And Dean and the Progressives at the state level, are strikingly similar.
The Greens gained much moomentum as a result of reaction to the New Democrat, centrists moving too far to the right for Liberal Democrats, making too many ocncessions to the right, while the Vermont Progressive Party picked up a great deal of support in Vermont as a result liberal democrats considering Dean to be too conservative, in fact farther to the right of the Clinton's New Democrats.
This is why I belive it is likely that many more Democrats will not vote for Dean, than turned to the Greens in 2000.
Dean split the Democratic and Progressive party to such a degree in Vermont, that Republicans now have a firmer grip on the state and are likely to retain it. By 2000, about ten percent of the Democratic Party's membership left to join the Progressives. By 2002, that number reached 25 percent.
Dean's influence on the Democratic is proving highlt divisive.
In 2000, Anthony Pollina ran against Dean and Ruth Dwyer, picking up ten percent of the vote for Governor that year, and all of the loss came from Democrats who decided not to support Dean. Dean had support from Republicans during his tenure as governor, but thisrmained relatively static. It was losses to the Progressive Party that cost Dean 20 percent of the support he had from Democrats in his earlier election campaigns. For the first 3 elections Dean recieved about 60 percent of the vote, but in 2000 Dean barely squeaked by with 50.5 percent of the vote. Up until the last week or two of Denas last run for Governor, all political analysts, and the Dean camppaign itself feared that Dean was not going to win that election by thr required 50 percent, and that the election would be decided by secret vote of the Vermont Legislature. In 2002, when Anthony Pollina ran for Lt Governor, he took 25 percent of the vote.
Dubie wins race for lt. governor
Shumlin concedes hotly contested three-way battle
By Brent Hallenbeck
Republican Brian Dubie claimed victory in a heated three-way race for lieutenant governor early this morning.
Democrat Peter Shumlin conceded victory to Dubie at about 12:20 a.m. Dubie claimed victory about 10 minutes later.
Dubie had 41 percent of the vote with 94 percent of precincts shortly before 2 a.m. Democrat Peter Shumlin was second with 32 percent, while Progressive Anthony Pollina had 25 percent. The trio vied for the state’s No. 2 job vacated by Democrat Doug Racine, who ran for governor.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/specialnews/election02/Hallenbeck6.htmWhat happened in this race was a Republican win, because the Democrat and Progressive vote was split with Progressives now accouting for almost 40 percent of the members of liberal/democratic type political ideals.
Liberal politic has lost big time as a result of Deans furtther moving the party to the right, with his ideas of fiscal conservatism, as opposed to the centrist ideas of fiscal responsibility based on progressive economic policies. Add up the Demcratic and Progressive Votes In Vermont in the campaign for Lt Governor, and these two policies based on liberal ideas, actually took 57 percent of the vote.
But the Republican took office with 41 percent of the vote.
Liberal Democratic Party Leaders attribute the growth of the Progressive Party In Vermont, to losses from the Democratic Party, and this is is by and large blamed on Dean;s conservatism, and his alliances with conservatives while he was Governor.
Those who know Dean say he’s no classic liberal
By ROSS SNEYD
Associated Press Writer
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Howard Dean may be many things, say those who worked with him over nearly a dozen years as Vermont governor, but an elitist liberal is hardly one of them.
He’s actually a lot more moderate — many would say conservative — than the reputation he’s built during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination...
"He seemed to take glee in attacking us at every opportunity and using us as a way to form alliances with more conservative elements," said former state Sen. Cheryl Rivers, a leader of the state Democrats’ liberal wing and former chairwoman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee...
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.aspLargely silent, as the primary season heats up, has been Vermont's Progressive Party, formed in the mid-1990s at least partly in response to Dean's influence on the Democratic Party. A spokesman at the Montpelier office said that the party has not endorsed a Democratic candidate and would not comment on the record about Dean.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A17514-2003Nov27¬Found=trueFrom the start, Dean navigated a triangular course between the two parties, clashing often with the Democrats over taxes and spending -- and helping to drive many liberal-left Democrats into the arms of the Progressive Party and of Representative Bernie Sanders, Congress's lone socialist. Inheriting a fiscal crisis from Snelling, Dean slashed the budget and dramatically reduced taxes. During the 1990s, Dean repeatedly unsheathed his veto pen, and he often allied with a growing contingent of conservative Blue Dog Democrats and Republicans to outmaneuver the Democratic leadership on issues such as taxes.
In his fiscal conservatism, Dean has been guided for more than a decade by a behind-the-scenes kingmaker named Harlan Sylvester, a senior executive at Salomon Smith Barney in Burlington who chairs Dean's council of economic advisers. Sylvester praises Dean for forcing through a dramatic tax cut during his first year in office, over the objections of "the left of the party
wanted to soak the wealthy," Sylvester explains, leaning back in his chair in an expansive office just off Lake Champlain. "One-quarter of 1 percent of Vermonters pay 16 percent of state income taxes," he says. "That's 829 people, and a lot of them are clients of mine. Four of them moved out of state rather than pay Vermont taxes."
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/13/dreyfuss-r.html
Again, I beleive that Dean's candidacy will produce a far wider split between Democrats, as his political platform isself is furtther to the right of the centrist compomises that brought Bill Clinton into the White House. Clinton's Centrist politics split off about five percent of those people who would have once found their natural allies in the Democratic Party. Dean's platform and ideological bent brought a small, liberal third party, almost totally based on the political career of one man, Bernie Sanders, a party which was not expected to recieve more than three percent when its candidate ran against Dean in 2000, to a party who's candidate for Lt Governor of Vermont was able to recive 25 percent of the vote of the entire electorate, and more than 40 percent of voters who would once have likely voted Democrat.
This, to me is an indication that Dean has had far greater an adverse effect on the Democratic Party, and If Nader decides to run, it is Very likely that the Greens will take a far greater percentage of the vote than they did in 2000. It is not out of the question that the Greens could make a showing, as good or better than Perot did in 1992, doing to Democrats, what Perot did to Republicans.
Dean seems to be very much the divider, not the uniter, and his campaign, if nominated, could do to Democratic Politics, what he did in Vermont. From the look of it, Vermont will likely remain firmly in Republican hands for decades to come, as Deans conservatism is such that many liberal democrats and progressives simply are not likly to vote for him, and his particular brand of fiscal discipline.
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