Dr. Dean, medicine woman – Salon profile of Dr. Judith Steinberg Dean

[pruner]

Dec. 8, 2003  | It's December 2003. Do you know who the wife of your 2004 Democratic presidential front-runner is?

Dr. Judith Steinberg Dean, M.D., the Vermont internist married to the state's former governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean, has been MIA on her husband's campaign trail, and is bold in her assertion that she will remain almost as absent from his presidency and instead keep up her full-time medical practice.

The quicksilver Dean campaign has already turned water into wine by making his just-folks country doctor act into the hip campaign with momentum. That fizzy, effortless Howard Dean magic may be at work on his wife as well, transforming the abstemious Judith Steinberg -- aka Judy Dean -- into the perfect foil for a new presidential millennium. An unlikely mating of rural career girl, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and Donna Reed, Dr. Steinberg could be the anti-Hillary, anti-Laura first lady that Americans have been waiting for: a cipher onto which every woman -- whether she has a high-powered career or is a stay-at-home mom -- can project herself. A woman who, like the rest of her husband's campaign, is almost too good to be true.

The official Dean For America Web site describes the candidate's wife as "the second most important person in the campaign ... insight, advice, and honest feedback that only a life-partner can provide," just after noting that "because of her responsibilities to her patients her time on the campaign trail is limited."

…

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/12/08/judy_dean/?ref=http://www.salon.com/src/ads/powells/salon4.html

[DrFunkenstein]

1. She Seems To Be A Real Class Act

I am secretly, yet madly in love with Teresa Heinz, but Dean's wife seems to be a really cool lady. She really seems to have gone into medicine out of concern for people's well-being. She could easily give up her practice and live a cozy life, but she keeps on trucking!

[caledesi]

2. From everything I have read about Judy, I really like the person

that she is. She seems very comfortable with who she is and the fact that she is apolitical, hits home bec I was apolitical for most of my life.

Housecalls? The woman is way too cool.

[janx]

3. Same here. And I might retreat again after this election.

I read the rest of the article and am very impressed!

I remember receiving the her campaign letter, too. It was sheer CLASS.