BOSTON — The first Democrat to form an official presidential committee for 2004 has a resume many candidates would envy.
The 53-year-old five-term governor is a "common-sense moderate" who boasts on his Web site that "social justice can only be accomplished through strong financial management"--fiscal conservatism. He is a physician who championed universal health care for all under age 18 in his home state. He is married to a physician and has two photogenic kids. He also has an "A" rating from the National Rifle Assn. and a pedigree every bit as patrician as George W. Bush's.
Unfortunately for a man seeking the presidency, almost no one has heard of Howard Dean. And he comes from a state whose population is smaller than that of several California counties.
Recently, on one of the half-dozen exploratory trips he has made to Iowa since January, he was asked, "What have you done for the women of Connecticut?"
Politely, Dean replied, "It's Vermont."
By telephone from Waterloo, Iowa, where he pursued his strategy of meeting with small groups such as town councils and women's organizations, Dean acknowledged that no president has ever claimed Vermont as home. Calvin Coolidge and Chester A. Arthur were both born in the Green Mountain State but left before high school, and in 1880, John Wolcott Phelps of Guilford, Vt., earned 707 votes nationally in an American Party bid for the presidency.
On fat census days, Vermont inflates its population to 650,000. The state's one congressman, Bernard Sanders, is one of only two independents in the House of Representatives. Despite Dean's efforts to tout Vermont as a bastion of innovative social policy, the state is best known for miserable winters and homemade merchandise: Vermont Teddy Bears, Green Mountain Coffee and, of course, Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
"There are many people who believe Vermont is a town in New Hampshire," said Garrison Nelson, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont. "People think the whole state's cute. Howard's cute too."
But from Washington, Democratic political consultant Tad Devine said Dean's strengths may overshadow his obscurity.
"He's a governor, and he's also a physician. At a time when health care is such an important issue, his ability to talk about it from the stance of achievement is very much in his favor," said Devine, who managed former Vice President Al Gore's 2000 presidential race.
