HOW DEAN BECAME THE DARLING OF THE LEFT

He Is A Liberal In Appearance In Any Comparison With Bush

This is the eighth in a series of profiles of the Democratic presidential
candidates leading to Monday's Iowa caucus.

Is Howard Dean a liberal?

As governor of Vermont, he chose balanced budgets over social spending. He
battled environmentalists over regulations and water quality. He opposed
gay marriage, medicinal marijuana and gun control. Members of his own party
openly joked about whether he was a Democrat or Republican.

At the same time, Dean offered health insurance to every child in the
state, preserved hundreds of thousands of acres of open space, and signed a
measure making Vermont the first state to recognize the legal rights of
same-sex couples. A decade ago, the "Almanac of America Politics" described
him as "probably one of the four or five most liberal governors in the
nation.''

"I don't know the answer to that,'' he said when asked in a recent
interview. "I'm liberal about some things and conservative about others.
But mostly I'm conservative about money and progressive on social issues.''

Ultimately it doesn't matter whether Dean says he is a liberal or a
centrist any more than it matters whether he pledges his allegiance to the
Red Sox or the Yankees (he has done both). The labels do not reveal
specific policies and are used as epithets more than accurate descriptions.

Yet the question frames a revealing look at Dean's style of leadership, his
record as governor of Vermont and what sort of president he would make if
he can win his party's nomination and defeat President Bush. Dean's history
shows an unmistakable progression toward his party's left wing.

As a kid in high school, Dean traveled to San Francisco for the 1964
Republican National Convention, supported Barry Goldwater and sat in the
lobby of the Fairmont Hotel waiting for GOP luminaries to walk by.

As a governor, he was regarded as a centrist in the mold of President Bill
Clinton, pushing the party's agenda as chair of the Democratic Governors
Association, while angering members of his party in the Vermont legislature
for standing in the way of their progressive spending plans.

As a presidential candidate, Dean has relentlessly attacked the Bush
administration's conservative leanings, criticized his own party for
moderating its opposition, and fired up the party's liberal base, drawing
comparisons with Sen. George McGovern, the party's 1972 candidate, who won
hearts of party loyalists before losing the election in a landslide.

It was Dean's outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq, more than any other
issue, that separated him from the pack, forged his reputation as an
old-style liberal and fueled his meteoric rise from a little-known governor
of a tiny state to the Democratic Party's presidential front-runner.

"What I want to know is why so many Democrats in Washington aren't standing
up against Bush's unilateral war in Iraq,'' Dean demanded at last year's
Democratic National Committee meeting. "My name is Howard Dean and I
represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.''

The fiery, confrontational speeches have been a source of wonder to those
who spent years in Vermont observing an energetic and intense, yet often
dry and less bombastic politician. It was with derision and affection that
many referred to him as "Ho-Ho.''

"There's no secret, all of us in Vermont are surprised at the all-new
Howard Dean,'' said Jan Backus, a former five-term Vermont state senator,
who is now a candidate for lieutenant governor.

"It's almost like he's gone through a rebirth as a passionate Democratic
advocate, which is not what he did in Vermont,'' Backus said. "In Vermont,
he governed from the center.''

Raised in Manhattan and Long Island, Dean graduated from Yale University,
then Albert Einstein School of Medicine in New York City. He and his wife,
Judith, also a physician, moved to Vermont to practice medicine.

Local politics beckoned, and Dean went to the 1980 Democratic convention as
a delegate for President Jimmy Carter, though he said he had more fun going
out at night with the Kennedy crowd. (Dean stopped drinking alcohol more
than two decades ago.)

Elected Vermont's part-time lieutenant governor, Dean was administering a
physical examination to a patient in 1991 when he received a call that the
governor, Republican Richard Snelling, was dead. Dean took a moment to calm
himself, finished the exam, then sped to Montpelier, where he was sworn in
to the post he would hold for the next 11 1/2 years.

Politics in Vermont is far more genteel than in Washington or Sacramento.
Partisan differences are not so vast, and the small size of the state --
Vermont's population in 2000 was 608,827 -- make the governor's job akin,
in many respects, to mayor of a mid-sized to large city.

Dean immediately made fiscal responsibility a top priority. Vermont is the
only state in the union that does not require a balanced budget, and Dean
inherited a $65 million deficit. Yet Dean balanced the budget in 11
consecutive years and when he left office in 2002, Vermont had New
England's highest bond rating.

On many matters, Dean steered a pragmatic middle course, angering those on
the extremes, but pleasing enough people in the middle to win five
consecutive re-election campaigns.

On the environment, Dean won praise for purchasing nearly half a million
acres of land to preserve as wilderness, yet angered environmentalists for
frequently siding with business on development and regulatory matters. He
earned regular endorsements from the National Rifle Association, and
thwarted a medicinal marijuana bill that was moving through the legislature.

Two of his landmark achievements came on matters that were thrust upon him
by the Vermont Supreme Court. In 1997, the court ruled that the state
needed to redistribute school funds, and Dean signed a controversial
share-the-wealth property tax measure that delivered more money to poorer
districts.

Dean received national attention for signing a civil unions bill in 2000
that granted same-sex couples the same legal rights as married couples --
after the court ruled that discrimination based on sexuality was
unconstitutional. It was a move that earned him praise from gay and lesbian
groups around the country, who helped provide some of the early seed money
in his run for the presidency. Yet liberal critics faulted Dean for signing
the historic measure "in the closet,'' out of public view and with no ceremony.

"Many people in Vermont thought he was a Republican in Democratic
clothing,'' said Michael Colby, who publishes a weekly environmental
newsletter called Wild Matters, and who covered the Dean administration for
Burlington's largest alternative weekly. "Howard Dean is a conservative
Democrat. It's quite comical for many of us to see this reputation in the
national media that he is some sort of liberal.''

Few voters know much about Dean beyond the stereotypes. Bruce Mirken, who
works for the Marijuana Policy Project in San Francisco, said he was
surprised to visit an HIV-positive friend who smokes medicinal pot, who was
wearing a Dean button.

"I told him about Dean's conservative record and he had no clue. Most
people have no clue,'' Mirken said.

Dean's place on the political spectrum may be a matter of perspective.

"Is Dean a liberal? No,'' said Amy Isaacs, national director of Americans
for Democratic Action, one of the nation's pre-eminent liberal
organizations. "However, compared to George W. Bush, he's a flaming liberal.''

It is a contrast Dean makes frequently on the stump, and is partly
responsible for his liberal label.

"I think the Democratic Party has lost its way,'' Dean said an interview.
"We've kowtowed and knuckled under to the most ... right-wing president in
my lifetime.''

And that, whatever ideology it comes from, has made Dean a darling of the left.

Howard Dean

- -- Born: Nov. 17, 1948, New York City

- -- Career: Physician in family practice; Vermont House member 1982-86;
Vermont lieutenant governor 1986-91, Vermont governor 1991-02.

- -- Education: B.A. Yale University, 1971; M.D. Albert Einstein College of
Medicine, 1978.

- -- Family: married, two children