[T]here have been just a handful of Vermonters who ran for the position of president, and only one — Plymouth Notch native Calvin Coolidge — made it all the way to the White House.
Since Coolidge’s tenure in the 1920s, there have been just two Vermonters who have run serious national campaigns: Bernie Sanders and Howard Dean.
The two share a love of the Green Mountain State and a progressive streak, though they differ on a number of issues. Dean says he is less ideological than Sanders, and he endorsed Hillary Clinton in September of last year, before Sanders entered the ring.
During a Vermont delegation breakfast Tuesday, Dean praised Sanders’ bid before urging fellow Vermonters to consolidate behind Clinton’s candidacy.
“Politics is a game of inches,” the former governor said at the breakfast, held at a hotel near the Philadelphia airport. “Politics is a substitute for war — you’re not going to win it in a single shift. But you will never win it unless you put your nose to the grindstone and make advancements.”
A few hours later, Dean, the popular former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, spoke in the convention hall, again defending Clinton’s candidacy. Wearing a tie dotted with Vermont’s coat of arms, he mocked his infamous “Dean Scream.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the day after his speech, Dean spoke with VTDigger about a wide range of political topics at the swanky Philadelphia Ritz-Carlton. Sipping hot chocolate and wearing a deep blue and green tie — Vermont colors — Dean shared his thoughts on the future of the Democratic Party, which he believe includes a prominent role for Sanders.
He also talked about Vermont Democratic politics, hinting that he might endorse a gubernatorial primary candidate. Hours later, Dean formally endorsed Sue Minter for governor.
Like Sanders, Dean came up short in his 2004 presidential primary run. He said he wasn’t ready to compete on a national stage back then, explaining “I was unprepared for the venom of the press corps.”
While Dean’s bid was by no means destroyed unilaterally by the scream episode, the media replayed the clip more than 600 times, reinforcing the perception that the Vermont governor was unpresidential and unrestrained. In reality, the scream sounded so wild because of how the audio of the speech was mixed with the sounds of the crowd.
“They are really awful, they don’t do their job,” Dean said of the national press corps.
Dean said he was initially angry after his 2004 primary loss, and he admires Sanders’ extensive efforts during the convention to unify the party.
“For him to do what he did I thought was an extraordinary thing,” Dean said. “I don’t think he would have done it 30 years ago.”
In his prime time speech Monday, Sanders forcefully backed his former primary foe. The Vermont senator visited state delegations every day this week to promote Clinton.
On Tuesday, Sanders moved to suspend convention rules in order to officially nominate Clinton, a symbolic gesture meant to send a message to his supporters who were on the fence.
After losing the primary and the nomination, Dean said the Vermont senator is less cantankerous and more humble.
“When you lose you learn more about yourself than if you win,” Dean said. “It’s pretty neat that a guy who is 74 years old could continue to grow, and that’s what he’s done.”
Dean was an early Clinton fan, and he pushed her to begin running for president as early as 2014. An informal adviser and surrogate for her campaign, the former Vermont governor described the former secretary of state as a fact-driven politician who works hard for long-term goals.
Dean said he advised Clinton early on to take Sanders’ run seriously.
He defended Clinton, saying she was more progressive than many thought. She made an early campaign promise that she would require a litmus test for any Supreme Court appointee, ensuring whoever she appoints would overturn the Citizen United decision if confirmed to the bench.
“I about fell out of my chair,” Dean recalled, “because the politically correct answer is to say ‘Oh, we will evaluate each candidate and get the most qualified person.”
While many of the pro-Sanders delegates at the convention have said they don’t trust Clinton to fulfill her progressive promises, Dean disagreed.
“It’s the most progressive platform I’ve ever seen in the Democratic Party, and I actually think this is the first platform that’s going to serve as a blueprint for the administration,” he said. “I think Hillary has no intention of walking this backwards.”
Dean added that he saw no issue with Sanderistas’ promises to hold Clinton accountable through street protest and social media activism.
Clinton’s most controversial position change this election season came when she promised to overturn the Trans Pacific Partnership after calling it the “gold standard.” The party platform does not call for the elimination of the TPP, which has angered some Sanders delegates.
The concerns about Clinton’s shifting stances were amplified Tuesday, when Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close friend of the Clintons, told Politico that he believes Hillary Clinton will support the TPP trade deal if elected president.
Dean said McAuliffe’s claim — which has since been retracted — was “a stupid thing to say,” adding Clinton has never told him she would backpedal on the issue.
Dean said the TPP couldn’t be included in the platform because Democrats didn’t want to humiliate President Barack Obama, who has championed the trade deal.
“We weren’t going to embarrass the greatest asset we have — other than Hillary — on the campaign trail and put that in the platform,” he said. “You can’t embarrass our own president, especially when our president is more popular than either nominee.”
When Obama spoke Wednesday, some Sanders delegates held signs decrying the TPP, and a few even interrupted his remarks, pleading for him to oppose the deal.
Dean agreed that many blue collar workers have been left behind as factories shuttered and globalization has increased. But he said the TPP is being used as a scapegoat.
“Young people can do things on the Internet in five seconds that older people can’t do,” he said. “And the skillset for getting jobs in this country has changed so fast and so dramatically that older people are getting left behind. So that, I think, is the real issue.”
Dean, a former DNC chairman, condemned the behavior of DNC officials who were disdainful of Sanders’ run for president. An email leak showed that staff at the party favored Clinton over Sanders.
“That should not have been done, absolutely,” he said. “I never would have stood for that. In fact, we had a blanket prohibition against any of that. If you felt that you wanted to support a candidate, it was a time to leave the DNC and go to work for the candidate.”
While Sanders has not always agreed with Dean on policy or political approach, he expanded the model of internet activism and fundraising pioneered by the former Vermont governor.
After the 2004 election, Dean started Democracy for America, a political action committee that has helped elect more than 800 progressives to office across the country at all levels of government. DFA, which is now run by Dean’s brother Jim, endorsed Sanders’ presidential run, providing money and organizing muscle.
Sanders is now organizing a trio of political organizations aimed at electing Sanderistas, including Our Revolution. Dean said DFA officials were helping Sanders set up his electoral organizations.
He said DFA has succeeded because it has listened to its activist members, and he urged Sanders to abandon his reputation as a top-down leader.
“Bernie has never been an organization guy, Bernie has always liked to do things his way,” Dean said. “He likes to have the freedom to act as he believes he should act, which is a very Vermont tradition.”
