Dean Heats Up On the Campaign Trail

Author: Kate Doorley

Want a button that says, "Bush Frightens Me!"? Then you should have been one of the first 10,000 people to give $31 or more to former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean's latest fundraising effort. In line with his previous efforts such as "Going to Bat for Dean," this latest fundraising drive set a goal of $310,000 for midnight on Sunday, Nov. 2, in keeping with the spirit of Halloween weekend. Creative fundraising efforts such as these have allowed Dean to remain at the forefront of the pool of Democratic candidates in terms of monies raised and have also increased overall awareness of his campaign.

Many of the Dean campaign initiatives have persisted and grown since the summer. Dean has further expanded his Generation Dean program, adding more and more chapters each week. According to the Generation Dean Web site, there are seven chapters in Vermont alone. Hand in hand with this, Dean has continued his campaign's use of weblog technology to spread the message about his campaign and the issues that are of importance to him and to the voters at large.

The former governor has also continued his cross-country speaking tours in an effort to raise awareness of his campaign efforts. His latest tour, called the "Raise the Roots Tour," took place in early October. Through this tour, Dean visited Washington, D.C., Charleston, S.C., Norman, Okla., Seattle, Wash., Iowa City, Iowa, Madison, Wis., Keene, N.H. and Durham, N.H. over the course of four days in an effort to "engage and empower young Americans."

Along with his speaking tours, Dean has also continued his efforts to raise grassroots awareness of his campaign by encouraging his supporters to continue their meetups on a regular basis and by participating in nationwide conference calls, such as one to Generation Dean chapters before the most recent primary debates in Detroit.

Although Dean's campaign style has stayed relatively the same, he has announced several new programs since the end of the summer. First and foremost is a national program that he is calls, "Welcome Baby," which he modelled after his "Success by Six" program here in Vermont. The "Success by Six" program was started to improve early child care and development, and over the 11 years of its existence, physical and sexual child abuse cases have declined 45 percent. The program Dean proposes for America as a whole would give $200 million in grants to groups that offer home visits to the parents of newborns. At these visits parents would be instructed and informed about proper nutrition, parenting skills and the social services available to them, all in an effort to try to curb child neglect and abuse.

Just as the Dean campaign has been gaining attention from the national media, it has drawn more and more attention to Dean's record here in Vermont. The Vermont archives have been beset by requests to view records from Dean's tenure in state office. However, most of what has been discovered have been positive pieces of information such as the fact that Dean balanced the state budget almost every year he was in office even though Vermont is one of the few states without a balanced budget amendment. That Dean cut state debt and boosted Vermont's credit rating to the highest in New England also reflect positively on his campaign.

At this point in the race, Dean is beginning to attract attention from more traditional Democratic support groups as well. The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades recently endorsed the Governor, and according to the Dean Web site, officials from the AFL-CIO, the largest labor union in America, are expected to endorse Dean's campaign early this week.

Dean remains, for now, the frontrunner in the field of nine Democratic candidates, but there is a long time until next August, when the Democratic Party holds its convention. Therefore, it is still anyone's guess where the Dean campaign will go. If Dean is correct, though, and there are enough people who want "Bush Frightens Me!" buttons, his campaign staff may well have jobs past next August.