More on Dean

I am doing some research on Dean for a column, and have found the following:

Dean on healthcare:

Gov. Howard Dean, the only Governor who is a doctor, signed a law here today that sets in motion a plan to give Vermont universal health care by 1995.

Source: NYT, 5/12/192

Dean on Welfare Reform:

The way Gov. Howard Dean tells it, he had no choice but to leap in front of the speeding locomotive. He studied the landscape, he said, spotted no other Democrat poised to derail the GOP's welfare-reform juggernaut and concluded that he alone must bestride the tracks.

In an unlikely role for a little-known governor from the third-smallest state, Dean lurched from near obscurity onto the national stage two weeks ago by slamming House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia and 15 GOP governors, including Gov. Weld, for privately negotiating a drastic welfare overhaul.

"They must be smoking opium in the speaker's office," said Dean, who until then had kept a low profile as chairman of the National Governors' Association.

Source: The Boston Globe 1/28/95

Dean said poor children whose parents were lopped from the welfare rolls would suffer.

"When Americans elected the new majority," Dean said, "they voted to do things in a new way, but I don't think they voted to starve children."

Source: The Boston Globe 1/10/95

And, of course, there's the Civil Union thing, the anti-Iraq war stance, universal health care stance and his desire to raise taxes.

I am not sure if it will be all that easy for Dean to claim the middle, to be honest.

Wanting to balance the budget, being pro-gun and having had a recent change of heart on the death penalty in some cases isn't likely to cut it.

We shall see.

Posted by Steven Taylor at August 4, 2024 03:06 PM | TrackBack