WI Badger Herald Interview with Dean....excellent. Detailed.

[madfloridian]

Long, but interesting.

http://www.badgerherald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/02/13/402c561d70b84

SNIP..."Badger Herald: You had sent out an e-mail and there were some statements in the press that you were going to forgo the reminder of your campaign if you lost here in Wisconsin. Since then, other statements have come out that that will not happen. We were wondering what your intentions are in Wisconsin.

Howard Dean: Well, we are working really hard in Wisconsin; we want to win here. And if we do, we're in great shape. If we don't, we are going to keep going because what we really started was an attempt to change the political culture in Washington, which has been pretty unresponsive to what ordinary people in this country have wanted for a long time. And there are a lot of people who don't want us to quit, and so we won't...."

And on the Iraq subject:
SNIP...."BH: Martin Luther King Jr. said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Obviously there is injustice in Iraq. How is that not a threat to justice in the United States?

HD: Do you believe it is the right position of the United States to say that we will send troops anywhere in the world to preserve human rights and stop genocide?

BH: Can you tell us how, other than sending troops, we can stop genocide and end human-rights violations?

HD: Sometimes you can't......"

[Ninga]

1. Very thoughtful answers.

[kayob1]

2. Thanks for posting!

[mzmolly]

3. I can't believe this country is choosing lofty promises over real

action/results/needed change.

Thanks for posting MF :hi:

[frustrated_lefty]

4. GOOD interview.

I'm voting for him in my primary which isn't until, what, March 19th? It's feeling like a lost cause, but I wish we lived in a country where this man could be president. :(

[Armstead]

5. Great Interview

Ol' Howard really does understand what's going on and what is needed to solve them.

It makes me mad that the real Dean hasn't been able to break through "the filter."

God I hope we don'ty end up with an election of empty platitudes after the candor and insight of Dean and Kucinich.

Here's an example of how Dean sees beyind the cliches, and really understands a positive progressive approach:

"I look at centralization versus decentralization. If you centralize, you will have mediocrity everywhere; if you decentralize, you will have a few programs that are disasters, but a lot of programs that are really successful when innovated at the local level .... The Republicans always like to talk about running the country like a business. I want to run the country like a really successful business. The Republicans around the country run the country like Enron. The businesses that are incredibly successful have been the businesses that allow local people at the entrepreneurial level to make decisions for themselves (and) understand that some of them are going to make mistakes. No terrorizing them to think if they make one mistake, then they are fired. That is exactly the worst way to get the best out of people. The way to get the best out of people is to support the 95 percent of the people that really want to do a good job of getting the resources they need to succeed. If you terrorize people, everybody will be so afraid to make mistakes, they will never do the constructive and creative things they could do to create really good programs. That's basically what we did in Vermont (support the people), and I think that is a great model for the rest of the country."

[madfloridian]

6. More truth from this great interview.

Enjoy it, as we won't hear much more like this for a while I fear.

SNIP..."HD: Well, they do come to the polls, but the question is, do they come to the polls enough? First of all, here's why I think we are attractive to 18- to 24-year-olds: I don't talk down to people. I mean, I am very aggressive in what I think and I am clear about laying out my views, but I respect other people's opinions right back. I listen to what people are saying and I process it. Most politicians don't do that-they talk down to people. Adults put up with that, but people your age don't because they are coming right from a time when everyone talks down to you and you are sick of it.

Secondly, I will say things that other people won't say that I know are true. All that crap that all the other candidates use to say that Howard Dean created a gaffe a day. That was just manufactured nonsense. I would say things like "We are not any safer since Saddam has been captured," and that's absolutely true. The next week, we lost 23 more people over in Iraq and American airliners are being escorted in by F-16s. That doesn't mean Saddam isn't a terrible person -- I'm glad he's captured -- but the fact is that we aren't any safer. I will say things that people your age, who have a very low tolerance for hypocrisy, recognize as true, that other adults won't say, and I think that is very appealing. ...."

But now the media and the party have shut out this type of truth, and they are saying he should drop out.