Howard Dean

Howard Dean (2006)

Howard Brush Dean III. (Born November 17, 1948 in New York City ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . He was from 1991 to 2002 Governor of Vermont and applied unsuccessfully to the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in 2004. From 2005 to 2009 he was the Democratic National Committee , the party organization of Democrats before and was responsible for the 50-state strategy , with which the Democrats won the national elections in 2006 and 2008 with successes in traditionally republican states.

childhood and education

Dean grew up in East Hampton , a village in Suffolk County , and went including in Manhattan and Middletown ( Rhode Iceland ) to school. His father was a stockbroker and his mother an art enthusiast and they were both affiliated with the Republican Party .

Dean graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in political science in 1971 . In 1978 he received his doctorate and his license to practice medicine at the Albert Einstein University of Medicine in New York.

Political beginnings and governorship

In 1980, Dean's political activities began with the leading participation in a citizens' initiative that campaigned against buildings on Lake Champlain and for bike paths. In 1982 Dean became a member of the Vermont House of Representatives . He was elected lieutenant governor in 1986 and re-elected in 1988 and 1990. He continued to practice as a doctor from 1981 to 1991; after 1991 he devoted himself entirely to his political career.

When Governor Richard A. Snelling died in 1991, Dean took over the governor's office until 2002. He took office during a recession and partly pursued a conservative and restrictive financial policy. However, social concerns were not ignored: During his tenure as governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2002, Dean worked several times actively in committees of the American parliament on medical and health issues. The best known was the "Dr. Dynasaur" project, a publicly financed fund to provide children and pregnant women with comprehensive health insurance . The number of uninsured people fell from 12.7% to 9.6% during his tenure and the teen pregnancy rate halved. During his tenure, he had a balanced national budget for 11 years.

Dean pursued a social policy of compromise between Democrats and Republicans. He advocated extensive abortion rights and passed the possibility of marriage in homosexual unions , but defended the poorly restricted gun law in his country and did not oppose the death penalty in serious cases.

Presidential candidacy

Howard Dean announcing his presidential candidacy (June 2003)

Dean ran on June 23, 2003 for the official nomination of the Democratic Party for the election of the 44th President of the United States of America .

His candidacy is likely to go down in history as the first example of an election campaign based largely on the Internet. Through his Internet election campaign , a combination of weblog , online campaign donations and the online organization of meetings of his supporters, he managed to mobilize a large and motivated following from March 2003 to February 2004 and in September 2003 the fundraising record of Bill Breaking Clinton . Dean also saw the way of the election campaign via grassroots movements as a means against the influence of lobby groups. His campaign budget, however, remained far below the financial resources of Republican favorite George W. Bush .

Before Dean's presidential candidacy in America, Dean's political orientation was not associated with leftist theses. At the beginning of the official candidacy, Dean was still hesitant about the Iraq war. While other Democratic candidates had little criticism of then President George W. Bush , he confronted Bush increasingly openly in the primary campaign. He sharply criticized the Iraq campaign and the government's rich tax cut plans, calling Bush a malevolent person who "humiliates" all friends abroad. He also criticized his own party and democratic competitors and referred to some of the competitors as "Bush Lite". In March 2003 he criticized z. B. Members of the Democratic Party in Support of the Iraq War.

Well in the running as a favorite, Dean lost the presidential primaries due to an incident known in the US as the "Dean Scream". Dean had after a flu a large group of supporters in Val-Air Ballroom in West Des Moines ( Iowa ) made a speech in which he, due to the large volume of the campaigners and supporters, had to speak very loudly. However, since his microphone filtered out the noise of the audience, TV viewers only heard his voice, which was still shrill and very loud because of the flu. In addition, he started his speech with a red face. Especially the statement

“Not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, but we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York ... and we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan, and then we're going to Washington, DC to get the White House back! Yeah! "

was described as unworthy by the media and the last exclamation was perceived as shrill by viewers. The recording of the address was broadcast 633 times on national television in just four days. Dean's confident and humorous handling of the matter made those responsible in the broadcasters officially regret it because of the excessive criticism. B. CNN even sent an apology for the exaggerated presentation of the speech, but the "Dean-Scream" probably did Dean a lot.

Dean characterized himself as a rather reserved and liberal democrat whose beliefs did not determine his politics. He is in favor of women ’s freedom of choice ( pro-choice ) in matters of abortion and - in contrast to Bill Clinton, for example - against the death penalty with a few exceptions . During his time in the 2004 presidential election campaign, Dean campaigned for social issues such as comprehensive health insurance especially for children but also for adults ( MediCare ) and a higher literacy rate and equal opportunities for minorities ( affirmative action ).

In contrast to other candidates, Dean's election campaign was not shaped by events such as jogging for the cameras and warm relationships with the journalists. The star wrote in his portrait of Dean, he "has all the features that makes a miserable presidential candidate: He's cocky and brusquely and openly says what he thinks." Its specific style of politics was, among other things with that of Oskar Lafontaine compared.

On February 18, 2004, he withdrew his candidacy due to insufficient voter support in the primary elections ( Primaries ) after he was traded as a favorite for a long time and then supported the Democratic candidate John Kerry .

After the lost candidacy

After the end of his candidacy, he converted his campaign platform into a support organization for democratic candidates at all political levels ( Democracy for America ), with the aim of breaking Republican supremacy in Congress and Senate again in the medium term. The then Senate candidate and later US President Barack Obama was also among those who supported Democracy for America . On February 12, 2005, Dean was elected by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as the new chairman of the party by a large majority. He held this office until January 21, 2009, before handing it over to the Governor of Virginia , Tim Kaine , proposed by the new US President Barack Obama . During his tenure, Dean set the course for a better positioning of the party in election campaigns, for example by continuing his 50-state strategy (which should help to lift the cementation into red states and blue states ) and the implementation of the grassroots organization in canvassing , for example the promotion of members of his own presidential campaign such as Robby Mook , who later became Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign manager, on the DNC staff.

Private

Dean currently resides in Burlington , Vermont. He is married to Judith Steinberg-Dean and has two children with her. He belongs to the Protestant United Church of Christ .

Web links

Commons : Howard Dean  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Howard Dean in the database of the National Governors Association (English)
• The challenger - Howard Dean: Thanks to the Internet, from underdog to star candidate . Telepolis

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Cloud: The cool passion of Dr. Dean. In: Time . August 3, 2003, accessed June 13, 2010 . 
2. ↑ lookin'up newsletter fall 2002, p. 8. ( Memento of the original from June 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 200 kB)  
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Howard Dean - He wants to turn America inside out . Stern.de, March 1, 2005.
4. ↑ The common wisdom of common media is: obedience.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Zmag.de, March 13, 2003.  
5. ↑ Howard Dean's speech of March 15, 2003 in the English language Wikisource
6. ↑ see video of the Dean-Scream YouTube
7. ↑ Eric Salzman: Dean's Scream: Not What It Seemed. CBS News, January 26, 2004, accessed June 13, 2010 . 
8. ↑ The scream that left us blind . ( Memento of the original from October 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Loyola Phoenix, 11/2/04. Retrieved November 27, 2006.  
9. ^ Ingar Solty : A Left Party for the USA? In: The argument. 262, pp. 469-472.