'This Is Just a Firestorm'
U.S. News sat down last week with Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chair and former presidential hopeful, to discuss the 2006 midterm elections, the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley, and Dean's controversial push to have the Democratic Party shore up its base in all 50 states. Excerpts:
In the last week we've had the National Intelligence Estimate, Bob Woodward's book, and now the Mark Foley scandal. What is your sense of the midterm elections?
The three events help enormously. The bottom line is that you can't trust the Republicans with your money, because they can't balance the budget. You can't trust the Republicans with dealing with natural disasters. You can't trust the Republicans to defend America because the president's defense policy has essentially resulted in a civil war in Iraq, the nuclear arming of Iran or the about to be, and increasing nuclear arms now over a six-year period for North Korea, and the failure to capture Osama bin Laden. And now of course you can't trust the Republicans with your kids. Not because of what Mark Foley did. That was terrible. It's because the Republican leadership knew about it and chose to cover it up for their own political benefit.
How much impact will the Foley scandal have around the country?
It's an enormous problem. We're staying away from it, to be honest with you. I don't want this to be seen as partisan. We'll do gentle reminders, of course, and people will use it in their ads, but you know, I think that this is just a firestorm.
How far does it go in affecting the Republican leadership and House Speaker Dennis Hastert?
I'm not going to say somebody should resign or something like that. They should not get rid of the page program. They should get rid of the people who run the page program, and that's the Republican leadership. That's like saying we're going to close the school because somebody has molested somebody at the school. You don't close the school; you get rid of the leadership.
Listening to voters in red states, what have you learned since before you were chair?
I think partly due to Republican propaganda and partly due to the fact that we haven't shown up in those places in 20 years, people have a completely skewed view of what Democrats are about, and that's why I want to be in all 50 states. This is not a matter of remaking the party and changing our views on these things. It's a matter of making sure people know what our views really are .... We can win elections anywhere. We've won elections in Utah, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi. There's a third of this country in which it's become socially unacceptable to say you're a Democrat; that's simply a matter of us not showing up.
If Democrats take over the House or Senate, or both, what would your advice be?
Have a very narrow-based agenda that's very clear to the American people [and] a message that creates our agenda for the presidential election-minimum wage, ethics reform, healthcare reform that makes large steps toward a comprehensive plan.
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