by Guy Page
Howard Dean announced this morning at a 9:30 AM press conference in Waterbury, “I am not a candidate for the office of governor.” The former governor and Democratic National Committee chairman said he could get within 10 points of beating Phil Scott for governor based on his record, but that winning would require a negative, ‘scorched earth’ campaign.
Dean chose not to seek re-election as governor in 2002. He began serving in 1991 upon the death of Gov. Richard Snelling.
Dean noted that his polling shows that the number one issue to Vermonters is taxation, with health care and housing right behind. He noted that Waterbury – which he called “a reasonably prosperous town” – is facing its third school budget vote and cannot provide enough housing for state employees who work in the large complex of state office buildings. The following is an excerpt from his press conference, which was carried live by WCAX:
“Gov. Scott’s a popular governor. My polling shows that the most important issue for Vermonters is taxation. And the governor has talked a lot about this. Other major issues are health care and housing. And my polling shows I can get within 10 points of Gov. Scott because of my own fiscal record, and my deep commitment to affordable health care. In theory this is a winnable race.
“But I’ve been in state and national politics for a long time. There is only one way to close a 10 point gap between two well-known candidates. And that way is to run a scorched earth, negative attack campaign like ones being run all over the country.
“I am incredibly proud that Vermont is not like Texas or Florida, where creating enemies out of women, gay people and even librarians seems to be acceptable by politicians and rewarded by voters. I don’t know if a campaign like that could get me elected, but I do know that it would be really harmful to our state and to our values. I am not candidate for the office of governor.”
There are no established elected officials of any party actively challenging Scott, who announced earlier this month he’s seeking re-election. Esther Charlestin, a DEI contractor and former Middlebury school administrator, has announced she’s running for the Democratic nomination. Former Burlington mayor Miro Weinberger has explored a race but has not declared. Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman will seek re-election.
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Categories: politics
Oh my goodness! Did Howard actually make a good decision? Thank you HD for not entering the race and running a mean campaign…. Vermont citizens are barely coping trying to keep afloat and sane, we don’t need any more negativity to deal with.
HD, crawl back under your rock and stay there.
Dean says if he ran he would have to go negative and he didn’t want to do that?
So what did he do? He held a news conference saying he didn’t want to be negative.
Ergo, he went negative.
When you hold a so-called “news conference” it’s a self-serving dog-and-pony show, a circus.
The former governor is a shrewd politician and he knows exactly what he’s doing.
If he really did not want to get drafted for this race he would not have called reporters to a Waterbury “news conference” to say “no I’m not running.”
He could simply have – get this – not run.
P.S. actually nobody says Dean would have had to “go negative,” to use his words.
He could have simply laid out his policy proposals and leave Gov. Scott to his own vices.
In fact it would have been a fascinating campaign – the state’s two most popular politicians and effective governors of all time running against each other.
This is a smart decision on the part of Democrats. If Dean had run, then republicans might have been energized by thinking there was a real race and they might have attracted a lot of money for the race. That money might have helped Republican candidates in other races and could have jeopardized the veto proof majority they have in the legislature. Democrats know that they have the best of all worlds with the current situation. Unlimited authority to pass any legislation they want and shared accountability with a nominal GOP governor who gives them most of what they want anyway.
Well said, well said. They get 85% of what the want without having a their own governor and they still have a boogie man to run against. And if things to bad, they’ll blame it on the Republicans…..it is the perfect foil for the deep state, for the New World order, for the Montpelier swamp, for the color revolution, but I repeat myself many times.
They absolutely LOVE the way Vermont is set up politically, the wouldn’t change it for the world. Deep State Heaven.
Yeah, what are they going to do now? Scott has Zero team behind him. They’ll run the table, for the third decade in a row.
And dats dat!
Dean ,if he ran, would create a blowback, that would drag down the whole party, and slurry his place in history… ending with, “He went a long ways to flop!”.
Besides he’s likely seen the internal polling, regarding Trump, and decided…”No way Jose!”.
And dat’s dat!
He’s not the only one who didn’t want to come out of retirement.
As we said, and it continues to be the issue…
Affordability – includes housing, taxation, healthcare…and more
Schools – this could be also under affordability, but it’s bigger than that.
Drugs and Crime – We’ve got a full-blown drug and crime issue, sex slavery, prostitution along with pimping out your kids, which ties into….education.
Perhaps the biggest issue, is education, the backbone of our country/children. This is under siege as part of a color revolution. Making good little Marxists, as part of the civics class, the corrupting them with envy, greed and promises of fame on the internet, but last and certainly most devastating is the sexualization of our youngest, imprinting upon them at such a young age, via porn, libraries, educational system…. it’s really quite an issue. One that nobody wants to talk about. Why did suddenly all the porn in the united states, become interfamilial during the pandemic?
Why?
How did such a massive change occur?
What was the impetus?
Where did all the become directed?
If you are or were ever wondering, what do organizers do? What is their job?
Well this is it.
They organized the porn.
They organized the invasion to the U.S.
They organized the payments of a Trillion dollars to do it.
They organized the pandemic.
They organized the inflation
They organized the interest rates.
They organized the DQSH
They organized the sex trafficking.
These organizers are really busy.
They are very focused on power and money.
They are organizing a color revolution, before your eyes.
And who was the chief organizer?
Neil,
I appreciate your comments and I mostly agree. Mr Kondratiev laid out the pitfalls of capitalism in soviet Russia in his work on credit cycles. He was set the task to prove that capitalism would fail but he concluded that capitalism survives with periodic resets. He was executed as the enemy of Socialism.
My point is that all of the efforts you mention are with one aim : hold onto power when the financial foundations crumble.
They are failing. We will lose a generation to insanity but already there are signs among the very young (men) that their brainwashing efforts are not working.
Keep the faith, my friend.
Whatever the reason, great. That still leaves us with essentially a fiscally conservative democrat for governor, is there anyone who has got the stuff to beat Scott???
The Truth is Dean sees the writing on the wall, the giant bag of dung his party manifested, and his party has swung so far left there is no saving it here or elsewhere. They’re all in on criminality. Smarter man than I ever gave him credit for – he saved face with scripted talking points and will watch the implosion of the party he served.
I consider myself a Trump republican, that makes me better then any republican before. I was looking forward to voting for Dean, I remember him when he was governor, and although not as good as Snelling, greatly better then Kunin and Scott. Now I have no republican for governor to vote for because the republican party does not have a republican running for governor.
we were right about howard the coward over twenty years ago///