X-Message-Number: 22044 From: "mike99" <> Subject: Re: #22032 - Who is Howard Dean? Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 16:22:22 -0600 From: Thomas Donaldson <> >For "Mark": who is Howard Dean and why should I vote for him? >Remember that I am now a US citizen living outside the US, and >may not have heard about some of the more obscure contenders. Howard Dean is Governor of Vermont and also an MD (medical doctor). He is by far the most leftist of all the current Democratic candidates. This makes him very popular with the core Democrat voters. (Please note that the core voters of any political party are its most ideologically extreme or "pure" members and they are the ones most likely to vote in party primary elections which determine who the party's candidate will be in the general election.) I am neither a Democrat nor a fan of Howard Dean. However, I enjoy watching him snipe at the more middle-of-the-road Democrats in the race for their party's nomination. Dean has the freedom to speak honestly and directly because he knows that the party faithful love that. This discomfits the other Democratic candidates who would actually stand some chance of being elected in a head-to-head contest with President Bush. They don't want to lose their party's base to Dean, nor do they want to move to the left to meet him, for fear that they themselves would then become unelectable by the vast middle of voters. This is quite a dilemma. I don't know if Dean has taken a position on cryonics, so I can't say whether he would be good for us or not. His official website (http://www.deanforamerica.com/) details his health care plan for America but says nothing about "hot button" issues like stem cell research and cloning. My guess is that Dean's socialized medical plan, while possibly good for the numerical majority of Americans, might squeeze the quality away from high-end, costly medical research and treatments that immortalists desire most. Michael LaTorra Member: Extropy Institute: www.extropy.org World Transhumanist Association: www.transhumanism.org Alcor Life Extension Foundation: www.alcor.org Society for Technical Communication: www.stc.org Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22044