On the campaign trail with the un-Bush

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean blasts fellow Democratic presidential candidates for trying to "me too" the "most dangerous presidency since Herbert Hoover."

By Jake Tapper

Feb. 20, 2003 | BURLINGTON, Vt. -- As we make our way back to his home in Burlington, Vt., after a full day of campaigning in neighboring New Hampshire, Howard Dean -- internist, former Vermont governor, Democratic presidential hopeful -- turns to me and smiles. His eyes brighten mischievously. He has some nasty scoop to share with me.

It's about Howard Dean.

It begins back in August 1991 shortly after Dean, then 43, became governor under tragic circumstances. As lieutenant governor, a part-time job in Vermont, Dean had kept his medical practice, and was in his office performing a physical on a patient when he was interrupted with news that Gov. Richard Snelling, a Republican, had dropped dead next to his swimming pool. That physical would be the last medical act that Dean would perform. Three days later, he would be in Washington, meeting with elected officials as a member of the National Governors Association, whose chairman, Gov. Roy Romer, D-Colo., had quickly assigned him to chair its healthcare task force.

But that's just background; the story Dean wants to tell me happened when he and Romer met with the Democratic House leadership, including House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash., Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., and others. Dean, he recalls, was brash. He remembers telling Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the Democrats' leader on healthcare reform, that he "didn't know what he was talking about." Then, he told Foley that healthcare reform was an issue that needed to be tackled, and that the governors were prepared to lead the way.

Foley told him to hold back, that the Democrats wanted to do it at the congressional level.

"Well, why don't you?" Dean asked.

Foley told him that the Democrats, who then held more than a 100-seat advantage in the House, didn't have the votes.

"Well, then let us do it at the state level," Dean said.

Foley told him that he'd prefer if they didn't.

Exasperated, Dean lashed out, saying, "Well, Mr. Speaker, if I were in charge of an organization that had a 25 percent approval rating, I might move on healthcare one way or another."

There was silence in the room. Finally, Foley smiled.

"Actually, it's 27 percent," Foley joked.

Finishing the story, he smiles again. Later, over breakfast at Henry's Diner in Burlington, he says, "It's not a story that reflects well on me. I hope I've matured since those days."

But of course it's a story that reflects quite well on Howard Dean and he knows it. Dean generally uses his blunt comments like an inmate with a shiv. And already, he's used it to set himself apart not only from the bland, cautious Democratic bench of presidential wannabes, but from the bland, cautious Democratic Party in general. In an interesting contrast, when I ask Waxman about Dean's 1991 anecdote -- without telling him where I heard it - Waxman, through a spokesman, followed Washington protocol and praised Dean while denying such an incident ever occurred. Dean's brashness could prove not only refreshing but awfully successful in an era when both the media and the opposition party seem cowed into submission by the White House. On the campaign trail, he's been cheered -- and has seen his New Hampshire poll numbers soar -- when he blasts the Bush administration and the congressional Democrats who, to hear him tell it, have been ineffective and wimpy in their dealings with the president. The question is not only whether Dean's brashness will propel him to the top tier of candidates, but whether -- if and when -- he gets there, such frankness is what voters truly want.

Next page: "Next summer, I won't be talking like that"