And there are people, "Progressives" who also doubt have expressed such doubts:
Howard Dean: the Progressive Anti-War Candidate?
Some Vermonters Give Their Views
By DONNA BISTER, MARC ESTRIN
and RON JACOBS
I know that a lot of you are going to vote for Dean -- he talks a good game; he can be charismatic and charming. But I'm warning you. This man will tell you what you want to hear, or at least tell you something that has some little kernel of something that you can interpret as support for the things that are important to you. But when the time comes to stand up and lead on the issue, to take on the money interests and backsliders in his own party, that stiff little spine will turn into a slinky.
If you vote for him, it's your job to stand behind him with a poker and keep him headed in the right direction. Don't give him any honeymoon period, either--keep the pressure on from the second you drop that ballot in the box. The minute you relax, he's going to turn right back into what he really is...a privileged, arrogant, middle of the road republican. Put your political energy into getting some truly progressive folks into the House and Senate, and into State legislatures around the country so that there will be more pressure from more directions. We need to get together our sophisticated progressive thinkers to develop policy ideas in every area, so that we're ready with real, well-thought out counter-proposals for the incremental changes a Dean administration might put forth. If you feel you must, support Dean, do--but then go do the work necessary to make real change.
http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs08292003.htmlVermont Governors of the Modern Era, Subjective Rating and Evaluation;
Brief Comments on Their Respective Contributions
by Michael J. Badamo*Howard Dean:
Howard Dean is clearly the runt of this litter. Dean is shallow, glib, mean spirited and overly ambitious yet Vermonters continue to reward him with term after term. On issues that matter, Dean is regressive and responsive only to the needs of elite vested interests. Taking his lead from the new generation of grossly hypocritical, Bill Clinton type Democrats, Dean mouths the ancient words of Democratic Party idealism but then repudiates labor and the poor confidant that they have no where else to go. Big money motivates Howard Dean, a spoiled brat rich kid from Long Island who always gets his own way.
Dean has never had serious opposition in any election campaign. He slid into the Lieutenant Governor's office and took over the top job when Snelling died. He has won easily since because Republicans like to vote for him while their own Party candidates have been either little known or hopelessly right wing.
Of our six modern governors over the last thirty five years, Deane Davis gets my vote for number one, definitely a good guy. I'll rank Phil Hoff a not too shabby number two because Vermont really needed a good kick in the ass. From there, they go down fast. Dick Snelling gets a grudging number three because he represented stability and administrative competence. We'll give Madeline Kunin number four simply because she was less of a snake oil salesman than Tom Salmon, our choice for number five. Howard Dean, of course, is the worst in modern memory.
http://www.sover.net/~auc/6govs.htmThose who know Dean say he’s no classic liberal
By ROSS SNEYD...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...
http://premium1.fosters.com/2003/news/may_03/may_19/news/reg_vt0519a.aspCriticism from the Left
If Republican criticism is somewhat muted, Dean has his share of critics on the left. Vermont, it must be noted is the home of Bernie Sanders, the socialist former Mayor of Burlington, who has served as the state's lone congressman since January 1991. Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader achieved his second best showing in the 2000 campaign in Vermont, 6.9 percent (Alaska was 10.1 percent). That same year Anthony Pollina, the Progressive candidate for governor, garnered 9.5 percent of the vote. In short, the left is a significant force in Vermont politics.
Pollina, now running for lieutenant governor, criticizes Dean for not putting enough money into the state colleges. "The fact is that over the last decade we have consciously underfunded or refused to fund our state colleges adequately," he says. Pollina also offers a detailed critique of Dean's approach to doing health care through expanded Medicaid, stating, "I feel like we're kind of moving blindly toward some kind of what he would call universal coverage." "There's no plan; there's no cost containment. Providers are not adequately reimbursed and it becomes a sort of a political hot potato for the legislature every year or two," Pollina says.
Progressives also find much to fault in Dean's record on agriculture. Lee Light, who with husband Bob runs the Hollister Hill Farm in the Marshfield area, states, "He's been governor for 11 years and we've lost a lot of farms, and we've also been a state that hasn't fought against the bovine growth hormone factory farms... He has a commissioner of agriculture that hasn't bucked that trend toward bigger agriculture. The Agriculture Department he never fully funds; he's always cutting the budget." Likewise Rep. David Zuckerman, leader of the four Progressives in the House and an organic vegetable farmer, states, "He's done almost nothing for agriculture." Zuckerman says that slaughterhouses have been closing, and there has been very little money to help them upgrade; that transition money is needed to help farms convert to organic; that there is a need for an organic dairy bottling plant; and that Vermont should be kept free of genetically modified organisms.
Dean has butted heads with the Conservation Law Foundation, which pursues a litigious approach to environmental issues. Sandra Levine, staff attorney for the organization concedes, "I think he's done a good job in the area of farmland protection..." However Levine adds, "He's fallen behind in terms of enforcement, clean up, and keeping Lake Champlain clean and promoting renewable energy, and I think his record has been mixed in terms of sprawl."
http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/dean/dean0702/deanmain.htmlMarriage Issue Takes Center Stage at the StatehouseDean is out of touch with folks. I’m pretty sure that separate but equal isn’t going to fly,” said Judy Sargent of Marshfield, VT. “We should save ourselves a lot of trouble and time and just make it marriage.”
http://www.mountainpridemedia.org/feb2000/news_centerstage.htmSenate adds money to budget, angers DeanEven the governor’s closest allies in the Senate ignored him. Sen. Nancy Chard, D-Windham, recommended restoring $440,000 to one of the pharmaceutical assistance programs and the Senate voted 22-7 to go along with her.
“I’ve become convinced that we have a philosophical difference between the governor, the Republican House and this Senate,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin, D-Windham.
“The governor and the Republican House want to balance this budget on the backs of our most vulnerable Vermonters. The Senate wants to balance this budget on the backs of the pharmaceutical companies who are charging too much for drugs.”
http://timesargus.com/Legislature/Story/46513.htmlDean bites Democrats As Dean becomes a top-tier candidate, however, his casual approach to facts and abusive tactics against his opponents could get him into serious trouble -- {b]and severely damage Vermont's reputation for political civility and intellectual honesty.
http://www.sover.net/~auc/deanbites.htmFor the defense
August 16, 2001Just two years ago Dean tried to prevent Appel from accepting a $150,000 federal grant aimed at assisting defendants with mental disabilities. For Dean to block a government agency from receiving federal money was unusual in itself. But Dean’s openly expressed bias against criminal defendants provided a partial explanation.
Dean has made no secret of his belief that the justice system gives all the breaks to defendants. Consequently, during the 1990s, state’s attorneys, police, and corrections all received budget increases vastly exceeding increases enjoyed by the defender general’s office.
That meant the state’s attorneys were able to round up ever increasing numbers of criminal defendants, but the public defenders were not given comparable resources to respond.Making the case for adequate funding of the criminal defense system will be one of the principal jobs of the new defender general. Valerio, an experienced criminal defense lawyer and the incoming president of the Vermont Bar Association, will owe his appointment as defender general to Dean. But he will owe it to the people of Vermont to push Dean to include in his budget adequate resources so the state’s public defenders can do their jobs.
Public defenders handle most of the criminal defense work in the state. It is a thankless task in some ways. But one of the important differences between democracies and police states is a fair justice system.
Without it, police round up people and throw them in jail as a matter of routine. Law becomes, not a guarantor of justice, but a method of intimidation. http://rutlandherald.com/Archive/Articles/Article/31792Dean support off baseI am writing to express my deep disappointment in the recent fundraising letter from Vermonters for Civil Unions, Inc. effectively endorsing Governor Howard Dean in his bid for reelection. Their call to make qualifying contributions to Dean’s campaign smacks of pandering and a desire to maintain the privilege of the few rather then seek justice for all. Governor Dean has clearly stated on any number of occasions that he does not support marriage rights for all people and that he does support maintaining an unjust, two-tiered apartheid system in which those of us who are deemed to be abnormal are not to be treated equally under the law.
...Governor Dean has proven that he’ll only support us when he’s trapped or it’s convenient. For example, his recent interview with OITM where he virtually begged the queer community to support him over Anthony Pollina is simple, pathetic fear-mongering. He feels trapped and he comes to us for help. It’s truly depressing to see the privileged elites of the GLBT community and the privileged elites of the Democratic Party falling all over themselves in an effort to suck up to one another. The Governor should be ashamed of himself for attempting to scare queer folk and progressives into voting for him.
http://www.mountainpridemedia.org/jul2000/letters.htmThere seem to be a lot of Vermonters, from newspaper editors, to progressive and liberal electeed officials, to gay citizens, to heterosexual citizens, who do not think that Dean did good for Vermont.
Given the nature of the state, small and relatively rural, and the lack of direct information available from that state which goes back more than a few years online, to Deans own selaing of his records as governor because:
According to press reports, when asked why he decided to shield his gubernatorial papers from public scrutiny, Dean told Vermont Public Radio,
"Well, there are future political considerations. We didn't want anything embarrassing in the papers at a critical time in any future endeavor."http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/newsletter/2003/1203c.shtmlOne must give credence to the idea that perhaps Dean did not do all that much good for the state of Vermont, except perhaps in his own vivid imagination, and all that the vast majority of voters have to go on is Deans own reports of his demi-god like performance as Govenror. The voter cannot easily check Vermont News Sources beyong 1999. They cannot check Deans records to put their minds to rest about his relations with special interest. All they have is Dean saying trust me.
The small state issue is of importance, but not for the reasons cited. The real reasons is that a relatively unknown person, who has gone to great effort to prevent the voters of 2004 from finding out anything about him that he does not want them to know, is attempting to take over the most powerful seat of power in the world, again with only the words
trust me to make a decision on. There are more than enough questionable articles about Dean from Vermonters who had to watch his performance as Governor, and found his decisions and his politics questionable.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
