Zero to hero
The Democrats looked dead in the water, with little
hope of making an impression on Bush's
administration come the next election... until they
unveiled the governor of Vermont, a New England
doctor, as their front-running candidate
Paul Harris
Sunday December 14, 2003
The Observer
When Howard Dean took a phone call on Friday 5 December,
the voice on the other end was Al Gore. The two men spent 45
minutes chatting before Gore (who was in Japan) dropped his
bombshell: he wanted to endorse the former Vermont governor's
bid to win the White House. And the sooner the better.
The two men frantically tried to work out when they could meet.
The answer was last Tuesday, at a press conference deep in
Harlem, New York. It was a moment that changed the Democrat
race. Dean, who has gone from zero to hero in just under a year,
is now the undisputed front-runner. Dean is the man to beat.
It is an astonishing achievement for an unknown governor from a
tiny slice of New England that the rest of America views (if it
views it at all) as a rural backwater. But on his rise to the top
Dean has begun a dramatic revolution. He has stormed out of
the Vermont hills preaching an anti-war agenda in an age of
patriotism. He has waged a grassroots campaign when
corporate dollars rule elections. He has abandoned the middle
ground when pundits say the White House can only be won by
moderation. He has defied convention. And so far it has worked.
Howard Brush Dean III seems an unlikely rebel. His full name
drips with Waspish privilege and contrasts with a political image
as a red-faced, sleeves-rolled-up, truth-teller. But Dean is from
America's elite. He grew up in an 11th-floor apartment on New
York's Park Avenue, the eldest son of Andree and Howard Dean
II, a wealthy stockbroker. It was a childhood of a holiday home
in the Hamptons (the US equivalent of a weekend cottage in the
Cotswolds) and boarding schools. Dean senior was an avid
Republican and a hard man, known as 'Big Howard'. Dean
himself got the family moniker 'Little Howard', but it is a safe bet
no one calls him that now. It was a time of maids, servants and
wanting for nothing.
Yet Dean seems to have rejected his upbringing. While he
waxes lyrical about childhood days in the fields of Long Island,
he does not mention his New York years, even when
campaigning in the Big Apple. In fact, the key to understanding
Dean's persona and style does not lie in his youth, which should
have guaranteed he emerged a wealthy banker. Instead it lies in
his profession. For Howard Dean chose to become a doctor.
America has had numerous warrior presidents, an actor
president and now a cowboy president. But Dean wants to be a
new breed: a physician president.
He says it himself on the stump. When asked how he makes
policy decisions, he replies simply: as a doctor. He looks at
evidence, makes a diagnosis, decides on a medicine and moves
on to the next patient. He practises medical tough love. And his
prognosis for America is that the country is ill. It needs
healthcare, jobs and - perhaps most of all - it needs to reverse
its foreign policy. When Dean speaks with this trademark
fingerwag he is a healer, firm, but impatient with what he sees
as obvious wrongs.
But Dean is no soft-hearted country quack. He has a ruthless
streak. It was Dean aides who put out a press release attacking
workers on a rival's campaign for roughing up a Dean staffer in
Iowa and calling him 'a faggot'. Yet it was far from clear if the
incident was true. Dean has also used his anti-war message to
savage fellow Democrats as much as George Bush. His plan for
winning the election is simple: forget the middle ground. He
aims instead to attract support from the 50 per cent of
Americans who don't vote.
But Dean's radicalness masks a good deal of conservatism.
Republicans (masterminded by the genius that is White House
adviser Karl Rove) seek to paint Dean as an ultra-Leftist, an
interventionist and soft on terrorism. He is a throwback to the
radicalism of the 1960s. But the image is simply not true. Much
is made of Vermont's Civil Unions (which gave gay couples the
same legal rights as marriage). But Dean signed the law only
after it had been promoted by a state court. He did not initiate it.
Vermont state Democrats saw (and still see) Dean as a fiscal
conservative who fought hard to defeat their spending plans. He
used his Governor's veto more times than any predecessor,
scuppering their ambitions. He left the state with a balanced
budget (when its constitution does not even require one). He is
also pro-guns, for the death penalty and in favour of using tax
breaks to attract business. He is, however, pro-environment,
pro-healthcare and anti-big corporations. And, above all, he was
against the Iraq war.
His policies seem to reflect his doctor's nature: a blend of
practical liberalism mixed with sensible conservatism. Doctors
rarely favour truly radical surgery, except as a last resort.
Indeed, Dean cannot leave his doctor's surgery behind. He once
heard a rumour that campaign manager Joe Trippi had a pain in
his left side. He called Trippi and asked about his bowel
movements and whether he had blood in his urine. Dean then
collared him the next day and gave him a physical. Trippi finally
went to a clinic and found he had a cracked rib.
It is no surprise that Dean the Doctor crosses over so much with
Dean the Politician. His Jewish wife, Judith Steinberg, is also a
doctor. So are both her parents. They met in medical school in
New York, after Dean had finished his studies at Yale, and are a
close couple. They used to spend hours, at the back of class,
helping each other do crosswords. They are also intensely
private.
Steinberg does not campaign for her husband. If she becomes
First Lady, she intends to open a doctor's practice in
Washington (the secret service may have something to say
about that). In 20 years of public life she has never given a radio
or television interview. Their two children, Paul and Anne, are
kept well hidden. The family celebrates both Jewish and
Christian holidays, but it is all behind closed doors. When
Esquire magazine ran a photo-spread of all nine Democrat
candidates, Dean alone appeared without his family. Instead he
was surrounded by young campaign workers. Perhaps his
protectiveness stems from the fact that family life has not
always been kind to Dean. His brother Charles was killed in
mysterious circumstances in Laos in 1974 while travelling.
Rumours have always swirled about espionage. His body was
only recovered last month. To those who saw Dean in
one-dimensional terms as cold, or, worse still, just plain angry,
the discovery showed the opposite. Aides had long wondered
why Dean always wore an uncomfortable-looking black belt. In
fact, it was revealed, the belt was a gift from his dead brother.
The choice of Harlem for the Gore announcement was a
calculated one. As a white New Englander, the key black vote is
always hard to attract. Dean makes much of his first year at
Yale, when he asked the housing office to put him in digs with
black students. He spent nine months with two black
room-mates and describes the time as eye-opening. But it was
not easy. It is believed that 'Big Howard' barred Dean's new
black friends from ever visiting the family home.
Dean still has a problem attracting blacks, especially in the
South. At one meeting Dean held at a black church in South
Carolina, aides were impressed by the turnout (which packed
the hall) but not by the skin colour of the audience (nearly all
white, from neighbouring congregations).
Dean faces other problems, too. As frontrunner he attracts
intense media scrutiny. He avoided the Vietnam draft for medical
reasons (a bad back), but then landed a skiing job in Colorado.
He has sealed up huge volumes of files from his Vermont days,
prompting many to wonder what he might be hiding. His temper
is also short. He has already made gaffes, especially with an
ill-advised remark about courting the votes of southerners '...with
Confederate flags in their pick-up trucks'.
One Republican aide likened Dean to Jack Nicholson in the film
A Few Good Men, who gets angrier and angrier before howling:
'You can't handle the truth!' Many Republicans lick their lips at
the prospect of facing an easy target.
But, win or lose, Dean has already changed things. He has
shaken the Democratic Party to its core. If he faces George
Bush, it will be one of the most divisive elections in history:
rarely will Americans have a choice of such opposites. Only
time will tell if, when it is over, Howard Dean will head back to
his beloved surgery or all of America will enter the Vermont
doctor's treatment room.
Howard Brush Dean III
DoB: 11 November 1948
Education: Yale University; Albert Einstein College of Medicine,
New York
Family: Parents Andree and Howard Dean II. Married to Judith
Steinberg (two children, Paul and Anne)
Jobs: Investment broker (1972-74); medical practitioner
(1978-91); governor of Vermont (1991-2002); presidential
candidate
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