Dena has a very, very, long record of doing exactly that, but is is less visible than the records of other the other candidates who are regularly goven percentage ratings by conservative and liberal thhink tanks.
Those of us who cherish liberal and progressive politics are ever more taking the point that5 it may be better to lose a battle in 2004, to keep the contagion of fiscal conservatism out of our party, use the years between 2004 and 2008 to purge the party of all conservative elements, and come back with a real progressive plan in the war against conservatism and republicans in 2008, and be able to win the war, at the cost of losing this battle.
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