COPLEY NEWS SERVICE: Vermonters puzzled at Dean's liberal image
signonsandiego.com
November 24, 2003
MONTPELIER, Vt. – As he campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's image as a fiery insurgent has some Vermonters scratching their heads.
They say the Howard Dean they know is a centrist who balanced budgets, cut taxes and often battled with more liberal Democrats on spending, health care and other issues.
A look at Dean's record reveals a pragmatist who generally steered a middle ground as governor of a small New England state whose politics are as unique as any ice cream flavor dreamed up by Ben & Jerry's.
"He sure wasn't liberal. I'm liberal. I fought him on a yearly basis," Democratic state Rep. Ann Seibert said.
Dean's image as a liberal has everything to do with his early and outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq, which has supercharged the liberal activists who largely dominate the party's nominating process.
Dean is widely considered the front-runner in the nine-candidate field.
Democrats "saw him in this state as a reasonably conservative Democrat," Republican state Sen. William Doyle said.
Some Republicans insist that moderate and conservative have different meanings in Vermont than they do elsewhere.
"The whole political spectrum is shifted to the left here. Anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders is considered a moderate," said state Republican Party executive director Jim Barnett, referring to the state's lone representative in the U.S. House who is a self-described socialist.
"He (Dean) is clearly not the moderate that he is portrayed by himself and by much of the Vermont press during his years as governor."
Still, in many respects, Dean's politics seemed a good fit for a state with a population of just over 600,000 people who, if they don't all support government activism, don't seem to be terribly offended by it like their neighbors in New Hampshire.
Vermont is a highly educated state, where nearly a quarter of the people older than 25 have at least a bachelor's degree. The population is about 97 percent white.
But the perceived liberalism of Vermont is textured by a populace tied to the rugged outdoors, where sportsmen and hunters have influence on the state's culture and politics. About twice as many people live in rural areas as in urban communities.
That may help explain Dean's general opposition to gun control, which earned him an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association.
Even Sanders, the socialist, is not a strong gun-control advocate, despite a falling out with the NRA over his support for the federal assault weapons ban.
Some moderate Democrats outside Vermont, notably the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, worry that Dean will be dogged by the liberal tag if he wins the nomination to challenge President Bush.
But Dean strategists brush off the criticism.
"The fact is, Howard Dean defies labeling," said Bob Rogan, his deputy campaign manager. "He approaches issues not from an ideological perspective, but, like the physician he is, from a fact-based perspective."
Taking power
The pattern for Dean's nearly 12-year administration was set Aug. 14, 1991, the day he was catapulted from lieutenant governor to the top executive post when then-Gov. Richard Snelling died of a heart attack. Bob Sherman, an influential lobbyist who had been an aide to former Democratic Gov. Madeleine Kunin, was summoned to the gold-domed Vermont State House that day with a group of other Dean confidants.
"Howard had to decide immediately how he was going to deal with the rest of Snelling's term. He decided he was going to work from the policies and goals Snelling articulated," Sherman said. "It said a couple things. Number one: 'I wasn't elected to this job.' Number two: 'He (Snelling) may have been a Republican and I may be a Democrat, but we're both centrists.' "
Dean inherited a $65 million deficit – a big sum in such a small state – caused by increased spending and a nationwide recession. He maintained Snelling's plan for erasing the red ink: a temporary, progressive tax increase and spending limits.
"Across the board, except in health care, by and large it was just holding managers to a 2-to 3-percent growth rate," said Tom Pelham, the state's top financial manager under Dean, who, like several Dean appointees, also served in the Snelling administration. "The guy does not like to waste money."
To the chagrin of some Democrats, Dean stuck with the plan Snelling had worked out with the Legislature to let the tax increases expire when the deficit was erased.
In fact, the standard tax rate was later reduced to 1 percent below where it had been before the increases.
Core issues
Dean now advocates repealing Bush's massive tax cuts to fund a universal health care plan and "restore fiscal discipline." Republicans and some of Dean's Democratic opponents have criticized the proposal.
But Rogan said: "His bottom line is red ink. The checkbook is out of balance and it doesn't make sense."
Health care was another core issue Dean pursued as governor, reflecting his background as a physician.
He expanded a state health insurance program for children, making virtually everyone under 18 eligible for coverage, and broadened Medicaid eligibility so that more low-income Vermonters qualified for the federal-state program.
Some lawmakers faulted Dean for being too quick to abandon a more comprehensive health care plan after it ran into trouble in the Legislature in the early 1990s.
In his memoir, "All Politics is Personal," former Vermont House Speaker Ralph Wright, a Democrat, recalled the episode bitterly, writing that Dean "always seemed so ready to abandon his cause at the first sign of defeat."
But Dean supporters say the former governor was being realistic.
"He fought very, very hard for comprehensive health coverage for everybody in the state. But I have to tell you, the writing was on the wall," said Kathy Hoyt, a former chief of staff and top Cabinet official in the Dean administration. "He was very pragmatic. He had to acknowledge practically what was going on."
Republicans complain that the state is struggling with Dean's legacy on health care, staring down a medical spending deficit that could hit $150 million in coming years if costs aren't curbed.
"He's left it with us," said Vermont House Speaker Walter Freed, a Republican.
Land preservation was another Dean passion.
The official portrait of him that hangs in the statehouse looks like something out of an L.L. Bean catalog: Dean, wearing hiking boots, a pine-green shirt and casual pants, sits beside a canoe on the banks of Lake Champlain.
During Dean's administration, the state purchased 470,000 acres for conservation, according to the book "Howard Dean: A Citizen's Guide to the Man Who Would Be President," written by a team of Vermont newspaper reporters.
But while environmentalists praise his record on land conservation, auto emissions standards and other initiatives, some also say he tilted too much toward business on some development issues and didn't adequately fund the state's Agency of Natural Resources.
"He had a pretty mixed record from our perspective," said Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.
Again, Dean supporters say he was seeking a balance.
"I don't know of any governor anywhere who hasn't faced pressures between creating jobs and protecting the environment," Hoyt said. "I think if you look back over the years, we've done very well."
Reactive position
Outside of Vermont, Dean was perhaps best known for signing legislation in 2000 that gave gay and lesbian couples the same legal rights as heterosexual married couples.
But the issue was not of Dean's making.
In response to a suit from three same-sex couples, the Vermont Supreme Court in 1999 ruled that they were entitled to such rights. The justices left the details up to Vermont lawmakers.
Dean, along with legislative leaders, immediately predicted that there would be a "domestic partnership" law, disappointing advocates of gay marriage while simultaneously alienating gay-rights opponents.
For a state that values civility in politics, the debate on the issue was highly divisive, focusing national attention on Vermont. Dean signed the legislation in private, angering some who were expecting a public signing.
At the time, Dean said he did so to begin a healing process because bill signings "sometimes . . . take on the trappings of triumphalism."
Others see political calculation in the move.
"I think it's a terribly weak excuse," said Frank Bryan, a political science professor at the University of Vermont.
Whatever the case, Hoyt said Dean sometimes wore a bulletproof vest when campaigning for re-election that year. And the issue was given new prominence in the presidential race when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled last week that homosexuals have the right to marry under that state's constitution.
Former state Rep. Terry Bouricius, a member of the Vermont Progressive Party, said the legislation was "something that was thrust upon him. And I think he took the most conservative approach possible." |
