'Dean Divers' Search Vermont Records

[LizW]

By ROSS SNEYD
Associated Press Writer

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- For hours on end, they camp out at the state archives housed in an 1890 mansion, scouring public records, documents and correspondences in a search of crucial details about former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the Democratic presidential front-runner.

State officials have dubbed them "Dean Divers."

With Dean's surge in the presidential race, an increasing number of representatives from rival campaigns, the news media and even Dean aides have descended upon the archives, wading through thousands of pages of material from the former governor's nearly 12 years in office.

"We've gotten requests for everything, every piece of paper," Vermont Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz said.

This effort to compile a dossier on Dean - either to use against him or to boost his candidacy - extends beyond the archives in the secretary of state's office. Some searchers have spent hours at Chittenden Community Television, watching public access television tapes of Dean's news conferences and debates.

This is freaky. Hours upon hours spent digging for dirt. something tells me folks are taking Dean very, very seriously.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DEAN_DIVERS?SITE=NHCON&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Sorry for the long link.

[demdave]

1. I guess we have to work up an appetite before we eat our own.

Why let the Reps do the shovel work when we are more than willing to get our hands dirty. What ever happen to the issues????

[Guaranteed]

4. Well, they say politics is just show business

for ugly people.

[Mairead]

10. "What ever happen to the issues????"

We've been repeatedly assured that it's not about the issues, it's about The Campaign.

[demdave]

24. By who? I am not convinced. The voters are out there for the issues.

The problem is that all we are giving them is negativity and petty bickering. All the foolish selected not elected rhetoric, the endless Hitler and Nazi allusions, the cutesy shrub and chimpy names...all of the childish name calling games may play well on boards like this but it does not attract the voters. Issues with plans and answers, not merely complaints and finger pointing, will get our candidates elected.


My rant for the day. I don't see the face of the Dem party changing before the election. It has been put there by activists, like on this board, that complain and condemn and offer no real solutions. Every new solution offered for a problem is just a new opportunity to complain. I fear this will come back to us in the big one of 2004.


But what do I know, after all, the election machines and the elections are already fixed...right?

[Upfront]

30. Ah Shit

It is not the end, it is the start of a new way in America, have some faith. Vote Dean and we will take our flag back.

[Zhade]

33. "Get over it!"

All the foolish selected not elected rhetoric...

It's hardly foolish rhetoric that 90,000+ voters were illegally removed from the voter rolls with the assistance of Katherine Harris, co-chair of The Traitor's Florida campaign, who later illegally stopped the recount.

It's also not foolish rhetoric that the USSC made a one-time partisan ruling based, ironically, on a bullshit interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

None of what went down in Florida - the collection of these and other actions which has rightly been concluded a coup by many brilliant researchers, lawyers, and others - is "foolish rhetoric". Bush stole the election. The facts prove this.

Please, remember this. Your other points have merit. This one does not.

[Mairead]

35. Sorry, I thought my irony was more obvious

I totally agree with you that the issues are --or damned well should be!!-- the most important thing, followed closely by record. That's why I support Dennis.

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. this happens to everyone

When you run for president, expect to be scrutinized.

Hell, I used to rummage through the trash of local legislators for my investigative journalism class. I can only imagine what people are looking through on a national level.

[Bozola]

3. They're looking for another Willy Horton

...and ANYTHING will do, even if they have to make it up.

[demdave]

5. But the "they" is us.

[goforit]

7. Betcha 10 to 1 most of them are Bushies!!!

the Bushies are scared to death of Dean!!

Gepthart is Karl Rove's favorite and are doing everything to
pump him up!!!

[RaRa]

11. It's the Repuke way

During Clinton's first campaign, my boss at work (she headed the DC office) said that the Repukes had nearly 40 people on their opposition research team. We had 2 or 3 (I can't recall exactly.) Telling, though.

[Bozola]

9. Only some of them are from the Dean Campaign.

The DLC I *hardly* consider "one of us".

[Voltaire99]

27. Dave is correct

Worry less about the Repukes and the pukes who lead the Democratic Party. They're the first gauntlet Dean has to run.

[goforit]

6. Yep, they'll make it up ..so why bother?....It's the GOP way!!!

Stand firm against the tide DUrs!!!

But nothing can be worse than the blood lust Dictator we have now!

[9119495]

8. Better to get the skeletons out now

after all it is Holloween season.

If Dean (my candidate) does have a troubling past, I want to know now so it can be determined if he can still beat Bush. If he was a crackhead, I don't want Fox news to break the story this time next year. Thus, let the divers dive into all our candidates campaigns.

[Mairead]

12. Yup. That's the good-sense position. If there's a problem, find out now.

Because it certainly isn't going to get better with age!

[bsiebs]

13. * is a crackhead and it didnt hurt him...

Hell, the Crack Head of State didn't have a problem with his drug past, it doesn't seem fair to hold it against anyone else...

[9119495]

15. Uh...Check the facts

He was in to powder cocaine. That's like totally different from crack. Powder cocaine is for rich, white, Yale guys and has minor punishments for offenders.

Crack is affordable and has high penalties. It is not for the sons of presidents.

(of course, this is sarcasm)

[Tippy]

17. Chances are we won't hear about anything they find

until we are deep into the election...<"If Dean (my candidate) does have a troubling past, I want to know now so it can be determined if he can still beat Bush."> My bet is it will be well after the primaries...before they break anything really damaging....Of course they could feed some of what they find , if anything, to other Democratic Candidates...

[Rose Siding]

21. They've been at it for months

There was an article about a woman from Gep's campaign doing the same thing. And another with similar quotes from VT officials about how many have been there investigating.

The Dems would have found (and used) anything they could pass off as damaging.

[GainesT1958]

14. I'm reminded of another story another Dean--John Dean--told...

In his bood, "Blind Ambition". It was told to him by J. Edgar Hoover, and it was one of the few times he--or I--have ever agreed with Mr. Hoover.

It involved Jack Anderson, one of the "deans" of Washington invistigative reporters. Hoover told John Dean that, for several days, he noticed Jack Anderson rumaging through his garbage cans. Hoover claimed that Anderson took out the paper that his Scotties had dumped on to find personal papers buried beneath them. "Therefore, Mr. Dean, I have conclusive proof. Jack Anderson will go lower than dog excrement for a story!"

That would be the nature, I'm sure, of many of those "investigative" types rumaging through Howard Dean's papers, and even the tapes of his public and local access TV appearances. A lot of them would also go lower than dog excrement for a story.

B-)

[janx]

16. This is hilarious. One of Dean's favorite books is

All of the President's Men by Robert Penn Warren. It highlights the extents to which politicians will go to dig up dirt on other politicians! (It's basically the story of Huey Long.)

"...there is always something."

[Merlin]

18. You mean "All the KING'S Men". You're right. They'll dig and find...

something to blow into a broadside and distort into a national scandal.

[janx]

32. Yes, DUH--I can't believe I wrote that.

It was ALL THE KING'S MEN. I saw Dean refer to it once in a campaign video.

[w4rma]

19. Again the "news" media prints a smear without the Democratic response

…
This effort to compile a dossier on Dean either to use against him or to boost his candidacy extends beyond the archives in the secretary of state's office. Some searchers have spent hours at Chittenden Community Television, watching public access television tapes of Dean's news conferences and debates.

Jess Wilson, channel director at the station, said one woman from rival Dick Gephardt's campaign spent the better part of a summer day watching tapes of news conferences in the 1990s, when Dean discussed budget cuts and Medicare. Since then, Gephardt has accused Dean of changing positions on some issues.

"Some of the flip-flop stuff Gephardt's been talking about sounds awfully familiar," Wilson said.
…
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20031021_717.html

The "news" media would *never* publish anything like that about Bush without also publishing a response from Bush. But, they publish this crap on Dean and other Democrats. Here is Dean's response which should have gotten at least a quote in this article:

Gephardt's Attacks: Out of Context and Out of Line

Dick Gephardt has turned his negative campaign machine on fellow Democrat Howard Dean, blatantly misrepresenting Dr. Dean’s positions on the vital issues of Medicare and Social Security. The Governor believes that Iowans and Americans deserve a campaign based on a real discussion of ideas, and that only by providing hope in the face of the Bush administration’s campaign of fear will a Democrat be able to lead the Party to take our country back.
…
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=community_labor_response

[GinaMaria]

20. I smell Rove n/t

[JackSwift]

22. And we should be doing the same for all our local fascist

politicians. Do you guys have clip files on local right wingers? They do get promoted over time.

[wabeewoman]

23. I'm not worried.

Anything ANY demo may have done pales compared to the ammo that bush has given us. Anything we have done, bush has done and more. I hope Dean remembers that and hits back hard at bush's 'inconsistencies'. Our biggest problem is going to be the media and their spin. So Dean/Clark will have to come out with soundbites they will use that will discredit the gist of the story-like Clinton/Carville etc did. And I think we will have to write tons of letters to the editor and call in to radio/tv. We have to try to offset the effect of the media which will be all bush all the time.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

34. But if Dean has sealed his records we don't know what he's done

unless you know what's in them?

[Cocoa]

25. is this a surprise to anyone?

why wouldn't this be happening?

The Kerry divers go all the way back to the Nixon administration, and they were the first to show up on DU.

[David Zephyr]

26. And The Republicans Want Us to Believe They're Afraid of Gephardt?

It's obviously the Governor and Doctor and Fundraiser Howard Dean they are afraid of, right?

[Upfront]

31. Right!

[tinnypriv]

28. Sounds like the repugs really want Dean

:eyes:

[NewYorkerfromMass]

29. good luck with the sealed governor's records. nt

[Bridget Burke]

36. Sadly, there are no "Bush Divers" in Texas

(Hmmm, that phrase sounds a bit risque...)

Our former Governor had his papers sent to his Pa's presidential library at Texas A&M, where they are definitely NOT available.