Former Vermont Democratic Gov. Howard Dean in fund-raising visit to Princeton.
By: Jennifer Potash
Looking at the political landscape, Howard Dean, who is running for president of the United States, finds a Democratic Party bereft of a soul and a country headed in the wrong direction for financial recovery.
"No Republican has balanced the budget for 34 years in this country and I firmly believe in balanced budgets," said Dr. Dean in a telephone interview Tuesday. The Democrats have empowered President Bush by refusing to stand up to him, Dr. Dean said.
"We’re so afraid of losing elections that we always lose because we’re willing to say anything it takes," he said. "It’s about leadership."
Dr. Dean, 54, will be in Princeton Sunday to attend a pair of fund-raisers at the residences of Robert and Kate Del Tufo in the township and Peter and Wendy Benchley in the borough. Tickets to the fund-raisers range in price from $250 to $1,000.
A physician and the governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2002, Dr. Dean is also known for signing legislation approving civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, and for strengthening the state’s health care system to provide coverage to all children under 18 while cutting state income taxes and balancing the budget.
A New York native, Dr. Dean earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1971. After a couple of years as a stockbroker, he returned to school for pre-med classes and then enrolled at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
During medical school he met Judy Steinberg, who later became his wife, and the couple moved to Vermont and established a practice. They have a college-aged daughter and a teenage son.
Dr. Dean got involved in Democratic politics and won elections to the Vermont House of Representatives and for lieutenant governor, becoming governor in 1991 upon the death of Gov. Richard Snelling. A guiding political philosophy for Dr. Dean is that social justice can be accomplished only through strong financial management. And a core issue in his campaign is to bring health insurance to the roughly 42 million Americans lacking any coverage.
"Everybody in the industrial world besides us has health insurance for all its citizens and I think it’s shameful that we haven’t been able to do that and we should," he said. "It’s not expensive and it’s half the cost of the president’s tax cut."
Dr. Dean’s universal health care plan would have the states offer Medicare to everyone under age 25, with the federal government covering the costs of a prescription drug benefit to adults 65 and older. For adults from 25 to 65, the present employer-based system would remain, with refundable tax credits and federal subsidies to cover low- and moderate-income Americans who lack insurance.
"We don’t have to rearrange the whole health care system and it will pass," Dr. Dean said. "And that’s the important part we don’t want to have another attempt at this that doesn’t pass and leave millions more people without health insurance."
His outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq gained Dr. Dean some notoriety and he’s somewhat reticent to weigh in on the current rebuilding efforts.
"It’s too early to tell," he said. "My concern was not that we would have any problem beating Saddam Hussein. The question is how are we going to manage this country now that we’ve gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, and it’s going to be a while before we’re going to know."
Dr. Dean said he is also the lone Democrat in the field against President Bush’s "No Child Left Behind" act, which ties federal funding to greater accountability for the nation’s public schools. He contends the law, signed by the president last year, will only weaken schools.
"I call it the ‘No School Board Left Standing’ bill," he said.

