Volume 67, Issue 8

Einstein Alumnus Enters Bid for 2004 U.S. Presidency

by Hillel Broder 

Vermont Governor Dr. Howard Dean – an alumnus of Yeshiva’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine – has recently publicized his candidacy for the 2004 United States democratic presidential nomination.  Dean is the first Yeshiva alumnus to initiate an official campaign for the national presidency.

After graduating Yale University, three years after President George Bush, Dean drifted into working as a stockbroker.  Following the execution of his brother in Laos, who had been touring but was accused by communists of spying, Dean volunteered in St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village.  He subsequently began taking pre-medical classes in Columbia University, and entered AECOM.  It was at AECOM where Dean met his wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg.  Dean graduated from AECOM in ’78, and his wife in ’79.

Dean then moved to Vermont, where he practiced internal medicine until 1991.  He was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1983 to 1986, and lieutenant governor of Vermont from 1987-91.  He assumed the governor’s office in 1991, and remains the governor of Vermont to the present.

In a New York Times interview, Dean says that his education and practice as a doctor “has helped hugely” in politics.  He says, “It allows me to impart bad news without feeling defensive about it, not only in a clinical way but in an emphatic way.”  He concluded, “When you’re a doctor, you marshal the good parts about people in their own defense, to help them overcome the things that aren’t so great sometimes.”

Dean is drawing on his past successes to bolster his present political enterprise.  Through strong financial management, Dean’s decade-long governmental administration revolutionized the economic and social conditions of Vermont.  His economic successes included: cutting the income tax in half, paying off the $70 million deficit, creating 41,000 new jobs, and causing the state’s minimum wage to rise twice.  Additionally, Dean implemented his “universal health care” agenda, virtually guaranteeing health care coverage for every child in Vermont age 18 and under.

Dean’s present presidential campaign recalls his past achievements.  In “Campaign for a Healthy America,” he is promoting a similar universal health-care policy for all American minors.  “As a medical doctor,” Dean quips on his website (www.deanforamerica.com), drawing from his past medical expertise, “I support access to quality health care for everyone… because I believe that the development and protection of our children is critical to the future strength of our country.”

Classified as a common-sense moderate, Dean’s vision for America opposes the current unilateral approach the Bush administration has taken towards world terrorism.  “Had I been in Congress,” Dean writes on his website, “I would have voted against the resolution providing the President sweeping authority to wage war against Iraq, because I do not believe the President has made the case that war is justified.”  Quoted in The New York Times on December 18, 2002, Dean exclaimed that the country is “being badly run,” and is “fundamentally going in the wrong direction.”

Dean has impressed many with his governmental successes, and wowed even more with his brilliance and doctor-like gentle bedside manner.  However, he is balked by an external, but essential factor in his campaign – lack of financial funding and resources.  In his last fund-raising report, Dean had $85,000 on hand, a minute fraction of the $2 million Senator John Edwards had in his Senate war chest last summer.  When visiting New Jersey, Dean himself admitted, “There is no question that I will be outspent by everybody else in the race.”  Instead, he intends to “impress important members of the political establishment” and rely on media attention to progress in his campaign.  Overall, Dean plans to raise less than $20 million in funds.♦

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