Why I think Howard Dean would be the strongest candidate vs. Bush

CMT

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Tue Jul-08-03 03:47 PM
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Why I think Howard Dean would be the strongest candidate vs. Bush

I think Howard Dean will be the strongest candidate in a general election campaign vs. Bush for these reasons:

1) He is a former governor with a proven record that he can use to refute Bush/Rove's most outrageous charges. The American people tend to trust governors as candidate for president probably because there duties are more similar to that of a president.

2) He is the anti-Bush. For example, Dean can say, "I've balanced the budget and cut taxes while protecting valuable programs as Governor--This president (Bush) took the biggest surplusses in history and in only three years produced the biggest deficits in history to provide tax relief which by and large benefits the very wealthy." He can best explain why a balanced budget will ultimately lead to long term economic health such as we had during the Clinton administration.

3) He is the anti-Bush on health insurance as well. Dean can say, "During my administration we covered every child in the state of Vermont with medical insurance--compare this to the record of the Bush administration--44 million people are without health insurance up by over three million since he became president--I have a plan to cover most of these people."

4) Perhaps most importantly he is the Anti-Bush on Iraq. Iraq is becoming a potent political issue with each passing day. A recent poll said that 42% of the American people believe that going into Iraq was a "mistake"--that in my opinion is likely to grow as the US continues to be bogged down in Iraq with more sniper killings and growing chaos and more military families questioning why their sons and daughters, husbands and wives are still there. Dean as a passionate opponent from day one is best suited to make the case against the Iraq war and why "we are in the wrong war at the wrong time" and questioning why the US spent so much capital on Iraq instead of pursuing the war on terrorism against Bin Ladden--"do you remember his name, Mr. President?". Finally as it is becoming more likely, WMD are not being found in Iraq and Dean (like Graham and Kucinich) can correctly state that they were not taken in by the administrations "evidence".

5) Dean neutralizes the Gun issue. I have to admit as a supporter of gun control I was bothered by Dean's stand and the fact that he has gotten an endorsement in Vermont from the NRA--but there are enough issues I agree on with Dean that I can feel strongly for him. It can't be denied though that the gun issue has hurt democrats in rural areas and the south. It played a role in our defeats in 2000 in states such as West Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee. Dean supports such things as "The Brady Bill" but on the whole supports giving the states the rights to decide what gun laws they want.

6) Dean is bringing more people into the political process. Story after story on meetups indicates that Dean is bringing out people who had given up on the poltical process or had not voted before. These people are enthused enough about Dean to help organize states,cities, towns, preceints, wards on his behalf and this will be a powerful army to put up against the Bush $$$ in 2004. A true grass roots effort. Right now there are over 58,000 people as part of this meetup army. Imagine as Dean moves forward how this will grow in the coming months to the hundreds of thousands by the time Dean might be nominated!! Those Meetups will continue during the fall campaign and this army will continue to organize to GOTV on election day--it could be the most significant GOTV effort ever organized. I know I will proudly take the Monday before and Tuesday of the election off of work to help gotv.

7) Finally some people have said that Dean's signing of the Civil Unions Bill will be counter-productive in some places. Let the GOP bring the issue up because it will give Dean an opportunity to make an eloquent statement regarding equal rights for all people which is what this country is supposed to be about and end it by saying, "Vice President Cheney, don't you want your daughter to have the same rights to happiness as anybody else in entitled to?"