'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.
And how about Iraq?
I don't know what they'll do on that. I think it's clear that we don't think we should be in Iraq and the Republicans think we ought to be there and stay indefinitely. So there's a clear defining point about what we differently believe in, but I'm going to leave that to the leadership if we win.
Some Democrats want to impeach Bush.
Our primary agenda is not to impeach Bush.
For Republicans in the 2008 presidential race you can be the Bush continuation or a Republican insurgent. Who can be an insurgent?
I actually think whoever is going to win it, they'll either move to the right, which is going to be the end of their status as an authentic person, or they'll be from the right, which will make it harder for them to win.... One of the legacies of George Bush, among many ones that aren't so great for the country, is one that's not so great for the Republican Party. He ran as a moderate, and nobody's going to buy that the second time around.
Anything surprise you about the cycle so far?
Everything surprises me about the cycle so far. If I had asked you 12 months ago or even six months ago what are the reasonable possibilities that the Democrats would take back the House and the Senate and pick up four, five, or six governorships, I think we all would have thought that Howard Dean was spouting the party line and it was all bull----.... And the truth is that that's a reasonable possibility right now.
Any predictions for November?
I'm not going to make any predictions. The last time I made a prediction it was 1980, and I said, "Thank heavens Ronald Reagan got the nomination."
This story appears in the October 16, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.