• Former Democratic Governor of Vermont and 2004 Democratic failed presidential hopeful
• Outspoken opponent of the War in Iraq and the Patriot Act
• Supports racial preferences in employment and college admissions
• Supports a $2 trillion tax hike for social programs
• “On my first day in [the President’s] office, I will tear up the Bush doctrine [of pre-emption] and rebuild a foreign policy consistent with American values.”
• Named DNC Chairman in February 2005
  
  

Dean’s popularity was fueled, in large part, by his blunt, “shoot-from-the-hip” speaking style, which he employed to great effect in delivering many blistering attacks on President Bush. As one New York Times story put it, Dean “rouses rabid audiences against President George W. Bush.” These attacks had great appeal to what a Wall Street Journal columnist called members of the “Angry Left” – those who detested President Bush for having “stolen” the 2000 election, and who resented his subsequent popularity with Americans.

Among other things, Dean accused the Bush administration’s foreign policy of having turned the “tidal wave of support and goodwill that engulfed us after the tragedy of 9/11” into “distrust, skepticism, and hostility” that “could well take decades to repair.” Bitterly opposed to Operation Iraqi Freedom, Dean asserted that the President’s “rhetoric” fell “short of making a credible case that Iraq present[ed] an imminent threat to vital U.S. interests.” In his view, military force would have been a legitimate option only if supported by the UN – the same organization whose myriad resolutions Saddam Hussein had ignored for twelve years. Instead of seeing the Iraq war as America’s response to Saddam’s protracted non-cooperation, Dean depicted it as a “pre-emptive war” that was “wrong for America” and set “a dangerous precedent.” “On my first day in [the President’s] office,” he pledged, “I will tear up the Bush doctrine [of pre-emption] and rebuild a foreign policy consistent with American values.”

Dean partially blamed the United States for having brought the wrath of terrorists upon itself. “One reason America has been targeted by terrorists,” he said, “is that our nation is the preeminent world power. With this power comes great responsibility. . . . The Bush Administration does not seem to understand that true leadership requires creating global institutions and arrangements that help lift people’s lives, improve prospects for peace, and enhance respect for the rule of law.” He stressed the importance of allowing “world opinion” to help shape foreign policy decisions, and exhorted our leaders to avoid “stirring resentment . . . especially in the Arab and Muslim worlds.” 

By contrast, Dean was a strong proponent of sending American troops to depose Liberian dictator Charles Taylor. “The situation in Liberia is exactly the opposite” to what prevailed in Iraq, he explained, because in Liberia there was “an imminent threat of serious human catastrophe” – thus making military intervention “an appropriate use of American power.” Presumably he saw nothing catastrophic about the situation wherein Saddam’s regime had tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens, sent additional multitudes to die in political prisons, poisoned and bombed thousands of Kurds, virtually exterminated the Marsh Arabs, and given financial backing to such terror groups as Hamas.

During his campaign, Dean characterized Republicans as individuals inclined to trample on the civil rights of African Americans. At a fortieth anniversary commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington, he lamented that “Dr. King’s dream is being attacked by an administration that seeks to unravel the decades of improvements made on civil rights and gaining equal rights for all Americans . . . an administration that seeks to divide us once again by race, gender, sexual orientation, and income.”

Regarding the Supreme Court’s 1993 rulings on affirmative action, Dean said, “I am delighted that the Supreme Court has upheld the principle of affirmative action in education. This was a victory for the civil rights of all Americans. The Bush Administration had urged the Court to reverse course in the nation’s historic march to equality, but the Court’s majority wisely refused to do so.”

Dean was also harshly critical of the Patriot Act, the anti-terrorism bill instituted after the 9/11 attacks. “Too many in my party voted for the Patriot Act. We need more Democrats who are willing to stand against Bush’s reckless disregard for our civil liberties.” Yet while condemning the Patriot Act’s alleged “big government” attributes, Dean himself is the very embodiment of a big-government, tax-and-spend politician. He advocated reversing President Bush’s tax cuts, which he characterized as benefiting primarily “the top 2 percent” of earners. “People know the Bush tax cuts were hooey,” he said.

Dean promised to use the revenues from his proposed tax hike to fund a universal health care plan projected to cost $88 billion per year. This would not have been Dean’s first sojourn into the world of socialized medicine. During his tenure as Vermont governor, reports The New Republic, Dean “work[ed] closely with the Clinton team and champion[ed] for Vermont a ‘managed competition’ scheme similar to the one the administration was pushing for the country as a whole.”

As governor of Vermont, Dean supported his state’s “civil unions” law allowing gay and lesbian couples to participate in a formal ceremony that confers on them all the legal benefits of marriage. He called this “in many ways the most important event in my political life.” “As president of the United States,” he says, “I will recognize civil unions, which will then allow full equality under the law as far as the federal government is concerned.” 

In education, Dean opposed the new school-testing demands of President Bush’s education plan, which focused on teacher and school accountability. He even went so far as to urge his state to consider rejecting $26 million in federal education money, so as to escape the accountability requirements attached to what he called Bush’s “terribly flawed bill.”

In late 2003, fellow Democrat Joseph Lieberman said this about Dean: “A candidate who was opposed to the war against Saddam, who has called for the repeal of all of the Bush tax cuts – which would result in an increase in taxes on the middle class – I believe will not offer the kind of leadership America needs to meet the challenges that we face today.” “If George Bush and his bankrupt ideology are the problem,” Lieberman added, “old Democratic policies like higher taxes and weakness on defense are not the solution.” In a similar vein, Democratic Leadership Council chairman Evan Bayh said, “The Democratic Party is in danger of being taken over by the far left.”

On February 12, 2005, Howard Dean won the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), beating out nearly a dozen rivals for the party’s top leadership position. “Today will be the beginning of the re-emergence of the Democratic Party,” he told hundreds of cheering DNC members who gathered at the Washington Hilton to support him as he prepared to launch his tenure as DNC chairman. “The first thing we have to do is stand up for what we believe in.” Warning his audience that “you cannot trust Republicans with your money,” he called President Bush's plan for saving Social Security “a dishonest scheme” that would leave “a legacy of debt that our children do not deserve.” “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for,” he added. While meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Dean joked: “You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room?
Only if they had the hotel staff in here.”