You could headline this one, "Dean's Clean," or "No Dirt on Dean"
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[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 10/18/03 ]
Some wonder if temper will wound Dean
By MIKE WILLIAMS
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Dismissed just months ago as too liberal, too inexperienced and flat-out unelectable, Howard Dean has now emerged as the main target of the crowded field vying for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.
In debates and on the campaign trail, his opponents have blasted the former Vermont governor for "flip-flops" on everything from Medicare to the Middle East, trade policies to whether he will accept federal matching funds for his campaign.
Dean has fired back, at times testily defending his record and accusing his opponents of distorting his statements.
The feisty physician-turned-politician and his staff spent much of this week in damage control after his latest remarks. At an event in Iowa on Tuesday, he appeared to compare members of Congress to insects, saying after he is elected, they are "going to be scurrying for shelter, just like a giant flashlight on a bunch of cockroaches."
Those who know him well in Vermont don't doubt that Dean has the smarts and the fire-in-the-belly to win the nomination and even to beat George Bush. But the jury is still out, some in Vermont say, on whether he can -- or will -- rein in his short temper and well-known penchant for blunt rhetoric.
"He's led a relatively charmed existence in Vermont," said Garrison Nelson, a University of Vermont political science professor. "Now he's got a big bulls-eye on his back. His opponents are trying to goad him into losing his cool, knowing that an angry outburst could undermine his candidacy."
Dean has turned heads by raising a record-setting (for a Democrat) $15 million between July and September, and by holding firmly to solid leads in the key battleground states of New Hampshire and Iowa, despite retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark's late entry and surprising surge in nationwide polls.
No 'smoking guns'
Operatives from other campaigns have already been to Vermont, Nelson said, fruitlessly searching for any hint of scandal or impropriety.
"There aren't any smoking guns," Nelson said. "He is very smart, very capable, and was a very effective administrator. But he also has a reputation for having a short fuse. He doesn't suffer fools gladly."
Dean's bluntness is noted even by some of his staunchest supporters, people who have known him since his first foray into politics, when he joined Jimmy Carter's failed 1980 bid to win re-election.
"I would say his two biggest weaknesses are the perception of testiness and a tendency to shoot from the hip, " said Rick Sharp, a former patient from Dean's medical practice. "But I think the testiness is more perception than anything. He has such a strong desire to accomplish things that he grows impatient with people who don't share his vision."
Dean admits to occasional touchiness and misspeaking.
"I can get snippy, no doubt about it," he told one reporter. "I do have a mouth on me. That is, I generally say what I think, so I get in trouble."
In Vermont, that attribute may have helped more than it hurt, because voters are put off by slick sound bites, said Dick McCormack, a former Democratic leader of the Vermont Senate who often tangled with Dean when he was governor.
Dean can be prickly, McCormack said, but it's softened by his sense of humor.
"He's called me irresponsible, a pompous ass and implicitly said I was a Communist," McCormack said. "If Howard Dean didn't have a good sense of humor, I don't think I would've forgiven him for that."
But Dean's brusque manner could hurt him on the national level. Polls show Americans want to like their president as a person, and some say he lacks the warmth displayed by politicians like Bill Clinton.
David Awbrey, editorial page editor for the Burlington Free-Press, said Dean can be standoffish, even "a bit of a cold fish."
"He has the doctor's personality, the God complex that many of them have, and I worry he may be too clinical," Awbrey said. "He may be too much of a technocrat and scientist. He's not a warm and fuzzy teddy bear of a guy. He's not afraid to tell people they're stupid."
Many Vermonters are amused that Dean has been painted by his opponents as an extreme liberal. At home, he was known as a centrist, a fiscal conservative who angered liberals from his own party as often as Republicans.
Of course Vermont is one of the nation's most liberal states, a place where the only Congressional representative, Bernie Sanders, is a socialist-turned-independent, and where vegetarian cafes and Volvo station-wagons are as plentiful as Baptist churches and stock car races down South.
But Dean's cost-cutting credentials are real. He inherited a budget deficit in his first term, quickly balanced the books and left office a decade later with a surplus, even after pushing through a program of universal health coverage for the poor.
Integrity first
McCormack remembers a talk Dean gave to fellow Democrats early in his career.
"He said, 'I don't care what your liberal agenda is, you'll never accomplish anything if the people don't trust us with their money, and they don't trust us Democrats," McCormack recalled. "More than anything, I think that defined who Howard Dean is."
Few seem surprised that Dean is running for president, although many are surprised he's now a front-runner.
Sharp believes Dean is motivated by a desire to serve, while Nelson says Dean has always been extremely ambitious.
A story from Dean's youth may shed some light onto his inner workings. It revolves around the mysterious death of his older brother, Charles, who had been active in George McGovern's failed 1972 presidential bid and who went to Laos on a trip with a friend in 1974 as the Vietnam War wound down. Charles Dean was killed by a Communist group, perhaps suspected of being a spy.
Dean rarely discusses the incident. He was working as a stockbroker at the time, but shortly after his brother's death decided to go to medical school. He still wears Charles' belt buckle, and traveled to Laos a few years ago to visit the spot where his brother died.
"That seems to have been a big moment in his life, a time when he really got serious," Awbrey said.
Whatever Dean's inner fires and demons, he has made it to the national stage in a so-far remarkable run. Of course once the primaries begin in January, it could quickly evaporate into nothing more than a footnote, with Dean perhaps done in by his own blunt talk or missteps.
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