NJ Governor's Endorsement Gives Dean Centrist Boost
McGreevey Endorses Dean, Giving Him Centrist Boost (excerpts)
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI New York Times - December 20, 2003

TRENTON, Dec. 19 - Gov. James E. McGreevey snatched a rare moment on the stage of national Democratic politics on Friday when he became the first sitting governor to endorse the presidential candidacy of Howard Dean. Mr. McGreevey, who has struggled this year with low approval ratings and several significant policy setbacks, appeared buoyant as he described how both he and Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, had fought to preserve education financing while contending with severe budget problems.

Speaking before a group of 600 New Jersey union leaders, elected officials and local party stalwarts, Mr. McGreevey said that Dr. Dean was committed to addressing the concerns of middle-class families. "We need a leader who believes the three most important things in America are the economy, the environment and the education of our children," Mr. McGreevey said.

New Jersey has a late primary date, June 8, which means that the race for the nomination will most likely be decided before the state's voters head to the polls. Nonetheless, Mr. McGreevey's endorsement gives Dr. Dean several advantages as he tries to solidify his status as the Democratic front-runner. Mr. McGreevey, a skilled fund-raiser who commands a powerful campaign organization, is also a member the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. His endorsement could help Dr. Dean counter arguments that he is too liberal to attract support from mainstream Democrats. [Complete Article]

 

In defense of Dean: He's playing it straight
Letters To The Editor: The Cleveland Plain Dealer 12/18/03

I am writing regarding the David Brooks column 'Dean makes it up as he goes along' (Dec. 10). Brooks does not know Howard Dean. Dean grew up in the city, but he spent his summers in the country. He went to boarding school in the country and has always preferred the country to the city.

He does believe our troops need to come home, but that to pull out would be irresponsible. We could establish better relations with the United Nations and not insist on running everything in Iraq. Then we could bring in U.N. troops to relieve our troops. That is where he is coming from. Everything is not black and white.

What he said before about Medicare was that it was a mess because it was very poorly managed. What President George W. Bush is doing is privatizing it. Dean finds that to be objectionable. Dean is neither liberal nor conservative, so there is no use trying to put him in a slot. I have met him twice and have been a Dean supporter for six months, so I can tell you almost everything he has ever said. I get tired of the media taking a few sentences out of context and stringing them into an opinion that they can distribute to the masses.

Carol Quillen Haas
Kent


Not long ago, Forum page contributor David Brooks assured us that there is no cronyism involved with the Bush administration giving Halliburton a billion-dollar-plus, no- bid, open-ended contract in Iraq. Why? Because he says it is just not worth bidding over. Oh, really?

Now, in "Dean makes it up as he goes along," Brooks wastes no time demonizing the emerging Democratic front-runner, Howard Dean.

Brooks wraps his contention that Dean is a shameless liar around Dean's associating him self with rural folk. Apparently, being governor of a rural state is not good enough credentials. Brooks feigns personal affront because he, it so happens, is true rural folk. That's right, a regular columnist at the New York Times claiming expertise on international and national affairs is somehow rural folk while Dean is not. Oh, really?

Brooks gives us a laundry list of policy changes that Dean has made since becoming a presidential candidate. Well, yes. Dean is a politician, and moving from a rural constituency to a national constituency is going to require a much broader policy outlook. That is far more comforting than a governor from a rabidly conservative state like Texas imposing ideological fantasies of right- wing purity on an unsuspecting and stunned nation.

Brooks says that Dean waffles, but Dean was one of very few politicians who opposed the Iraq war on principle from the start, a career-making-or-breaking move.

Brooks is an attack dog bent on maintaining the fraud and gross mismanagement that has become emblematic of the Bush administration.

Paul Crouser
Bay Village

 

Howard Dean's New Social Contract
by Ryan Lizza - The New Republic / CBS News | Dec. 18, 2003 (excerpts)

As has been the case throughout his campaign, Dean has reversed the usual political calculus, offering relatively moderate proposals while positioning himself as outside the mainstream Democratic establishment.

When Howard Dean delivered his big foreign policy address in Los Angeles last Monday, coverage of a speech meant to plant him firmly in the Democratic mainstream was dominated by a single, easy-to-caricature line: "The capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer." Dean added the line to the speech at the last minute. "The governor penciled that line in himself," says a senior aide. "Technically, he's right, but you just might not want to say it that way."

Indeed, the next day, the press, almost every other Democratic candidate, and much of the conservative echo chamber trashed Dean for the supposed gaffe. But, rather than retract the line, Dean actually made it a part of his stump speech, stubbornly arguing in Arizona the following day, "I hope very much this [Saddam's capture] will begin to diminish attacks on our troops, but I do not think it will make America's homeland safer."

For good or ill, Dean does not back down, even - especially - when everyone else thinks he's on the losing side of an argument. Next up: the future of the Democratic Party. [Complete Article]

 

Dean: Bush Hasn't Made Us Safer
Democrat Dean Stands by Comments on Saddam
By John Milne - Reuters, December 18, 2003 (excerpts)

Howard Dean, the leading Democrat in contention to retake the White House in 2004, on Thursday stood by his claim that Saddam Hussein's capture did not make America safer, saying it was too early to declare victory in the war on terror.

Dean's comments this week that America was no safer with Saddam in captivity triggered a firestorm of criticism from his Washington-based rivals for the Democratic nomination, who questioned the former governor's foreign policy expertise and electability. But Dean, whose outspoken opposition to the war helped fuel his rise to the top of the polls in the early primary state New Hampshire and nationally, was quick to fire back.

"We must make it clear that the capture of one truly bad man cannot mean the president and the Washington Democrats can declare victory in the war on terror," he said. The greater threats, Dean said, included the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea and the possibility that terrorists could smuggle weapons of mass destruction past a patchy border defense.

"The Iraq war has diverted tremendous resources and intelligence from these problems," Dean said before delivering a planned economic speech that included a populist call for greater corporate tax burdens and closer regulation of big business. [Complete Article].