Howard Dean:A Citizen's Guide to the Man Who Would Be President

No one knows a presidential candidate like the home state reporters who cover him or her, day in and day out. That's what makes this book about Howard Dean so useful: it goes a long way toward explaining the who, what and why of a man who, until a few months ago, was the widely dismissed former Governor of a small state, but now is a real contender for the White House.” -- Judy Woodruff
Anchor Of CNN’s Inside Politics: An In-Depth Look At Howard Dean

LESS THAN A YEAR ago, Howard Dean was the most obscure candidate in a crowded field of aspirants for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. Today he is widely regarded as the one to beat. Who is this man who came from out of nowhere and how did he move so quickly to the front of the pack? Dean first burst onto the national stage at the Democratic National Committee’s 2003 winter meeting. In the 2002 mid-term elections, Democratic leaders had calculated that if they supported a slightly smaller tax cut and a slightly larger prescription drug benefit, and showed slightly less eagerness to go to war in Iraq than President Bush, they could keep control of the Senate and win back the House of Representatives. That approach didn’t work. A few months later the former governor of Vermont strode to the podium at the DNC’s worried winter gathering and blurted out, “What I want to know is why so many Democrats in Washington aren’t standing up against Bush’s unilateral war in Iraq. My name is Howard Dean, and I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.” The effect was electric. Dean had seized the moment, and he has followed it up with aggressive campaigning and a record-setting fund-raising effort.

Howard Dean:A Citizen’s Guide to the Man Who Would Be President sets out to answer “Who is Howard Dean?” What do his life experiences and, maybe more importantly, his performance as Vermont’s governor for nearly twelve years, tell us about what he believes, how he operates, his strengths and weaknesses as a chief executive and on the campaign trail, and what kind of a president he might be? And what do those who know him and have worked for and against him really think?

Energetically reported by nine journalists whose experiences range from the Vermont statehouse to past presidential campaigns, Howard Dean: A Citizen’s Guide to the Man Who Would Be President is filled with fresh, often surprising information and keen new insights. Separate chapters cover Dean’s boyhood and college years, his time as a family doctor and citizen legislator, his record on the environment, health care, and budgets, and his campaign’s revolutionary use of the Internet as a grass-roots organizing tool. For readers looking to determine whether Dean can go the distance and how to cast their votes in 2004, this book is indispensable.

DARREN ALLEN, former reporter for the Baltimore Sun, who is chief of the statehouse bureau for the Rutland Herald and Times Argus.

MARK BUSHNELL, former editor and reporter at the Herald and Times Argus, who is now a free-lance writer. Bushnell writes a weekly column for the paper on Vermont history called "Life in the Past Lane."

HAMILTON DAVIS, former Washington Bureau chief for the Providence Journal and former managing editor of the Burlington Free Press. Davis covered the presidential campaigns in 1968 and 1972. He is author of the book Mocking Justice.

JOHN DILLON, reporter for Vermont Public Radio and former Sunday writer for the Times Argus and Rutland Herald.

SALLY JOHNSON, a former reporter and editor at the Herald, and the former editor of Vermont Magazine. She has been a free-lance contributor to The New York Times and the Boston Globe.

DAVE GRAM, Associated Press reporter, Montpelier Bureau.

JON MARGOLIS, former national political reporter for the Chicago Tribune, who has covered presidential politics since 1968. He is author of The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964.

DAVID MOATS, editorial page editor of the Herald and 2001 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his editorials on the civil unions issue. His book, Civil Wars: Gay Marriage Puts Democracy to the Test is being published by Harcourt in February.

DIRK VAN SUSTEREN, magazine editor for the Herald and Times Argus and former Sunday editor. He was project editor for A Vermont Century, a book of essays and photographs on Vermont in the 20th Century.

IRENE WIELAWSKI, former reporter for the Burlington Free Press, Providence Journal, Los Angeles Times.