Howard Dean
Encyclopedia
Howard Brush Dean III is an American
politician
and physician
from Vermont
. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont
and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination
. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee
from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S. Presidential campaign was unsuccessful, Dean is regarded as a pioneer in raising the profile of Internet-based fundraising and grassroots organizing .
Before entering politics, Dean earned his medical degree
from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
in 1978. Dean was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives
as a Democrat
in 1982 and was elected lieutenant governor
in 1986. Both were part-time positions that enabled him to continue practicing medicine. In 1991, Dean became governor of Vermont when Richard A. Snelling
died in office. Dean was subsequently elected to five two-year terms, serving from 1991 to 2003, making him the second longest-serving governor in Vermont history
, after Thomas Chittenden
(1778–1789 and 1790–1797). Dean served as chairman of the National Governors Association
from 1994 to 1995; during his term, Vermont paid off much of its public debt and had a balanced budget
11 times, lowering income tax
es twice. Dean also oversaw the expansion of the "Dr. Dynasaur
" program, which ensures universal health care
for children and pregnant women in the state. He is a noted staunch supporter of universal health care.
An early front-runner
for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, Dean denounced the 2003 invasion of Iraq
and called on Democrats to oppose the Bush administration
. Dean showed fundraising
ability, and was a pioneer of political fundraising via the Internet
; however, he lost the nomination to Senator
John Kerry
of Massachusetts
. Dean formed the organization Democracy for America
and later was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee
in February 2005. As chairman of the party, Dean created and employed the 50 State Strategy that attempted to make Democrats competitive in normally conservative states often dismissed in the past as "solid red." The success of the strategy became apparent after the 2006 midterm elections, where Democrats took back the House and picked up seats in the Senate from normally Republican states such as Missouri
and Montana
. In the 2008 election, Barack Obama
used the 50 state strategy as the backbone of his candidacy.
Dean was named chairman emeritus of the DNC upon his retirement. He was mentioned as a possible candidate for Secretary of Health and Human Services and Surgeon General
under the Obama administration. He currently holds no elected office or official position in the Democratic party.
, to Howard Brush Dean, Jr. and Andrée Belden (née Maitland), an art appraiser. He is the oldest of their four children, all boys.
Howard's father worked at stock broker
age Dean Witter
. The family was quite wealthy, Republican, and belonged to the exclusive Maidstone Golf Club in East Hampton
. As a child he spent much of his time growing up in East Hampton
; the family built a house on Hook Pond there in the mid-1950s. There the boys– Howard, Charlie
, Jim
and Bill– "rode bikes, played with a model train set, [and] built elaborate underground forts." While in New York, the family had a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side
part of Park Avenue
, where Dean still sometimes stays.
Howard attended the Browning School
in Manhattan
until he was 13, and then went to St. George's School
, a preparatory school
in Middletown
, Rhode Island
.
In September 1966, he attended Felsted School
, UK for one school year after winning an English Speaking Union scholarship.
Political opponents have been reluctant to seize upon Dean's privileged early life. UPI quoted one of Dean's friends in his youth as saying "By Hamptons standards, the Deans were not rich. No safari
s in Africa or chalet
s in Switzerland
. Howard's father went to work every day. He didn't own a company, or have a father or grandfather who founded one, as mine did." Peggy Noonan
wrote in the Wall Street Journal
that "he doesn't seem like a WASP
. I know it's not nice to deal in stereotype
s, but there seems very little Thurston Howell, III, or George Bush, the elder, for that matter, in Mr. Dean...He seems unpolished, doesn't hide his aggression, is proudly pugnacious. He doesn't look or act the part of the WASP...It will be harder for Republicans to tag Mr. Dean as Son of the Maidstone Club
than it was for Democrats to tag Bush One as Heir to Greenwich
Country Day
. He just doesn't act the part."
. As a freshman, he requested specifically to room with an African-American
. The university housing office complied and Dean roomed with two Southern
black students and one white student from Pennsylvania
. One of Dean's roommates was Ralph Dawson, the son of a sheet metal worker in Charleston
, South Carolina
and today a New York City labor lawyer. Dawson said of Dean:
At Yale, Dean was a member of the Zeta Psi
fraternity
. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
in political science
in 1971.
Though eventually eligible to be drafted into the military, he received a deferment for an unfused vertebra. He explained to Tim Russert on Meet the Press
, "I was really in no hurry to join the military." He briefly tried a career as a stock broker
before deciding on a career in medicine, completing pre-medicine classes at Columbia University
. In 1974, Dean's younger brother Charlie
, who had been traveling through southeast Asia
at the time, was captured and killed by Laotian
guerrillas
, a tragedy widely reported to have an enormous influence in Dean's life; he wore his brother's belt every day of his presidential campaign.
from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
of Yeshiva University
in 1978 and began a medical residency at the University of Vermont
. In 1981, he married fellow doctor Judith Steinberg
, whom he met in medical school
, and together they began a family medical practice in Shelburne
, Vermont
(where she continued to use her maiden name to avoid confusion).
in 1982 after a dispute with the local Episcopal diocese
over a bike trail (see below). By his own account, he does not attend church "very often"; at one point, when asked to name his favorite book in the New Testament
, he offered the Old Testament
Book of Job
, then corrected himself an hour later. Dean has stated he is more "spiritual" than religious. He and his wife have raised their two children, Anne and Paul, in Judaism
.
development on Lake Champlain
, instead favoring the construction of a bicycle trail. The effort succeeded, and helped launch his political career. That same year, he was also a volunteer for Jimmy Carter
's re-election campaign. In 1982, he was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives
, where he remained until being elected lieutenant governor
in 1986. Both were part-time positions which enabled him to continue practicing medicine.
On August 14, 1991, Dean was examining a patient when he received word that then-Governor Richard A. Snelling
had died of sudden cardiac arrest. Dean assumed the office, which he called the "greatest job in Vermont." He was subsequently elected to five two-year terms in his own right, making him the second longest-serving governor in Vermont's history. From 1994 to 1995, Dean was the chairman of the National Governors Association
.
Dean was faced with an economic recession and a $60 million budget deficit. He bucked many in his own party to immediately push for a balanced budget (Vermont is the only state whose constitution does not require one), an act which marked the beginning of a record of fiscal restraint. During his tenure as governor, the state paid off much of its debt, balanced its budget eleven times, raised its bond rating, and lowered income taxes twice.
Dean also focused on health care issues, most notably through the "Dr. Dynasaur
" program, which ensures near-universal health coverage for children and pregnant women in the state; the uninsured rate in Vermont dropped from 12.7% to 9.6% under his watch. Child abuse
and teen pregnancy rates were cut roughly in half.
By far the most controversial decision of his career, and the first to draw serious national attention, came in 2000, when the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the state's marriage laws unconstitutionally excluded same-sex couples and ordered that the state legislature either allow gays and lesbians to marry or create a parallel status. Facing calls to amend the state constitution to prohibit either option, Dean chose to support the latter one, and signed the nation's first civil unions legislation into law, spurring a short-lived "Take Back Vermont
" movement which helped Republicans gain control of the State House.
Dean would receive some criticism during his 2004 presidential campaign for another decision related to civil union
s. Shortly before leaving office, he had some of his Vermont
papers sealed for at least the next decade, a time frame longer than most outgoing governors use, stating that he was protecting the privacy of many gay supporters who sent him personal letters about the issue. On the campaign trail, he demanded that Vice President Dick Cheney
release his energy committee papers. Many people, including then-Democratic Senator and failed 2004 presidential candidate Joe Lieberman
of Connecticut
, who left the party after losing his primary for re-election in 2006, accused Dean of hypocrisy. Judicial Watch
filed a lawsuit to force the papers be opened before the seal expired, but lost.
As governor, Dean was endorsed by the National Rifle Association
several times, furthering his moderate image; however, he is not a member of the NRA.
Dean began his bid for President as a "long shot" candidate. ABC News
ranked him eighth out of 12 in a list of potential presidential contenders in May 2002. In March 2003 he gave a speech strongly critical of the Democratic leadership at the California
State Democratic Convention that attracted the attention of grassroots party activists and set the tone and the agenda of his candidacy. It began with the line: "What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?"
That summer, his campaign was featured as the cover article in The New Republic
and in the following months he received expanded media attention. His campaign slowly gained steam, and by autumn of 2003, Dean had become the apparent frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, performing strongly in most polls and outpacing his rivals in fundraising. This latter feat was attributed mainly to his innovative embrace of the Internet for campaigning, using Meetup.com
to track supporters and encourage grassroots participation in the campaign. The majority of his donations came from individual Dean supporters, who came to be known as Deanites, or, more commonly, Deaniacs, a term coined to describe meetup participants, who passed out campaign materials supporting Dean and the broader movement. (Critics often labeled them "Deany Boppers", or "Deanie Babies", a reference to his support from young activists.) Following Dean's presidential campaign, some Deaniacs remained engaged in the political process through Democracy for America
and similar locally-oriented organizations.
During his presidential campaign, conservative
critics labeled Dean's political views as those of an extreme liberal
; however in Vermont
, Dean, long known as a staunch advocate of fiscal restraint, was regarded as a moderate. Many left-wing critics who supported fellow Democrat Dennis Kucinich
or independent Ralph Nader
charged that, at heart, Dean was a "Rockefeller Republican
"—socially liberal, while fiscally conservative.
as a way to fight lobby groups. However, his opposition to the U.S. plan to invade Iraq
(and his forceful criticism of Democrats in Congress who voted to authorize the use of force) quickly eclipsed other issues. By challenging the war in Iraq at a time when mainstream Democratic leaders were either neutral or cautiously supportive, Dean positioned himself to appeal to his party's activist base. Dean often quoted the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone
(who had recently died in a plane crash) as saying that he represented "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." His message resonated among frustrated Democratic primary voters who felt that their party hadn't done enough to oppose the policies of the Republicans. Thus, Dean also succeeded in differentiating himself from his primary opponents.
Dean's approach organizationally was also novel. His campaign made extensive use of the Internet, pioneering techniques that were subsequently adopted by politicians of all political persuasions. His supporters organized real-world meetings, many of them arranged through Meetup.com
, participated in online forums, donated money online, canvassed for advertising ideas, and distributed political talking points. In terms of money, publicity and activism, Dean therefore quickly staked out a leadership position in the field of candidates. In this way, he was able to bypass existing party and activist infrastructure and built his own online network of supporters. In terms of traditional "ground troops", however, Dean remained at a disadvantage. Dean adopted a coffee shop strategy to visit grassroot activists in all 99 Iowa
counties, but he lacked the campaign infrastructure to get voters to the polls
that his opponents had.
, who by that date had raised $84.6 million for the Republican primary campaign, in which he had no strong challenger. Prior to the 2004 primary season, the Democratic record for most money raised in one quarter by a primary candidate was held by Bill Clinton
in 1995, raising $10.3 million during a campaign in which he had no primary opponent. In the third quarter of 2003, the Dean campaign raised $14.8 million, shattering Clinton's record. All told, Dean's campaign raised around $50 million.
While presidential campaigns have traditionally obtained finance by tapping wealthy, established political donors, Dean's funds came largely in small donations over the Internet; the average overall donation size was just under $80. This method of fundraising offered several important advantages over traditional fundraising, in addition to the inherent media interest in what was then a novelty. First, raising money on the Internet was relatively inexpensive, compared to conventional methods such as events, telemarketing, and direct mail campaigns. Secondly, as donors on average contributed far less than the legal limit ($2,000 per individual), the campaign could continue to resolicit them throughout the election season.
Dean's director of grassroots fundraising, Larry Biddle, came up with the idea of the popular fundraising "bat", an image of a cartoon baseball player and bat which appeared on the site every time the campaign launched a fundraising challenge. The bat encouraged Web site visitors to contribute money immediately through their credit cards. This would lead to the bat filling up like a thermometer
with the red color indicating the total funds. The site often took suggestions from the netroots
on their blog. One of these suggestions led to one of the campaign's biggest accomplishments– an image of Dean eating a turkey sandwich encouraged supporters to donate $250,000 in three days to match a big-donor dinner by Vice President Dick Cheney. The online contributions from that day matched what Cheney made from his fundraiser.
In November 2003, after a much-publicized online vote among his followers, Dean became the first Democrat to forgo federal matching funds (and the spending limits that go with them) since the system was established in 1974. (John Kerry
later followed his lead.) In addition to state-by-state spending limits for the primaries, the system limits a candidate to spending only $44.6 million until the Democratic National Convention
in July, which sum would almost certainly run out soon after the early primary season. (George W. Bush
declined federal matching funds in 2000 and did so again for the 2004 campaign.)
In a sign that the Dean campaign was starting to think beyond the primaries, they began in late 2003 to speak of a "$100 revolution" in which two million Americans would give $100 in order to compete with Bush.
Political commentators have stated that the fundraising of
president Barack Obama
, with its emphasis on small donors and the internet, has refined and built upon on the model that Dean's campaign pioneered.
s– elected officials and party officers entitled to convention votes by virtue of their positions. On November 12, 2003, he received the endorsements of the Service Employees International Union
and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
. Dean received the endorsement of former Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore
, on December 9, 2003. In the following weeks Dean was endorsed by former U.S. senators Bill Bradley
and Carol Moseley Braun
, unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidates from the 2000 and 2004 primaries, respectively.
Other high-profile endorsers included:
Several celebrities from the entertainment industry also endorsed him, including Martin Sheen
, Rob Reiner
, Susan Sarandon
, Paul Newman
, Robin Williams
, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
.
's early endorsement of Dean weeks before the first primary of the election cycle was severely criticized by eight Democratic contenders particularly since he did not endorse his former running mate, Joe Lieberman
. Gore supported Dean over Lieberman due to their differing opinions on Iraq which began to develop around 2002 (Lieberman supported the war and Gore did not). When Dean's campaign failed, some blamed Gore's early endorsement.
and John Edwards
led to a disappointing third-place finish for Dean in the 2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses
, representing the first votes cast in primary
season. Dean's public address that night was widely rebroadcast and portrayed as a media gaffe that ended his campaign.
Dean, who had been suffering with a severe bout of the flu for several days, attended a post-caucus rally for his volunteers at the Val-Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, Iowa and delivered his concession
speech, aimed at cheering up those in attendance. Dean was shouting over the cheers of his enthusiastic audience, but the crowd noise was being filtered out by his unidirectional microphone, leaving only his full-throated exhortations audible to the television viewers. To those at home, he seemed to raise his voice out of sheer emotion. Additionally, Dean began his speech with a flushed-red face, clenching his teeth as he rolled up his sleeves.
According to a Newsday
Editorial
written by Verne Gay, some members of the television audience criticized the speech as loud, peculiar, and unpresidential. In particular, this quote from the speech was aired repeatedly in the days following the caucus:
Senator Harkin was on stage with Dean, holding his suit jacket. This final "Yeah!" with its unusual tone that Dean later said was due to the cracking of his hoarse voice, has become known in American political jargon as the "Dean Scream" or the "I Have A Scream" speech.
Late-night comedy show hosts such as Conan O'Brien
and political comedians all over the country immediately began the media mocking onslaught of Howard Dean, which many believe contributed immensely to his poor showing in the subsequent races.
Dean conceded that the speech did not project the best image, jokingly referring to it as a "crazy, red-faced rant" on the Late Show with David Letterman
. In an interview later that week with Diane Sawyer
, he said he was "a little sheepish ... but I'm not apologetic." Sawyer and many others in the national broadcast news media later expressed some regret about overplaying the story. In fact, CNN
issued a public apology and admitted in a statement that they indeed may have "overplayed" the incident. The incessant replaying of the "Dean Scream" by the press became a debate on the topic of whether Dean was the victim of media bias
. The scream scene was shown an estimated 633 times by cable and broadcast news networks in just four days following the incident, a number that does not include talk shows and local news broadcasts. However, those who were in the actual audience that day insist that they were not aware of the infamous "scream" until they returned to their hotel rooms and saw it on TV. Dean said after the general election in 2004 that his microphone only picked up his voice and did not also capture the loud cheering he received from the audience as a result of the speech. On January 27 Dean again suffered a defeat, finishing second to Kerry in the New Hampshire primary
. As late as one week before the first votes were cast in Iowa's caucuses, Dean had enjoyed a 30% lead in New Hampshire
opinion polls; accordingly, this loss represented another major setback to his campaign.
Iowa and New Hampshire were only the first in a string of losses for the Dean campaign, culminating in a third place showing in the Wisconsin
primary on February 17. Two days before the Wisconsin primary, campaign advisor Steve Grossman
"announced" through an article written by The New York Times
Dean campaign correspondent Jodi Wilgoren that he would offer his services to any of the other major candidates "should Dean not win in Wisconsin." This "scoop" further undermined Dean's campaign. Grossman later issued a public apology. The next day, Dean announced that his candidacy had "come to an end", though he continued to urge people to vote for him, so that Dean delegates would be selected for the convention and could influence the party platform. He later won the Vermont primary on Super Tuesday
, March 2. This latter victory, a surprise even to Dean, was due in part to the lack of a serious anti-Kerry candidate in Vermont (John Edwards
had declined to put his name on the state's ballot, expecting Dean to win in a landslide), and in part to a television ad produced, funded, and aired in Vermont by grassroots Dean supporters.
's success in the 2008 U.S. presidential election
to his perfection of the Internet organizing model that Dean pioneered.
On October 11, 2007 it was reported that Leonardo DiCaprio
and George Clooney
were in early talks about making a "political thriller" based on Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, tentatively titled Farragut North. The movie, finally titled The Ides of March
, was released on October 7, 2011. It is based on the play Farragut North
, which was named after the Washington Metro station
located in the center of the lobbyist district. The play was written by Beau Willimon
, a staffer on the Dean campaign. The main character is based on a former press secretary for the Dean campaign.
In November 2008, a documentary film
about Dean and his campaign, Dean and Me
, was released and shown at several film festivals around the country.
. Dean endorsed Kerry on March 25, 2004, in a speech at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
On March 18, 2004, Dean founded the group Democracy for America
. This group was created to house the large, Internet-based organization Dean created for his presidential campaign. Its goal is to help like-minded candidates get elected to local, state, and federal offices. It has endorsed several sets of twelve candidates known as the Dean Dozen
. Dean turned over control of the organization to his brother, Jim Dean
, when he became Chairman of the Democratic National Committee
.
Dean strongly urged his supporters to support Kerry as opposed to Ralph Nader
, arguing that a vote for Nader would only help to re-elect President Bush because he believed that most who vote for Nader are likely to have voted for Kerry if Ralph Nader was not running. Dean argued that Nader would be more effective if he lobbied on election law reform issues during his campaign. Dean supported several election law reform issues such as campaign finance reform
, and Instant Runoff Voting.
Dean was elected Chairman of the Democratic National Committee
on February 12, 2005, after all his opponents dropped out of the race when it became apparent Dean had the votes to become Chair. Those opponents included former Congressman Martin Frost
, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb
, former Congressman and 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer, and strategists Donnie Fowler
, David Leland, and Simon Rosenberg
.
Many prominent Democrats opposed Dean's campaign; House Leader Nancy Pelosi
and Senate Leader Harry Reid
are rumored to be among them. Dean satisfied his critics by promising to focus on fundraising and campaigning as DNC Chair, and avoid policy statements. He was succeeded by Tim Kaine
, who at the time of his election was the Governor of Virginia
.
After Dean became Chairman of the DNC, he pledged to bring reform to the Party. Rather than focusing just on swing state
s, Dean proposed what has come to be known as the 50-State Strategy the goal of which was for the Democratic Party to be committed to winning elections at every level in every region of the country, with Democrats organized in every single voting precinct. State party chairs lauded Dean for raising money directly for the individual state parties.
Dean's strategy used a post-Watergate model taken from the Republicans of the mid-seventies. Working at the local, state and national level, the GOP built the party from the ground up. Dean's plan was to seed the local level with young and committed candidates, building them into state candidates in future races. Dean traveled extensively throughout the country with the plan, including places like Utah
, Mississippi
, and Texas
, states in which Republicans had dominated the political landscape. Many establishment Democrats were at least initially dubious about the strategy's worth—political consultant and former Bill Clinton advisor, Paul Begala
, suggested that Dean's plan was "just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose." Further changes were made in attempting to make the stated platform of the Democratic Party more coherent and compact. Overhauling the website, the official platform of the 2004 campaign, which was largely criticized as avoiding key issues and being the product of party insiders, was replaced with a simplified, though comprehensive categorizing of positions on a wide range of issues.
Dean's strategy arguably paid off in a historic victory as the Democrats took over control of the House of Representatives
and the Senate
in the 2006 mid-term elections
. While it is likely this is also attributable to the shortcomings of the Republican Party in their dealings with the Iraq War and the scandals that occurred shortly before the election, Dean's emphasis on connecting with socially conservative, economic moderates in Republican-dominated states appears to have made some impact. Indeed, Democratic candidates won elections in such red states as Kansas
, Indiana
, and Montana
. And while former Clinton strategist James Carville
criticized Dean's efforts, saying more seats could have been won with the traditional plan of piling money solely into close races, the results and the strategy were met with tremendous approval by the party's executive committee in its December 2006 meeting. While he was chairman of the DCCC, Rahm Emanuel
was known to have had disagreements over election strategy with Dean; Emanuel believed a more tactical approach, focusing attention on key districts, was necessary to ensure victory. Emanuel himself was criticised for his failure to support some progressive candidates, as Dean advocated.
The 50-state strategy relied on the idea that building the Democratic Party is at once an incremental election by election process as well as a long-term vision in party building. Democrats cannot compete in counties in which they do not field candidates. Therefore, candidate recruitment emerged as a component element of the 50-state strategy.
To build the party, the DNC under Dean worked in partnership with state Democratic parties in bringing the resources of the DNC to bear in electoral efforts, voter registration, candidate recruitment, and other interlocking component elements of party building. Decentralization was also a core component of the party's approach. The idea was that each state party had unique needs, but could improve upon its efforts through the distribution of resources from the national party.
The 50-state strategy was acknowledged by political commentators as an important factor in allowing Barack Obama
to compete against John McCain
in traditionally red states, during the 2008 presidential contest. In 2008, Obama won several states that had previously been considered Republican strongholds, most notably Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia.
fundraising, Howard Dean was able to raise millions more than the previous DNC
Chairman at the same point after the 2000 election. The year after his election, Dean had raised the most money by any DNC Chairman in a similar post election period. This was especially apparent when the Federal Election Commission reported that the DNC had raised roughly $86.3 million in the first six months of 2005, an increase of over 50% on the amount raised during the same period of 2003. In comparison, the RNC fundraising activities represented a gain of only 2%. Additional attempts to capitalize on this trend was the introduction of "Democracy Bonds," a program under which small donors would give a set amount every month. Although it only reached over 31,000 donors by May 2006, far off-pace from the stated goal of 1 million by 2008, it nonetheless contributed to a new small-donor funding philosophy of the DNC. Dean continued to further develop online fundraising at the DNC. Just one month before Election Day 2006, he became the first to introduce the concept of a "grassroots match," where donors to the DNC pledged to match the first donation made by a new contributor. The DNC stated that the resulting flood of contributions led to 10,000 first-time donors in just a few days.
The AP and Politico
both reported that supporters of Dean were angry that he wasn't asked to be a part of the new administration . According to Politico , Dean supporters were especially upset Dean wasn't invited to the press conference at which Tim Kaine was appointed as Democratic National Committee chairman . Joe Trippi
, who was Dean’s presidential campaign manager in 2004, told Politico, "[Dean] was never afraid to challenge the way party establishment in Washington did business, and that doesn’t win you friends in either party." Trippi further explained the apparent snub of Dean by stating, "You don’t have to look any further than Rahm Emanuel
." Trippi was referring to the tension between Emanuel and Dean over Dean's 50 state strategy. Sources close to Emanuel dismissed these charges, however .
Dean told Chris Matthews
on MSNBC’s "Hardball" that "I didn't do this for the spoils. I did this for the country. I'm very happy that Barack Obama is president, and I think he's picked a great Cabinet. And I'm pretty happy. I wouldn't trade my position for any other position right now. I'm going to go into the private sector, make a living making speeches, and do a lot of stuff on health care policy."
After the withdrawal of Tom Daschle
's nomination for the position, Dean had been touted by many for the post of Secretary of Health and Human Services. After being passed over for the post once again, Dean told the Huffington Post, "I was pretty clear that I would have liked to have been Secretary of HHS but it is the president's choice and he decided to go in a different direction."
Dean is a contributor to financial news network CNBC
, and also a frequent guest on sister network MSNBC
in shows such as The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell and he has also guest hosted Countdown with Keith Olbermann
and The Rachel Maddow Show
. He is currently on the board of the National Democratic Institute.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
politician
Politics of the United States
The United States is a federal constitutional republic, in which the President of the United States , Congress, and judiciary share powers reserved to the national government, and the federal government shares sovereignty with the state governments.The executive branch is headed by the President...
and physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
from Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont
Governor of Vermont
The Governor of Vermont is the governor of the U.S. state of Vermont. The governor is elected in even numbered years by direct voting for a term of two years; Vermont and bordering New Hampshire are the only states to hold gubernatorial elections every two years, instead of every four...
and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination
Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2004
The 2004 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2004 U.S. presidential election...
. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S. Presidential campaign was unsuccessful, Dean is regarded as a pioneer in raising the profile of Internet-based fundraising and grassroots organizing .
Before entering politics, Dean earned his medical degree
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a graduate school of Yeshiva University. It is a not-for-profit, private, nonsectarian medical school located on the Jack and Pearl Resnick Campus in the Morris Park neighborhood of the borough of the Bronx of New York City...
in 1978. Dean was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives
Vermont House of Representatives
The Vermont House of Representatives is the lower house of the Vermont General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Vermont. The House comprises 150 members. Vermont legislative districting divides representing districts into 66 single-member districts and 42 two-member...
as a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
in 1982 and was elected lieutenant governor
Lieutenant governor
A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...
in 1986. Both were part-time positions that enabled him to continue practicing medicine. In 1991, Dean became governor of Vermont when Richard A. Snelling
Richard A. Snelling
Richard Arkwright Snelling was the 76th and 78th Governor of Vermont from 1977 to 1985 and from January 10, 1991 until his death from heart failure.He was the son of Walter O...
died in office. Dean was subsequently elected to five two-year terms, serving from 1991 to 2003, making him the second longest-serving governor in Vermont history
History of Vermont
The history of Vermont begins more than 10,500 years before the present day.-Early history:Vermont was covered with shallow seas periodically from the Cambrian to Devonian periods. Most of the sedimentary rocks laid down in these seas were deformed by mountain-building. Fossils, however, are...
, after Thomas Chittenden
Thomas Chittenden
Thomas Chittenden was an important figure in the founding of Vermont.Chittenden was born in East Guilford, Connecticut and moved to Vermont in 1774, where he founded the town of Williston. During the American Revolution, Chittenden was a member of a committee empowered to negotiate with the...
(1778–1789 and 1790–1797). Dean served as chairman of the National Governors Association
National Governors Association
The National Governors Association , founded in 1908 as the National Governors' Conference, is funded primarily by state dues, federal grants and contracts and private contributions. NGA represents the governors of the fifty U.S. states and five U.S. territories The National Governors Association...
from 1994 to 1995; during his term, Vermont paid off much of its public debt and had a balanced budget
Balanced budget
A balanced budget is when there is neither a budget deficit or a budget surplus – when revenues equal expenditure – particularly by a government. More generally, it refers to when there is no deficit, but possibly a surplus...
11 times, lowering income tax
Income tax
An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
es twice. Dean also oversaw the expansion of the "Dr. Dynasaur
Dr. Dynasaur
Dr. Dynasaur is a publicly-funded health care program in the U.S. state of Vermont, created in 1989. Vermont had an estimated 140,000 people under age 18 . Dr. Dynasaur covered 56,000 of these uninsured...
" program, which ensures universal health care
Universal health care
Universal health care is a term referring to organized health care systems built around the principle of universal coverage for all members of society, combining mechanisms for health financing and service provision.-History:...
for children and pregnant women in the state. He is a noted staunch supporter of universal health care.
An early front-runner
Front-runner
Front-runner is a term to describe the leader in a race, whether political or athletic. The term arose from the close symbolism between political campaigns and athletic running events. The term is used in the U.S...
for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, Dean denounced the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
and called on Democrats to oppose the Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...
. Dean showed fundraising
Fundraising
Fundraising or fund raising is the process of soliciting and gathering voluntary contributions as money or other resources, by requesting donations from individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies...
ability, and was a pioneer of political fundraising via the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
; however, he lost the nomination to Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. Dean formed the organization Democracy for America
Democracy for America
Democracy for America is a progressive, people-powered political action committee, headquartered in South Burlington, Vermont. Founded by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean in 2004, DFA leads public awareness campaigns on a variety of public policy issues, trains activists,...
and later was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
in February 2005. As chairman of the party, Dean created and employed the 50 State Strategy that attempted to make Democrats competitive in normally conservative states often dismissed in the past as "solid red." The success of the strategy became apparent after the 2006 midterm elections, where Democrats took back the House and picked up seats in the Senate from normally Republican states such as Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
and Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. In the 2008 election, Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
used the 50 state strategy as the backbone of his candidacy.
Dean was named chairman emeritus of the DNC upon his retirement. He was mentioned as a possible candidate for Secretary of Health and Human Services and Surgeon General
Surgeon General of the United States
The Surgeon General of the United States is the operational head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government...
under the Obama administration. He currently holds no elected office or official position in the Democratic party.
East Hampton and New York City childhood
Dean was born in East Hampton, New YorkEast Hampton (town), New York
The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York...
, to Howard Brush Dean, Jr. and Andrée Belden (née Maitland), an art appraiser. He is the oldest of their four children, all boys.
Howard's father worked at stock broker
Stock broker
A stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors...
age Dean Witter
Dean Witter Reynolds
Dean Witter Reynolds was an American stock brokerage and securities firm catering to retail clients. Prior to its acquisition, it was among the largest retail firms in the securities industry with over 9,000 account executives and was among the largest members of the New York Stock Exchange...
. The family was quite wealthy, Republican, and belonged to the exclusive Maidstone Golf Club in East Hampton
East Hampton (village), New York
The Village of East Hampton is a village in Town of East Hampton, New York. It is located in Suffolk County, on the South Fork of eastern Long Island...
. As a child he spent much of his time growing up in East Hampton
East Hampton (village), New York
The Village of East Hampton is a village in Town of East Hampton, New York. It is located in Suffolk County, on the South Fork of eastern Long Island...
; the family built a house on Hook Pond there in the mid-1950s. There the boys– Howard, Charlie
Charles Dean
Charles "Charlie" Dean was the brother of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Democracy for America Chairman Jim Dean and political activist Bill Dean. In 1974, Charlie, who had been traveling through southeast Asia at the time, was captured and killed by Pathet Lao guerrillas...
, Jim
Jim Dean (DFA)
James H. "Jim" Dean is chair of Democracy for America , the nation's largest political action committee based in Burlington, Vermont.DFA was founded in 2004 after the presidential campaign of Dean's brother, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean. Jim Dean has raised money, given speeches, and...
and Bill– "rode bikes, played with a model train set, [and] built elaborate underground forts." While in New York, the family had a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
part of Park Avenue
Park Avenue (Manhattan)
Park Avenue is a wide boulevard that carries north and southbound traffic in New York City borough of Manhattan. Through most of its length, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Avenue to the east....
, where Dean still sometimes stays.
Howard attended the Browning School
Browning School
The Browning School is a United States college preparatory school for boys founded in 1888 by John A. Browning. It offers study from Pre-Primary level through Form VI and is ranked as one of the top private schools in New York City...
in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
until he was 13, and then went to St. George's School
St. George's School, Newport
St. George's School is a private, Episcopal, coeducational boarding school in Middletown, Rhode Island, USA, just east of the city of Newport. The school was founded in 1896 by the Rev. John Byron Diman, a member of a prominent Rhode Island family. It sits on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean...
, a preparatory school
University-preparatory school
A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education...
in Middletown
Middletown, Rhode Island
Middletown is a town in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 16,150 at the 2010 census. It lies to the south of Portsmouth and to the north of Newport on Aquidneck Island, hence the name "Middletown."-Geography:...
, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
.
In September 1966, he attended Felsted School
Felsted School
Felsted School, an English co-educational day and boarding independent school, situated in Felsted, Essex. It is in the British Public School tradition, and was founded in 1564 by Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich who, as Lord Chancellor and Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, acquired...
, UK for one school year after winning an English Speaking Union scholarship.
Political opponents have been reluctant to seize upon Dean's privileged early life. UPI quoted one of Dean's friends in his youth as saying "By Hamptons standards, the Deans were not rich. No safari
Safari
A safari is an overland journey, usually a trip by tourists to Africa. Traditionally, the term is used for a big-game hunt, but today the term often refers to a trip taken not for the purposes of hunting, but to observe and photograph animals and other wildlife.-Etymology:Entering the English...
s in Africa or chalet
Chalet
A chalet , also called Swiss chalet, is a type of building or house, native to the Alpine region, made of wood, with a heavy, gently sloping roof with wide, well-supported eaves set at right angles to the front of the house.-Definition and origin:...
s in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Howard's father went to work every day. He didn't own a company, or have a father or grandfather who founded one, as mine did." Peggy Noonan
Peggy Noonan
Peggy Noonan is an American author of seven books on politics, religion, and culture and a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal...
wrote in the Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
that "he doesn't seem like a WASP
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...
. I know it's not nice to deal in stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
s, but there seems very little Thurston Howell, III, or George Bush, the elder, for that matter, in Mr. Dean...He seems unpolished, doesn't hide his aggression, is proudly pugnacious. He doesn't look or act the part of the WASP...It will be harder for Republicans to tag Mr. Dean as Son of the Maidstone Club
Maidstone Club
The Maidstone Club is a private country club on the Atlantic Ocean in the village of East Hampton, New York.In addition to a private beach, pool, tennis house, and club house, Maidstone has both an 18-hole and 9-hole private golf course....
than it was for Democrats to tag Bush One as Heir to Greenwich
Greenwich, Connecticut
Greenwich is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 61,171. It is home to many hedge funds and other financial service companies. Greenwich is the southernmost and westernmost municipality in Connecticut and is 38+ minutes ...
Country Day
Greenwich Country Day School
The Greenwich Country Day School is a co-educational, independent day school in Greenwich, Connecticut, founded in 1926. As of 2005, it has some 840 students from nursery to the 9th grade level....
. He just doesn't act the part."
The Yale years
Dean attended Yale UniversityYale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. As a freshman, he requested specifically to room with an African-American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
. The university housing office complied and Dean roomed with two Southern
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
black students and one white student from Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. One of Dean's roommates was Ralph Dawson, the son of a sheet metal worker in Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
, South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
and today a New York City labor lawyer. Dawson said of Dean:
At Yale, Dean was a member of the Zeta Psi
Zeta Psi
The Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America was founded June 1, 1847 as a social college fraternity. The organization now comprises about fifty active chapters and twenty-five inactive chapters, encompassing roughly fifty thousand brothers, and is a founding member of the North-American...
fraternity
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
in 1971.
Though eventually eligible to be drafted into the military, he received a deferment for an unfused vertebra. He explained to Tim Russert on Meet the Press
Meet the Press
Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program produced by NBC. It is the longest-running television series in American broadcasting history, despite bearing little resemblance to the original format of the program seen in its television debut on November 6, 1947. It has been...
, "I was really in no hurry to join the military." He briefly tried a career as a stock broker
Stock broker
A stock broker or stockbroker is a regulated professional broker who buys and sells shares and other securities through market makers or Agency Only Firms on behalf of investors...
before deciding on a career in medicine, completing pre-medicine classes at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. In 1974, Dean's younger brother Charlie
Charles Dean
Charles "Charlie" Dean was the brother of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Democracy for America Chairman Jim Dean and political activist Bill Dean. In 1974, Charlie, who had been traveling through southeast Asia at the time, was captured and killed by Pathet Lao guerrillas...
, who had been traveling through southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
at the time, was captured and killed by Laotian
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
guerrillas
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
, a tragedy widely reported to have an enormous influence in Dean's life; he wore his brother's belt every day of his presidential campaign.
The move to Vermont as a doctor
Dean received his medical degreeDoctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a graduate school of Yeshiva University. It is a not-for-profit, private, nonsectarian medical school located on the Jack and Pearl Resnick Campus in the Morris Park neighborhood of the borough of the Bronx of New York City...
of Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private university in New York City, with six campuses in New York and one in Israel. Founded in 1886, it is a research university ranked as 45th in the US among national universities by U.S. News & World Report in 2012...
in 1978 and began a medical residency at the University of Vermont
University of Vermont
The University of Vermont comprises seven undergraduate schools, an honors college, a graduate college, and a college of medicine. The Honors College does not offer its own degrees; students in the Honors College concurrently enroll in one of the university's seven undergraduate colleges or...
. In 1981, he married fellow doctor Judith Steinberg
Judith Steinberg Dean
Judith Steinberg Dean, M.D., is a physician from Burlington, Vermont. She is the wife of Howard Dean, the Democratic former Governor of Vermont and past chairman of the Democratic National Committee...
, whom he met in medical school
Medical school
A medical school is a tertiary educational institution—or part of such an institution—that teaches medicine. Degree programs offered at medical schools often include Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Bachelor/Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, master's degree, or other post-secondary...
, and together they began a family medical practice in Shelburne
Shelburne, Vermont
Shelburne is a town in southwestern Chittenden County, Vermont, United States, along the shores of Lake Champlain. The population was 7,144 at the 2010 census.-History:...
, Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
(where she continued to use her maiden name to avoid confusion).
Religion
Though he was raised an Episcopalian, Dean joined the United Church of ChristUnited Church of Christ
The United Church of Christ is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination primarily in the Reformed tradition but also historically influenced by Lutheranism. The Evangelical and Reformed Church and the Congregational Christian Churches united in 1957 to form the UCC...
in 1982 after a dispute with the local Episcopal diocese
Diocese
A diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...
over a bike trail (see below). By his own account, he does not attend church "very often"; at one point, when asked to name his favorite book in the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
, he offered the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
Book of Job
Book of Job
The Book of Job , commonly referred to simply as Job, is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It relates the story of Job, his trials at the hands of Satan, his discussions with friends on the origins and nature of his suffering, his challenge to God, and finally a response from God. The book is a...
, then corrected himself an hour later. Dean has stated he is more "spiritual" than religious. He and his wife have raised their two children, Anne and Paul, in Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
.
Vermont political career
In 1980, Dean spearheaded a grassroots campaign to stop a condominiumCondominium
A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
development on Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain is a natural, freshwater lake in North America, located mainly within the borders of the United States but partially situated across the Canada—United States border in the Canadian province of Quebec.The New York portion of the Champlain Valley includes the eastern portions of...
, instead favoring the construction of a bicycle trail. The effort succeeded, and helped launch his political career. That same year, he was also a volunteer for Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
's re-election campaign. In 1982, he was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives
Vermont House of Representatives
The Vermont House of Representatives is the lower house of the Vermont General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Vermont. The House comprises 150 members. Vermont legislative districting divides representing districts into 66 single-member districts and 42 two-member...
, where he remained until being elected lieutenant governor
Lieutenant governor
A lieutenant governor or lieutenant-governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction, but is often the deputy or lieutenant to or ranking under a governor — a "second-in-command"...
in 1986. Both were part-time positions which enabled him to continue practicing medicine.
On August 14, 1991, Dean was examining a patient when he received word that then-Governor Richard A. Snelling
Richard A. Snelling
Richard Arkwright Snelling was the 76th and 78th Governor of Vermont from 1977 to 1985 and from January 10, 1991 until his death from heart failure.He was the son of Walter O...
had died of sudden cardiac arrest. Dean assumed the office, which he called the "greatest job in Vermont." He was subsequently elected to five two-year terms in his own right, making him the second longest-serving governor in Vermont's history. From 1994 to 1995, Dean was the chairman of the National Governors Association
National Governors Association
The National Governors Association , founded in 1908 as the National Governors' Conference, is funded primarily by state dues, federal grants and contracts and private contributions. NGA represents the governors of the fifty U.S. states and five U.S. territories The National Governors Association...
.
Dean also focused on health care issues, most notably through the "Dr. Dynasaur
Dr. Dynasaur
Dr. Dynasaur is a publicly-funded health care program in the U.S. state of Vermont, created in 1989. Vermont had an estimated 140,000 people under age 18 . Dr. Dynasaur covered 56,000 of these uninsured...
" program, which ensures near-universal health coverage for children and pregnant women in the state; the uninsured rate in Vermont dropped from 12.7% to 9.6% under his watch. Child abuse
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
and teen pregnancy rates were cut roughly in half.
By far the most controversial decision of his career, and the first to draw serious national attention, came in 2000, when the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the state's marriage laws unconstitutionally excluded same-sex couples and ordered that the state legislature either allow gays and lesbians to marry or create a parallel status. Facing calls to amend the state constitution to prohibit either option, Dean chose to support the latter one, and signed the nation's first civil unions legislation into law, spurring a short-lived "Take Back Vermont
Take Back Vermont
Take Back Vermont was a slogan and associated movement that attained prominence in the U.S. state of Vermont in the year 2000. The movement was triggered by the state legislature's passage of a civil unions bill in 2000. Its aim, though, was wider than repealing the civil unions law...
" movement which helped Republicans gain control of the State House.
Dean would receive some criticism during his 2004 presidential campaign for another decision related to civil union
Civil union
A civil union, also referred to as a civil partnership, is a legally recognized form of partnership similar to marriage. Beginning with Denmark in 1989, civil unions under one name or another have been established by law in many developed countries in order to provide same-sex couples rights,...
s. Shortly before leaving office, he had some of his Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
papers sealed for at least the next decade, a time frame longer than most outgoing governors use, stating that he was protecting the privacy of many gay supporters who sent him personal letters about the issue. On the campaign trail, he demanded that Vice President Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....
release his energy committee papers. Many people, including then-Democratic Senator and failed 2004 presidential candidate Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.Born in Stamford, Connecticut,...
of Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, who left the party after losing his primary for re-election in 2006, accused Dean of hypocrisy. Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch is an organization that describes itself as "a conservative, non-partisan American educational foundation that promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law." According to its mission statement, Judicial Watch "advocates high standards of...
filed a lawsuit to force the papers be opened before the seal expired, but lost.
As governor, Dean was endorsed by the National Rifle Association
National Rifle Association
The National Rifle Association of America is an American non-profit 501 civil rights organization which advocates for the protection of the Second Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and the promotion of firearm ownership rights as well as marksmanship, firearm safety, and the protection...
several times, furthering his moderate image; however, he is not a member of the NRA.
2004 presidential candidacy
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
ranked him eighth out of 12 in a list of potential presidential contenders in May 2002. In March 2003 he gave a speech strongly critical of the Democratic leadership at the California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
State Democratic Convention that attracted the attention of grassroots party activists and set the tone and the agenda of his candidacy. It began with the line: "What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?"
That summer, his campaign was featured as the cover article in The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
and in the following months he received expanded media attention. His campaign slowly gained steam, and by autumn of 2003, Dean had become the apparent frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, performing strongly in most polls and outpacing his rivals in fundraising. This latter feat was attributed mainly to his innovative embrace of the Internet for campaigning, using Meetup.com
Meetup.com
Meetup is an online social networking portal that facilitates offline group meetings in various localities around the world. Meetup allows members to find and join groups unified by a common interest, such as politics, books, games, movies, health, pets, careers or hobbies...
to track supporters and encourage grassroots participation in the campaign. The majority of his donations came from individual Dean supporters, who came to be known as Deanites, or, more commonly, Deaniacs, a term coined to describe meetup participants, who passed out campaign materials supporting Dean and the broader movement. (Critics often labeled them "Deany Boppers", or "Deanie Babies", a reference to his support from young activists.) Following Dean's presidential campaign, some Deaniacs remained engaged in the political process through Democracy for America
Democracy for America
Democracy for America is a progressive, people-powered political action committee, headquartered in South Burlington, Vermont. Founded by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean in 2004, DFA leads public awareness campaigns on a variety of public policy issues, trains activists,...
and similar locally-oriented organizations.
During his presidential campaign, conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
critics labeled Dean's political views as those of an extreme liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
; however in Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
, Dean, long known as a staunch advocate of fiscal restraint, was regarded as a moderate. Many left-wing critics who supported fellow Democrat Dennis Kucinich
Dennis Kucinich
Dennis John Kucinich is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1997. He was furthermore a candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections....
or independent Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
charged that, at heart, Dean was a "Rockefeller Republican
Rockefeller Republican
Rockefeller Republican refers to a faction of the United States Republican Party who held moderate to liberal views similar to those of Nelson Rockefeller...
"—socially liberal, while fiscally conservative.
Message and themes
Dean began his campaign by emphasizing health care and fiscal responsibility, and championing grassroots fundraisingGrassroots fundraising
Grassroots fundraising is a method of fundraising used by or for political candidates, which has grown in popularity with the emergence of the Internet and its use by US presidential candidates like Howard Dean and Ron Paul...
as a way to fight lobby groups. However, his opposition to the U.S. plan to invade Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
(and his forceful criticism of Democrats in Congress who voted to authorize the use of force) quickly eclipsed other issues. By challenging the war in Iraq at a time when mainstream Democratic leaders were either neutral or cautiously supportive, Dean positioned himself to appeal to his party's activist base. Dean often quoted the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone
Paul Wellstone
Paul David Wellstone was a two-term U.S. Senator from the state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College...
(who had recently died in a plane crash) as saying that he represented "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." His message resonated among frustrated Democratic primary voters who felt that their party hadn't done enough to oppose the policies of the Republicans. Thus, Dean also succeeded in differentiating himself from his primary opponents.
Dean's approach organizationally was also novel. His campaign made extensive use of the Internet, pioneering techniques that were subsequently adopted by politicians of all political persuasions. His supporters organized real-world meetings, many of them arranged through Meetup.com
Meetup.com
Meetup is an online social networking portal that facilitates offline group meetings in various localities around the world. Meetup allows members to find and join groups unified by a common interest, such as politics, books, games, movies, health, pets, careers or hobbies...
, participated in online forums, donated money online, canvassed for advertising ideas, and distributed political talking points. In terms of money, publicity and activism, Dean therefore quickly staked out a leadership position in the field of candidates. In this way, he was able to bypass existing party and activist infrastructure and built his own online network of supporters. In terms of traditional "ground troops", however, Dean remained at a disadvantage. Dean adopted a coffee shop strategy to visit grassroot activists in all 99 Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
counties, but he lacked the campaign infrastructure to get voters to the polls
Get out the vote
"Get out the vote" are terms used to describe two categories of political activity, both aimed at increasing the number of votes cast in one or more elections.- Non-partisan contexts :...
that his opponents had.
Fundraising
In the "Invisible Primary" of raising campaign dollars, Howard Dean led the Democratic pack in the early stages of the 2004 campaign. Among the candidates, he ranked first in total raised ($25.4 million as of September 30, 2003) and first in cash-on-hand ($12.4 million). However, even this performance paled next to that of George W. BushGeorge W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, who by that date had raised $84.6 million for the Republican primary campaign, in which he had no strong challenger. Prior to the 2004 primary season, the Democratic record for most money raised in one quarter by a primary candidate was held by Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
in 1995, raising $10.3 million during a campaign in which he had no primary opponent. In the third quarter of 2003, the Dean campaign raised $14.8 million, shattering Clinton's record. All told, Dean's campaign raised around $50 million.
While presidential campaigns have traditionally obtained finance by tapping wealthy, established political donors, Dean's funds came largely in small donations over the Internet; the average overall donation size was just under $80. This method of fundraising offered several important advantages over traditional fundraising, in addition to the inherent media interest in what was then a novelty. First, raising money on the Internet was relatively inexpensive, compared to conventional methods such as events, telemarketing, and direct mail campaigns. Secondly, as donors on average contributed far less than the legal limit ($2,000 per individual), the campaign could continue to resolicit them throughout the election season.
Dean's director of grassroots fundraising, Larry Biddle, came up with the idea of the popular fundraising "bat", an image of a cartoon baseball player and bat which appeared on the site every time the campaign launched a fundraising challenge. The bat encouraged Web site visitors to contribute money immediately through their credit cards. This would lead to the bat filling up like a thermometer
Thermometer
Developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, a thermometer is a device that measures temperature or temperature gradient using a variety of different principles. A thermometer has two important elements: the temperature sensor Developed during the 16th and 17th centuries, a thermometer (from the...
with the red color indicating the total funds. The site often took suggestions from the netroots
Netroots
Netroots is a term coined in 2002 by Jerome Armstrong to describe political activism organized through blogs and other online media, including wikis and social network services. The word is a portmanteau of Internet and grassroots, reflecting the technological innovations that set netroots...
on their blog. One of these suggestions led to one of the campaign's biggest accomplishments– an image of Dean eating a turkey sandwich encouraged supporters to donate $250,000 in three days to match a big-donor dinner by Vice President Dick Cheney. The online contributions from that day matched what Cheney made from his fundraiser.
In November 2003, after a much-publicized online vote among his followers, Dean became the first Democrat to forgo federal matching funds (and the spending limits that go with them) since the system was established in 1974. (John Kerry
John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
later followed his lead.) In addition to state-by-state spending limits for the primaries, the system limits a candidate to spending only $44.6 million until the Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 national convention...
in July, which sum would almost certainly run out soon after the early primary season. (George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
declined federal matching funds in 2000 and did so again for the 2004 campaign.)
In a sign that the Dean campaign was starting to think beyond the primaries, they began in late 2003 to speak of a "$100 revolution" in which two million Americans would give $100 in order to compete with Bush.
Political commentators have stated that the fundraising of
president Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, with its emphasis on small donors and the internet, has refined and built upon on the model that Dean's campaign pioneered.
Endorsements
Though Dean lagged in early endorsements, he acquired many critical ones as his campaign snowballed. By the time of the Iowa caucuses, he led among commitments from superdelegateSuperdelegate
"Superdelegate" is an informal term commonly used for some of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention, the presidential nominating convention of the United States Democratic Party....
s– elected officials and party officers entitled to convention votes by virtue of their positions. On November 12, 2003, he received the endorsements of the Service Employees International Union
Service Employees International Union
Service Employees International Union is a labor union representing about 1.8 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States , and Canada...
and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is the second- or third-largest labor union in the United States and one of the fastest-growing, representing over 1.4 million employees, primarily in local and state government and in the health care industry. AFSCME is part of the...
. Dean received the endorsement of former Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
, on December 9, 2003. In the following weeks Dean was endorsed by former U.S. senators Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley
William Warren "Bill" Bradley is an American hall of fame basketball player, Rhodes scholar, and former three-term Democratic U.S. Senator from New Jersey. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Party's nomination for President in the 2000 election.Bradley was born and raised in a suburb of St....
and Carol Moseley Braun
Carol Moseley Braun
Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun is an American feminist politician and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999. She was the first and to date only African-American woman elected to the United States Senate, the first woman to defeat an incumbent senator in an...
, unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidates from the 2000 and 2004 primaries, respectively.
Other high-profile endorsers included:
- Governors (and former Governors) Bruce BabbittBruce BabbittBruce Edward Babbitt , a Democrat, served as United States Secretary of the Interior and as the 16th governor of Arizona, from 1978 to 1987.-Biography:...
, Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.Lowell P. Weicker, Jr.Lowell Palmer Weicker, Jr. is an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the 85th Governor of Connecticut, and unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for President in 1980...
, Jim McGreeveyJim McGreeveyJames Edward "Jim" McGreevey is an American Democratic politician. He served as the 52nd Governor of New Jersey from January 15, 2002, until he resigned from office at 11:59 pm on November 15, 2004. His term was set to expire on January 17, 2006...
, Toney AnayaToney AnayaToney Anaya is a U.S. Democratic politician who was born in Moriarty, New Mexico. He went to undergraduate school at Georgetown University and graduated with a law degree from American University's Washington College of Law in 1967...
, Ann RichardsAnn RichardsDorothy Ann Willis Richards was an American politician from Texas. She first came to national attention as the state treasurer of Texas, when she delivered the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Richards served as the 45th Governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995 and was... - Senators (and former Senators) Tom HarkinTom HarkinThomas Richard "Tom" Harkin is the junior United States Senator from Iowa and a member of the Democratic Party. He previously served in the United States House of Representatives ....
, Fred R. HarrisFred R. HarrisFred Roy Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator from the state of Oklahoma. He served from 1964 until 1973.-Biography:...
, Howard MetzenbaumHoward MetzenbaumHoward Morton Metzenbaum was an American politician who served for almost 20 years as a Democratic member of the U.S. Senate from Ohio . He also served in the Ohio House of Representatives and Senate from 1943 to 1951.-Early life:Metzenbaum was born in Cleveland, to a poor Jewish family, the son...
, Jim JeffordsJim JeffordsJames Merrill "Jim" Jeffords is a former U.S. Senator from Vermont. He served as a Republican until 2001, when he left the party to become an independent. He retired from the Senate in 2006.-Background:...
, Patrick LeahyPatrick LeahyPatrick Joseph Leahy is the senior United States Senator from Vermont and member of the Democratic Party. He is the first and only elected Democratic United States Senator in Vermont's history. He is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy is the second most senior U.S. Senator,... - Representatives (and former Representatives) Jesse Jackson, Jr.Jesse Jackson, Jr.Jesse Louis Jackson, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since the special election in 1995. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
, John ConyersJohn ConyersJohn Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
, Major OwensMajor OwensMajor Robert Odell Owens is a New York politician and a prominent member of the Democratic Party. He is also a former Congressman, having represented the state's 11th Congressional district in the United States House of Representatives. He retired at the end of his term in January 2007 and was...
, Sheila Jackson LeeSheila Jackson LeeSheila Jackson Lee is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1995. The district includes most of inner-city Houston. She is a member of the Democratic Party.-Early life and education:... - Former Baltimore Mayor (and current governor of Maryland) Martin J. O'Malley
- Dean also won the backing of lesser-known political figures, such as former Indiana State Senator and 1984 gubernatorial nominee Wayne TownsendWayne TownsendW. Wayne Townsend is a Hartford City farmer and Democratic politician from the U.S. state of Indiana who was his party's gubernatorial nominee in 1984. Townsend was defeated by the incumbent Republican Governor Robert D. Orr in a year in which Indiana joined forty-eight other states in reelecting...
.
Several celebrities from the entertainment industry also endorsed him, including Martin Sheen
Martin Sheen
Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez , better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands and Apocalypse Now , and in the television series The West Wing from 1999 to 2006.He is considered one of the best actors never to be...
, Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner
Robert "Rob" Reiner is an American actor, director, producer, writer, and political activist.As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence as Archie and Edith Bunker's son-in-law, Michael "Meathead" Stivic, on All in the Family. That role earned him two Emmy Awards during the 1970s...
, Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon
Susan Sarandon is an American actress. She has worked in films and television since 1969, and won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1995 film Dead Man Walking. She had also been nominated for the award for four films before that and has received other recognition for her...
, Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
, Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt is an American actor whose career as both a child and adult has included television series and theatrical films....
.
Response
Many pundits would blame such endorsements for the campaign's eventual collapse. In particular, Al GoreAl Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
's early endorsement of Dean weeks before the first primary of the election cycle was severely criticized by eight Democratic contenders particularly since he did not endorse his former running mate, Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.Born in Stamford, Connecticut,...
. Gore supported Dean over Lieberman due to their differing opinions on Iraq which began to develop around 2002 (Lieberman supported the war and Gore did not). When Dean's campaign failed, some blamed Gore's early endorsement.
Disappointing Iowa results and the "Dean Scream" media gaffe
On January 19, 2004, Dean's campaign suffered a staggering blow when a last-minute surge by rivals John KerryJohn Kerry
John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
and John Edwards
John Edwards
Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...
led to a disappointing third-place finish for Dean in the 2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses
2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses
In the United States, the 2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses were the first major test of some of the leading contenders for the Democratic Party's nomination as its candidate for the 2004 presidential election.-Candidates:...
, representing the first votes cast in primary
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
season. Dean's public address that night was widely rebroadcast and portrayed as a media gaffe that ended his campaign.
Dean, who had been suffering with a severe bout of the flu for several days, attended a post-caucus rally for his volunteers at the Val-Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, Iowa and delivered his concession
Concession (politics)
In politics, a concession is the act of a losing candidate publicly yielding to a winning candidate after an election, when the overall result of the vote has become clear.-Refusal to concede:...
speech, aimed at cheering up those in attendance. Dean was shouting over the cheers of his enthusiastic audience, but the crowd noise was being filtered out by his unidirectional microphone, leaving only his full-throated exhortations audible to the television viewers. To those at home, he seemed to raise his voice out of sheer emotion. Additionally, Dean began his speech with a flushed-red face, clenching his teeth as he rolled up his sleeves.
According to a Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
Editorial
Editorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...
written by Verne Gay, some members of the television audience criticized the speech as loud, peculiar, and unpresidential. In particular, this quote from the speech was aired repeatedly in the days following the caucus:
Senator Harkin was on stage with Dean, holding his suit jacket. This final "Yeah!" with its unusual tone that Dean later said was due to the cracking of his hoarse voice, has become known in American political jargon as the "Dean Scream" or the "I Have A Scream" speech.
Late-night comedy show hosts such as Conan O'Brien
Conan O'Brien
Conan Christopher O'Brien is an American television host, comedian, writer, producer and performer. Since November 2010 he has hosted Conan, a late-night talk show that airs on the American cable television station TBS....
and political comedians all over the country immediately began the media mocking onslaught of Howard Dean, which many believe contributed immensely to his poor showing in the subsequent races.
Dean conceded that the speech did not project the best image, jokingly referring to it as a "crazy, red-faced rant" on the Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman
Late Show with David Letterman is a U.S. late-night talk show hosted by David Letterman on CBS. The show debuted on August 30, 1993, and is produced by Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated. The show's music director and band-leader of the house band, the CBS Orchestra, is...
. In an interview later that week with Diane Sawyer
Diane Sawyer
Lila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....
, he said he was "a little sheepish ... but I'm not apologetic." Sawyer and many others in the national broadcast news media later expressed some regret about overplaying the story. In fact, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
issued a public apology and admitted in a statement that they indeed may have "overplayed" the incident. The incessant replaying of the "Dean Scream" by the press became a debate on the topic of whether Dean was the victim of media bias
Media bias
Media bias refers to the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the...
. The scream scene was shown an estimated 633 times by cable and broadcast news networks in just four days following the incident, a number that does not include talk shows and local news broadcasts. However, those who were in the actual audience that day insist that they were not aware of the infamous "scream" until they returned to their hotel rooms and saw it on TV. Dean said after the general election in 2004 that his microphone only picked up his voice and did not also capture the loud cheering he received from the audience as a result of the speech. On January 27 Dean again suffered a defeat, finishing second to Kerry in the New Hampshire primary
New Hampshire primary
The New Hampshire primary is the first in a series of nationwide political party primary elections held in the United States every four years , as part of the process of choosing the Democratic and Republican nominees for the presidential elections to be held the subsequent November.Although only a...
. As late as one week before the first votes were cast in Iowa's caucuses, Dean had enjoyed a 30% lead in New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
opinion polls; accordingly, this loss represented another major setback to his campaign.
Iowa and New Hampshire were only the first in a string of losses for the Dean campaign, culminating in a third place showing in the Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
primary on February 17. Two days before the Wisconsin primary, campaign advisor Steve Grossman
Steven Grossman (political operative)
Steve Grossman is the Treasurer and Receiver-General of Massachusetts.-Education:Grossman received his Bachelor's from Princeton University, and his MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.-Political career:...
"announced" through an article written by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
Dean campaign correspondent Jodi Wilgoren that he would offer his services to any of the other major candidates "should Dean not win in Wisconsin." This "scoop" further undermined Dean's campaign. Grossman later issued a public apology. The next day, Dean announced that his candidacy had "come to an end", though he continued to urge people to vote for him, so that Dean delegates would be selected for the convention and could influence the party platform. He later won the Vermont primary on Super Tuesday
Super Tuesday
In the United States, Super Tuesday, in general, refers to the Tuesday in February or March of a presidential election year when the greatest number of states hold primary elections to select delegates to national conventions at which each party's presidential candidates are officially nominated...
, March 2. This latter victory, a surprise even to Dean, was due in part to the lack of a serious anti-Kerry candidate in Vermont (John Edwards
John Edwards
Johnny Reid "John" Edwards is an American politician, who served as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for Vice President in 2004, and was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 and 2008.He defeated incumbent Republican Lauch Faircloth in...
had declined to put his name on the state's ballot, expecting Dean to win in a landslide), and in part to a television ad produced, funded, and aired in Vermont by grassroots Dean supporters.
Impact
The New York Observer attributed Barack ObamaBarack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
's success in the 2008 U.S. presidential election
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
to his perfection of the Internet organizing model that Dean pioneered.
On October 11, 2007 it was reported that Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer. He has received many awards, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator , and has been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild and the British Academy of Film and Television...
and George Clooney
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...
were in early talks about making a "political thriller" based on Howard Dean's 2004 campaign, tentatively titled Farragut North. The movie, finally titled The Ides of March
The Ides of March (film)
The Ides of March is a 2011 American political drama thriller film directed by George Clooney from a screenplay written by Clooney, along with Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon. The film is an adaptation of Willimon's 2008 play Farragut North...
, was released on October 7, 2011. It is based on the play Farragut North
Farragut North (play)
Farragut North is a 2008 play written by Beau Willimon, loosely based on the 2004 Democratic primary campaign of Howard Dean. The original script won the 2005 Dayton Playhouse FutureFest , where it was first produced, to rave reviews by critics and a warm response from audiences...
, which was named after the Washington Metro station
Farragut North (Washington Metro)
Farragut North is a Washington Metro station in Washington, D.C., on the Red Line.Farragut North serves downtown Washington and is located just north of Farragut Square. It lies at the heart of the business district on Connecticut Avenue, with two entrances at L Street and one at K Street...
located in the center of the lobbyist district. The play was written by Beau Willimon
Beau Willimon
Beau Willimon is a playwright, whose works have been developed and performed at MCC Theater, Ars Nova, HERE Arts Center, the Phoenix Theatre in Arizona, and the Battersea Arts Centre in London....
, a staffer on the Dean campaign. The main character is based on a former press secretary for the Dean campaign.
In November 2008, a documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about Dean and his campaign, Dean and Me
Dean and Me
Dean and Me: Roadshow of an American Primary is a 2008 documentary film about Howard Dean and his 2004 Presidential campaign.The film was directed by Heath Eiden, co-produced by Eiden, Iris Cahn, and Deanna Kamiel, and features Dean, Al Franken, Michael Moore, Ted Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Hillary...
, was released and shown at several film festivals around the country.
Campaign timeline
- May 31, 2002 – Files paperwork to run for 2004 presidential election.
- March 2003 – Campaign signs deal with Meetup.comMeetup.comMeetup is an online social networking portal that facilitates offline group meetings in various localities around the world. Meetup allows members to find and join groups unified by a common interest, such as politics, books, games, movies, health, pets, careers or hobbies...
to integrate Meetup functionality directly into the main page of the campaign website. - June 23, 2003 – Formally announced candidacy for President in 2004.
- November 1, 2003 – Announces "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,".
- November 8, 2003 – Announces intention to forgo federal campaign financing (and hence primary spending limit), following online vote of supporters.
- December 9, 2003 – Receives endorsement from former Vice President Al GoreAl GoreAlbert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
, angering former Gore running mate Joe Lieberman. - January 6, 2004 – Receives endorsement from Bill BradleyBill BradleyWilliam Warren "Bill" Bradley is an American hall of fame basketball player, Rhodes scholar, and former three-term Democratic U.S. Senator from New Jersey. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Party's nomination for President in the 2000 election.Bradley was born and raised in a suburb of St....
, former US senator and Gore's rival for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 2000. - January 15, 2004 – Carol Moseley BraunCarol Moseley BraunCarol Elizabeth Moseley Braun is an American feminist politician and lawyer who represented Illinois in the United States Senate from 1993 to 1999. She was the first and to date only African-American woman elected to the United States Senate, the first woman to defeat an incumbent senator in an...
drops out of the race and announces her support for Dean, saying that "Governor Dean is the candidate best-equipped to bring Americans together, to renew our country, and restore our privacyPrivacyPrivacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
, our libertyLibertyLiberty is a moral and political principle, or Right, that identifies the condition in which human beings are able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions...
and our economic securitySecuritySecurity is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
." - January 19, 2004 – Dean places third in the Iowa Caucus and delivers the infamous "Dean Scream" speech.
- January 28, 2004 – Appoints Roy NeelRoy NeelRoy M. Neel is a Democratic Party operative who served as a top assistant to Vice President Al Gore and President Bill Clinton.-Biography:Raised in Smyrna, Tennessee, Neel joined the United States Navy and served a tour of duty in Vietnam as a photojournalist...
as CEO of his campaign, essentially replacing campaign manager Joe TrippiJoe TrippiJoe Trippi is a long-time American Democratic campaign worker and consultant. A mainstay in presidential politics, Trippi has worked on the presidential campaigns of Edward Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Dick Gephardt, Jerry Brown and most recently John Edwards...
. Trippi resigns after being offered a lesser position. - February 18, 2004 – Dean ends his campaign for president after coming in a distant 3rd place in the Wisconsin primary on February 17, 2004.
- March 2, 2004 – Dean wins a primary in his home state of Vermont.
- March 18, 2004 – Dean launches Democracy for AmericaDemocracy for AmericaDemocracy for America is a progressive, people-powered political action committee, headquartered in South Burlington, Vermont. Founded by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean in 2004, DFA leads public awareness campaigns on a variety of public policy issues, trains activists,...
, an advocacy groupAdvocacy groupAdvocacy groups use various forms of advocacy to influence public opinion and/or policy; they have played and continue to play an important part in the development of political and social systems...
dedicated to returning political power to the community level. - March 25, 2004 – Dean endorses John KerryJohn KerryJohn Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...
.
Post-campaign and Democracy for America
Following Dean's withdrawal after the Wisconsin primary, he pledged to support the eventual Democratic nominee. He remained neutral until John Kerry became the presumptive nomineePresumptive nominee
In politics, the presumptive nominee is a political candidate who is all but assured of his or her party's nomination, but has not yet been formally nominated...
. Dean endorsed Kerry on March 25, 2004, in a speech at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
On March 18, 2004, Dean founded the group Democracy for America
Democracy for America
Democracy for America is a progressive, people-powered political action committee, headquartered in South Burlington, Vermont. Founded by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean in 2004, DFA leads public awareness campaigns on a variety of public policy issues, trains activists,...
. This group was created to house the large, Internet-based organization Dean created for his presidential campaign. Its goal is to help like-minded candidates get elected to local, state, and federal offices. It has endorsed several sets of twelve candidates known as the Dean Dozen
Dean Dozen
The "Dean Dozen" in American politics, was the collective term for six groups of 12 candidates endorsed by Democracy for America, the political action committee led by former Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean, in the 2004 elections....
. Dean turned over control of the organization to his brother, Jim Dean
Jim Dean (DFA)
James H. "Jim" Dean is chair of Democracy for America , the nation's largest political action committee based in Burlington, Vermont.DFA was founded in 2004 after the presidential campaign of Dean's brother, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean. Jim Dean has raised money, given speeches, and...
, when he became Chairman of the Democratic National Committee
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
.
Dean strongly urged his supporters to support Kerry as opposed to Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....
, arguing that a vote for Nader would only help to re-elect President Bush because he believed that most who vote for Nader are likely to have voted for Kerry if Ralph Nader was not running. Dean argued that Nader would be more effective if he lobbied on election law reform issues during his campaign. Dean supported several election law reform issues such as campaign finance reform
Campaign finance reform
Campaign finance reform is the common term for the political effort in the United States to change the involvement of money in politics, primarily in political campaigns....
, and Instant Runoff Voting.
Tenure as DNC Chair
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
on February 12, 2005, after all his opponents dropped out of the race when it became apparent Dean had the votes to become Chair. Those opponents included former Congressman Martin Frost
Martin Frost
Jonas Martin Frost III is an American politician, who was the Democratic representative to the U.S. House of Representatives for Texas's 24th congressional district from 1979 to 2005.-Personal life:...
, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb
Wellington Webb
Wellington E. Webb is a former mayor of Denver, Colorado. He is a graduate of the city's Manual High School. He was Denver's first African-American Mayor.Webb served as mayor of Denver for 12 years, from 1991 to 2003...
, former Congressman and 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer, and strategists Donnie Fowler
Donnie Fowler
Donnie Fowler is an American political activist from Columbia, South Carolina, who now lives in San Francisco. He has worked in the technology, telecommunications, and political world for more than 20 years....
, David Leland, and Simon Rosenberg
Simon Rosenberg
Simon Rosenberg is the founder of the New Democrat Network, an organization formerly allied with the Democratic Leadership Council, and was a candidate for the Democratic National Committee Chair in 2005.-Early life:...
.
Many prominent Democrats opposed Dean's campaign; House Leader Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and served as the 60th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011...
and Senate Leader Harry Reid
Harry Reid
Harry Mason Reid is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S...
are rumored to be among them. Dean satisfied his critics by promising to focus on fundraising and campaigning as DNC Chair, and avoid policy statements. He was succeeded by Tim Kaine
Tim Kaine
Timothy Michael "Tim" Kaine is a Virginia politician. Kaine served as the 70th Governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010, and was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011...
, who at the time of his election was the Governor of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
.
50-state strategy
Swing state
In United States presidential politics, a swing state is a state in which no single candidate or party has overwhelming support in securing that state's electoral college votes...
s, Dean proposed what has come to be known as the 50-State Strategy the goal of which was for the Democratic Party to be committed to winning elections at every level in every region of the country, with Democrats organized in every single voting precinct. State party chairs lauded Dean for raising money directly for the individual state parties.
Dean's strategy used a post-Watergate model taken from the Republicans of the mid-seventies. Working at the local, state and national level, the GOP built the party from the ground up. Dean's plan was to seed the local level with young and committed candidates, building them into state candidates in future races. Dean traveled extensively throughout the country with the plan, including places like Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, and Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, states in which Republicans had dominated the political landscape. Many establishment Democrats were at least initially dubious about the strategy's worth—political consultant and former Bill Clinton advisor, Paul Begala
Paul Begala
Paul Edward Begala is an American political consultant and political commentator. He was an adviser to President Bill Clinton. Begala was a chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, which carried 33 states and made Clinton the first Democrat to win the White House in sixteen years...
, suggested that Dean's plan was "just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose." Further changes were made in attempting to make the stated platform of the Democratic Party more coherent and compact. Overhauling the website, the official platform of the 2004 campaign, which was largely criticized as avoiding key issues and being the product of party insiders, was replaced with a simplified, though comprehensive categorizing of positions on a wide range of issues.
Dean's strategy arguably paid off in a historic victory as the Democrats took over control of the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
and the Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
in the 2006 mid-term elections
United States general elections, 2006
The 2006 United States midterm elections were held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006. All United States House of Representatives seats and one third of the United States Senate seats were contested in this election, as well as 36 state governorships, many state legislatures, four territorial...
. While it is likely this is also attributable to the shortcomings of the Republican Party in their dealings with the Iraq War and the scandals that occurred shortly before the election, Dean's emphasis on connecting with socially conservative, economic moderates in Republican-dominated states appears to have made some impact. Indeed, Democratic candidates won elections in such red states as Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
, and Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
. And while former Clinton strategist James Carville
James Carville
Chester James Carville, Jr. is an American political consultant, commentator, educator, actor, attorney, media personality, and prominent liberal pundit. Carville gained national attention for his work as the lead strategist of the successful presidential campaign of then-Arkansas governor Bill...
criticized Dean's efforts, saying more seats could have been won with the traditional plan of piling money solely into close races, the results and the strategy were met with tremendous approval by the party's executive committee in its December 2006 meeting. While he was chairman of the DCCC, Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel is an American politician and the 55th and current Mayor of Chicago. He was formerly White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama...
was known to have had disagreements over election strategy with Dean; Emanuel believed a more tactical approach, focusing attention on key districts, was necessary to ensure victory. Emanuel himself was criticised for his failure to support some progressive candidates, as Dean advocated.
To build the party, the DNC under Dean worked in partnership with state Democratic parties in bringing the resources of the DNC to bear in electoral efforts, voter registration, candidate recruitment, and other interlocking component elements of party building. Decentralization was also a core component of the party's approach. The idea was that each state party had unique needs, but could improve upon its efforts through the distribution of resources from the national party.
The 50-state strategy was acknowledged by political commentators as an important factor in allowing Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
to compete against John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
in traditionally red states, during the 2008 presidential contest. In 2008, Obama won several states that had previously been considered Republican strongholds, most notably Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Fundraising strategies
Through grassrootsGrassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
fundraising, Howard Dean was able to raise millions more than the previous DNC
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee is the principal organization governing the United States Democratic Party on a day to day basis. While it is responsible for overseeing the process of writing a platform every four years, the DNC's central focus is on campaign and political activity in support...
Chairman at the same point after the 2000 election. The year after his election, Dean had raised the most money by any DNC Chairman in a similar post election period. This was especially apparent when the Federal Election Commission reported that the DNC had raised roughly $86.3 million in the first six months of 2005, an increase of over 50% on the amount raised during the same period of 2003. In comparison, the RNC fundraising activities represented a gain of only 2%. Additional attempts to capitalize on this trend was the introduction of "Democracy Bonds," a program under which small donors would give a set amount every month. Although it only reached over 31,000 donors by May 2006, far off-pace from the stated goal of 1 million by 2008, it nonetheless contributed to a new small-donor funding philosophy of the DNC. Dean continued to further develop online fundraising at the DNC. Just one month before Election Day 2006, he became the first to introduce the concept of a "grassroots match," where donors to the DNC pledged to match the first donation made by a new contributor. The DNC stated that the resulting flood of contributions led to 10,000 first-time donors in just a few days.
Private career
In a January 2009 interview with the Associated Press, Dean indicated he would enter the private sector after 30 years in politics. Dean told the AP he would deliver speeches and share ideas about campaigns and technology with center-left political parties around the world. When asked about not being selected for a position in the Obama administration, Dean responded, "Obviously, it would have been great, but it's not happening and the president has the right to name his own Cabinet, so I'm not going to work in the government it looks like." When asked how he felt about not being selected, Dean replied he would "punt on that one."The AP and Politico
Politico (newspaper)
The Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...
both reported that supporters of Dean were angry that he wasn't asked to be a part of the new administration . According to Politico , Dean supporters were especially upset Dean wasn't invited to the press conference at which Tim Kaine was appointed as Democratic National Committee chairman . Joe Trippi
Joe Trippi
Joe Trippi is a long-time American Democratic campaign worker and consultant. A mainstay in presidential politics, Trippi has worked on the presidential campaigns of Edward Kennedy, Walter Mondale, Gary Hart, Dick Gephardt, Jerry Brown and most recently John Edwards...
, who was Dean’s presidential campaign manager in 2004, told Politico, "[Dean] was never afraid to challenge the way party establishment in Washington did business, and that doesn’t win you friends in either party." Trippi further explained the apparent snub of Dean by stating, "You don’t have to look any further than Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel is an American politician and the 55th and current Mayor of Chicago. He was formerly White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama...
." Trippi was referring to the tension between Emanuel and Dean over Dean's 50 state strategy. Sources close to Emanuel dismissed these charges, however .
Dean told Chris Matthews
Chris Matthews
Christopher John "Chris" Matthews is an American news anchor and political commentator, known for his nightly hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, which is televised on the American cable television channel MSNBC...
on MSNBC’s "Hardball" that "I didn't do this for the spoils. I did this for the country. I'm very happy that Barack Obama is president, and I think he's picked a great Cabinet. And I'm pretty happy. I wouldn't trade my position for any other position right now. I'm going to go into the private sector, make a living making speeches, and do a lot of stuff on health care policy."
After the withdrawal of Tom Daschle
Tom Daschle
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Daschle is a former U.S. Senator from South Dakota and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
's nomination for the position, Dean had been touted by many for the post of Secretary of Health and Human Services. After being passed over for the post once again, Dean told the Huffington Post, "I was pretty clear that I would have liked to have been Secretary of HHS but it is the president's choice and he decided to go in a different direction."
Dean is a contributor to financial news network CNBC
CNBC
CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...
, and also a frequent guest on sister network MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
in shows such as The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell and he has also guest hosted Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Countdown with Keith Olbermann is an hour-long weeknight news and political commentary program that airs on Current TV, where it began airing on June 20, 2011. The program was broadcast on MSNBC from March 31, 2003, to January 21, 2011. On MSNBC, the show presented five selected news stories of...
and The Rachel Maddow Show
The Rachel Maddow Show (TV series)
The Rachel Maddow Show is a news and opinion television program that airs weeknights on MSNBC at 9:00 p.m. ET. It is hosted by Rachel Maddow, who gained popularity with her frequent appearances as a liberal pundit on various MSNBC programs. It is based on her former radio show of the same name...
. He is currently on the board of the National Democratic Institute.
Further reading
- Dean, Howard. Howard Dean's Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009. ISBN 1-60358-228-2
- Dean, Howard. You Have the Power: How to Take Back Our Country and Restore Democracy in America. Simon & Schuster, 2004. ISBN 0-7432-7013-4
- Dean, Howard. Winning Back America. Simon & Schuster, 2003. ISBN 0-7432-5571-2
- Dunnan, Dana. Burning at the Grassroots: Inside the Dean Machine. Pagefree (vanity press), 2004. ISBN 1-58961-261-2
- Trippi, Joe. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. ReganBooks, 2004. ISBN 0-06-076155-5
- Van Susteren, Dirk. Howard Dean: A Citizen's Guide to the Man Who Would Be President. Steerforth, 2003. ISBN 1-58642-075-5
Official
- Democracy for America
- Blog for America
- DFA Link
- Weekly syndicated column
- Democratic National Committee
Interviews
- Video: Interview with Stephen Colbert (May 16, 2007)
- Video: Howard Dean Interview with NOW (PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
, August 2008) - Video: Howard Dean on His Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform (Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
, July 17, 2009) - Video: Howard Dean Discusses Healthcare and His New Book on Healthcare Reform (Talk with Tim, July 24, 2009)
Speeches, appearances
- Video: Howard Dean Delivers the Keynote Address at Yearly Kos (June 10, 2006)
- Video: Dean's Iowa Caucus Rally (SFGate, January 2004)
- Video: Dean addresses the European Socialists (August 2009)
- Video: Howard Dean's Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform: How We Can Achieve Affordable Medical Care for Every American and Make Our Jobs Safer (July 24, 2009) - book tour presentation at Powell's Books in Portland, OregonPortland, OregonPortland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
Other
- Photo: official portrait of Howard Dean at the Vermont State HouseVermont State HouseThe Vermont State House, located in Montpelier, is the state capitol of Vermont and the seat of the Vermont General Assembly. The current Greek Revival structure is the third building on the same site to be used as the State House...
(Sara Lovering, 2004) - E-Democracy's Top 50 Howard Dean Links (2004)
- List of contributors to Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign (Newsmeat)
- Dean's genealogy (includes King James IV of ScotlandJames IV of ScotlandJames IV was King of Scots from 11 June 1488 to his death. He is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs of Scotland, but his reign ended with the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Flodden Field, where he became the last monarch from not only Scotland, but also from all...
)