By Paul Bean
Former Democratic Governor Howard Dean is considering making a run for Governor this year.
If he runs and makes it through the primary, he would be squaring off against the most popular governor in America, Republican Governor Phil Scott, who boasts an 81% approval rating. Scott said at a press conference this week that the Senate’s treatment of Education Secretary nominee Zoie Saunders has made him more likely to run for re-election.
In a statement released to the press Wednesday evening, Dean wrote:
“I am deeply alarmed by the coming fiscal crisis in Vermont…The situation in school financing is truly alarming, where a third of school budgets were voted down the first time and half of those voted on a second time have failed. We must not make the mistake which has led to so much fiscal pain in the past. We must NOT finance today’s programs by borrowing from tomorrow’s Vermonters.”
He added, “I have to say that this legislature is some ways, the best legislature I have seen in Montpelier since GOP speaker Walter Freed helped me close a huge potential budget deficit by supporting the decoupling of the Vermont income tax from the US tax code after President GW Bush cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans.”
In Governor Scott’s Press conference yesterday I asked him if he had heard of the possible “return of the Dean” and he told the crowd “I heard that, interesting, I haven’t heard from him, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but one thing I will tell you is, and you can all take this one to the bank… 24 years from now, I will not be on the ballot.” This remark drew an uproar of laughter from the crowd and served as much needed comic relief for us all during yesterday’s high tension press conference…
Read Dean’s whole statement here: