Howard Dean for President

Howard Dean for President of the United States of America
Leadership • Integrity • Foresight • Common Sense
A Good Steward For a Better America

"Stop talking about what [Lee] is going to do, and let him worry about what we are going to do." attrib. Lt. Gen. U.S. Grant, 1864
"...he said he's running in 2012..." LA Mom, July 7th, 2004

Howard Dean is clearly the best presidential candidate in at least a generation. That is why I am supporting him, and why I encourage all my fellow citizens to do the same. Governor Dean has given me hope and inspiration the likes of which I have not felt since JFK was President. Although his 2004 campaign for the Presidency was not fully successful (like Ronald Reagan's campaigns of 1972 and 1976), Governor Dean continues with Democracy For America-- an extensive and highly organized campaign to return levelheaded, mainstream government to the United States at all levels. Please read the comments and browse the links below to inform yourself about Howard Dean, future President of the United States of America and leader of the movement to restore our Republic. --adb

Democracy For America:
Dean For America's successor organization.

The official Democracy For America weblog

Governor Dean's Syndicated Newspaper Column

Governor Dean in the News courtesy Yahoo News

Governor Dean's Address on the Future of the Democratic Party, December 8th, 2004:
Transcript and Real Player Audio; Real Player Video at CSPAN.

Some of the reasons Howard Dean will be President of the United States of America:

Howard Dean is a mainstream candidate; he enjoys support across the broad mainstream of U.S. political opinion, from Greens to Republicans, between and beyond. Many of his positions are consistent with those of traditional Conservatives and Libertarians. He doesn't fit into the simpleminded talking heads' classification of people into absolutely meaningless categories of "conservative" and "liberal"--just like most other Americans. [Confused about what "conservative" and "liberal" mean? Or whether (shudder!) you might be one? Then read Kurt Vonnegut's definition!] 8/27/2004: Gladstone and Ambrose Bierce get equal time!

Howard Dean is not an ideologue; he bases his positions on the facts, and when the facts change he adjusts to the changes.

Howard Dean is not a weathervane; he does not have to take a poll, convene a focus group, or consult with political hacks to find out what his convictions are today, or to act upon them.

Howard Dean is a long proven balanced budget fiscal conservative; he knows that without a balanced budget and an adequate reserve, government will not be able to provide the services citizens not only desire, not only deserve, but need. When Howard Dean succeeded to the Governorship of Vermont, he inherited a serious budget deficit. (Vermont is one of only two states that does not have a constitutional balanced budget requirement.) Governor Dean submitted and achieved eleven successive balanced budgets, paid down a large portion of the state debt, and accumulated a sizable reserve fund. At the same time, he lowered taxes, encouraged business, protected the environment, and brought medical insurance to virtually everyone in the state. As a result of his fiscal conservatism, Vermont is the only state that has not had to increase taxes or reduce public services during the current recession. Is it any wonder that he was the longest-serving governor in the history of the United States, returned to office five times?

Howard Dean is restoring participatory democracy; his 2004 campaign was the first true grassroots campaign in generations. Other candidates tout their "grassroots" campaigns, which are top-down, centrally controlled organizations of "little people" following orders and big donors expecting access. Of course the Dean campaign had a headquarters, paid staffers, and everything else necessary; but its hallmark was its huge network of self-organizing, self-actuating, autonomous support groups and individuals, continually made to feel welcome, to feel trusted, and to feel that their opinions are listened to. People turned out by the hundreds and the thousands and more during the primary campaign not just to hear Howard Dean speak, but to go door to door for him in their own and other states, to distribute flyers, to write letters to voters, all without pay. When Governor Dean's 2004 campaign for the presidency was suspended, the campaign organization was quickly transformed into a nationwide support system for candidates sharing similar positions--as well as a system for bringing forth such candidates where there were none before, from the most modest political positions to the greatest. Why is Howard Dean able to attract such support? What is it in the character of the nation that he has awakened? Garance Franke-Ruta in

The American Prospect

who seems best to have pinpointed it: an incredibly deep-seated and very American religious appeal. Are we seeing the beginnings of a political Great Awakening? Is Everett Ehrlich correct to think that the Dean campaign is the start of another fundamental change in the political party system of the United States? Stay tuned. In the meantime, check out The Blog Family for a small sample of people attracted to the Dean campaign.

Howard Dean is a foreign policy traditionalist. He is committed to restoring and carrying on the basic internationalist foreign policy of the half century preceding George W. Bush's administration. He knows we need allies and consensus, and that the United States' greatest power is as a moral force in the world.

Howard Dean knows how to bring about universal health coverage, and is commited to doing so. Both as practicing physician and as governor, Howard Dean has shown he knows how to get the job done. His solutions are practical; they would not pass any test of ideological purity, but they work. If Vermont, which is almost exactly average in per capita income, can achieve nearly 100% health care coverage, so can the entire United States.

The National Institute of Medicine estimates that lack of medical insurance costs the United States as much as 135 billion dollars and 18,000 lives every year, and often makes important medical services unavailable to all, even those who do have insurance. For an analysis of the crushing burden of health costs on businesses and how the money could be better spent, click here

Howard Dean and "wedge" issues. Shallow propagandists who show their contempt for the voters by practicing the politics of division will have rocky soil to plow with Howard Dean. With regard to the Iraq war, when people ranging from Senator Edward Kennedy and Senator Robert Byrd to former President George H.W. Bush and Pat Buchanan as well as Army War College professors are all in broad agreement with Howard Dean, it is pretty hard to paint him as outside the mainstream on that issue. With respect to civil rights for gays, Howard Dean's position is indistinguishable from that of Vice President Dick Cheney and in accordance with the expressed opinions of voters. On race relations, Howard Dean has what is arguably the best, and best articulated, position of a major party candidate in recent times--and it's for real. Read his September 14th, 2003 statement by clicking here, the lead article in the December 11th, 2003 issue of The Black Commentator, and the statement of Congressman Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. Governor Dean's position on gun control--close the gun show sales loophole and leave further regulation to the states--is a rational middle ground that very simply takes the issue off the table.

Pledge to Dean for President 2008 Campaign!

A Miscellany of Links

Please Note: There are many more links on the previous versions of this web page; some of them are of more than topical interest, but some links no longer work. A selection, plus new ones, follows.
Elections, Polls, Candidate Handicapping

News and commentary; sources I find myself going back to more or less regularly. I tend to prefer something more than the standard wire service pablum.

Just a few miscellaneous links you might or might not find interesting:

  • Nobody for President! Nobody knows; Nobody cares!
  • We Are Coming, Father Abraham Notes, words, and MIDI file. Now if only someone could write an updated parody substituting Howard Dean for Abraham Lincoln, Democracy for America would have a perfect song...
  • Fer all o' you bleedin' heart, tree-huggin' coffee addicts who are too cheap or otherwise indisposed to patronize high priced coffee house chains that serve you in a styrofoam cup, here are a couple of places to get fair trade, organic, shade-grown (bird friendly) coffee for a good price:
  • Specimen Days by Walt Whitman; read particularly his accounts of the Civil War, visits to the front and to the hospitals; think about the war wounded of the present day. The footnote to page 735 is worth quoting in its entirety here, in order to restore some realism to our popularized pseudohistory of the war:
    MR. GARFIELD (In the House of Representatives, April 15, '79.) "Do gentlemen know that (leaving out all the border States) there were fifty regiments and seven companies of white men in our army fighting for the Union from the States that went into rebellion? Do they know that from the single State of Kentucky more Union soldiers fought under our flag than Napoleon took into the battle of Waterloo? More than Wellington took with all the allied armies against Napoleon? Do they remember that 186,000 color'd men fought under our flag against the rebellion and for the Union, and that of that number 90,000 were from the States which went into rebellion?"
    The Real War Will Never Get In The Books is as true today as then.

  • Industrial Workers of the World, and while you are at it, check out Hoosier Slim's Wobbly Page. In the time and place where I grew up the IWW was remembered, and not with antipathy. They never went away; 2005 marks the centenary of the IWW.

Site last updated 14th December 2004
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