Is Dean really an anti-war candidate?

[Skwmom]

Howard Dean: the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Perspectives from Vermont

by Donna Bister, Marc Estrin and Ron Jacobs

(The Editorial Collective of the Old North End RAG)

Dissident Voice September 6, 2003


<Howard Dean the liberal, anti-war candidate? The laughter rings most loudly in Vermont.>


<http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/Bister-Estrin-Jacobs_Dean.htm>

Edit: hopefully fixed the link.

[Sean Reynolds]

1. Only the media paints Dean as the anti-war candidate.

I guess since you oppose one war you're officially anti-war all the time?

[Cha]

2. I'm so glad I don't buy into the media anymore.....I learned my

lesson in 2000! :-)

[CMT]

3. true

RFK began as a supporter of US efforts in Vietnam but eventually came to oppose the war. Yet he was labeled an anti-war candidate. The press has to have little labels for everything. I'm proud Dean opposed the Iraq war and that is a big reason why I support him, but by no means the only one.

[tridim]

4. He's anti Bush's stupid Iraq war

and that's it. He was for Afghanistan.

[Larkspur]

5. He's an anti-Fraudulent-War candidate

Dean opposed Bush's 2003 Iraq War because the evidence didn't mount up to proving that war was the answer to Saddam.

Dean supports using the military to help alleviate humanitarian crises, like in Liberia, but not to get oil reserves for Halliburton.

[w4rma]

6. Dean was anti-Iraq-war and is a centrist.

The passionate centrist

NEW YORK -

At the end of summer and onset of fall, pundits are gearing up for the Democratic presidential primaries. Recently, columnists have churned out a slew of articles profiling, criticizing and praising the candidates. Rating the candidates, writers have given the health insurance gold medal to Kerry, the centrist medal to Lieberman and the leftist medal to Dean.

Absent from all this politicking, however, is discussion on the Democratic strategy. Aside from TIME magazine's "How to Build a Better Democrat," no columnist has provided a comprehensive or innovative view of the identity Democrats need to assume in the coming election.

It seems each party is having an identity crisis. George Will, the conservative columnist for the Washington Post, stated, "Foreign and domestic developments constitute an identity crisis of conservatism, which is being recast - and perhaps rendered incoherent." In an effort to broaden their image, Republicans created an unassailable facade of "compassion," claiming to be "for" all those typically overlooked by the system: the elderly, minorities, the poor.

A cue for Democrats: To broaden your image, embrace the idea of passionate centrism. A 1997 USA Today story quoted then Governor of Vermont Howard Dean as calling himself a "passionate centrist." A cursory look at his governorship proves this to be true. And so, Dean's success, both as a governor (he's won five consecutive elections) and a presidential candidate, is based on impassioned moderation.
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http://www.michigandaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/08/04/3f2de34c3b301