BURLINGTON, Vt. -- By now, Howard Dean has honed the art of sayingsorry.
He has had to, the way he has gone about things, whether as aprivate citizen fighting developers for a bicycle trail, a Vermontgovernor horsewhipping opponents over health care or today's scrappycandidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
He hasn't cared whose feathers he has ruffled until he hasrealized that he has flown off the handle. Then he stops and takesstock.
Sorry, he said early in his career, after intimating thatcolleagues in the state Senate were virtual communists. Sorry, hetold an opponent in this campaign after mischaracterizing his speech.No wonder his longtime chief of staff in Vermont, Kathy Hoyt, wasknown as his "chief smoother."
"He's not going to tell you anything except what he thinks," shesays now. "He's fresh-faced and honest."
The 54-year-old Dean's aggressive campaigning, his appeal amongthe party's liberal activists, and spectacular fund-raising throughthe Internet have made him an early favorite.
In the aftermath of the Iraq war, Dean's anti-war stance isattracting Democrats who opposed the U.S.-led conflict and think therest of the field caved to President Bush.
He has even said of himself: "I can get snippy, no doubt aboutit."
"I do have a mouth on me," he acknowledged recently. "That is, Igenerally say what I think, so I get in trouble."
Family and friends have seen the intense Howard Dean for a longtime. But they've never seen a Howard Dean quite like this.
"He's become so bold," says Rick Sharp, a lawyer who recruitedDean into activism with the bike-path debate many years ago.
He's even snazzing up his look -- he has gotten a few new suitsfor the campaign. Quite a departure from a wardrobe once so forlornthat kids he was tutoring in the inner city chipped in to buy himpants, a shirt and shoes, says his mom.
Makes something happen
For years, he was known simply as Dr. Dean, an internist whoworked at the hospital in Burlington. But he quickly earned the titleMr. Bikepath when he led a battle to preserve the city's waterfrontand make a bikeway along Lake Champlain.
Dean and company blocked developers' plans to build two 18-storytowers with condos and hotels close to the lakeshore, then anindustrial-era eyesore. Now, it's one of Burlington's top attractionswith its parks, boathouse, marina, cafe and pathway.
"Howard Dean was the sparkplug to get the whole thing started,"said Sharp, 50, who recruited Dean to the cause.
Sharp sees a clamorous side to Dean, which he says seems to comefrom a genuine distaste for what Bush is doing. Yet he can "work inpolitical reality, compromise and make something happen."
He has made plenty happen. Andree Dean, his mother, said that whenhe spent a year at a private school in Britain, he campaignedsuccessfully against a policy that everyone take cold morningshowers.
Once in state politics, he helped improve Vermont's finances, madehealth care available to nearly all children in the state and signeda law legalizing gay civil unions.
A moderate by the standards of liberal Vermont, Dean comes to thepresidential race decidedly to the left. He says he'd insist thatstates recognize legal rights for gay couples, favors abortion rightseven without a minor obtaining parental consent, and says manyaspects of the war on terrorism are "offensive" to civil rights.
Dean's appearance belies his roots in a family of Wall Streeters -- both his father and grandfather had seats on the New York StockExchange.
He grew up on New York's Park Avenue with his three brothers,spent weekends and summers in tony East Hampton, N.Y., and went toprep school in Rhode Island before going off to Yale.
In 1970 Dean was excused from the draft when X-rays showed he hada back condition, although he said in a recent interview that he"probably" could have served.
After attending the Albert Einstein School of Medicine in NewYork, where he met his wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg, he completed hisresidency in Burlington. They opened a family practice in Vermont.
"He's fearless," says his mother, recalling her son's frequentsailing adventures on his small sunfish sailboat alone on theAtlantic Ocean. He learned to snowboard at age 45 for a tri-staterace in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Bull in Vermont's china shop
After his bike-trail activism, Dean volunteered for Jimmy Carter'sunsuccessful 1980 presidential campaign, then became a statelegislator and, later, lieutenant governor, both part-time jobs.
In 1991, Gov. Richard Snelling died of a heart attack, launchingDean's 11-year run as governor.
That's when he earned a reputation as a bull in a china shop, withmanners.
At one point, he wrote to the leader of the Vermont SenateDemocrats, Dick McCormack, apologizing for telling Senate liberalsthey ought to learn from what happened in Eastern Europe.
"I and many others interpreted that as calling us Communists,"says McCormack, chuckling about it now. McCormack says Dean wrotemany apologies to him over the years.
Dean also atoned for saying publicly that then-Vermont Sen. CherylRivers shouldn't be re-elected, two weeks before the 1994 election.He clashed with his fellow Democrat on health care and budget issues.
"I think everyone has their style," Rivers said. "An assertive,aggressive personality goes with the territory."
But he is not full of airs, says Martha O'Connor of Brattleboro,Vt. She says Dean, a frequent houseguest of the O'Connors, makes hisbed in the morning, puts his towel in the washing machine, fixes hisown cereal and cleans his dirty bowl. Then he sends a thank you note.
Big rocks, lilies and tall pine trees surround the Deans' house inSouth Burlington, Vt., just a block from Lake Champlain.
The Deans have two children, Paul, 17, and Anne, 19.
"They do all the cooking and cleaning," O'Connor said of theDeans. "Probably their night out would be a pizza."
Brother's death changed life
A pivotal point in Dean's life came when his oldest brother,Charles, died under mysterious circumstances in Laos during theVietnam War. Friends say Dean, then 22, became more serious, leftbehind the partying of his college days and stopped drinking.
Charles Dean, 24, was traveling around the world in 1974 when heand an Australian companion were arrested by the communist PathetLao, which was fighting a U.S.-supported government. The Pathet Lao,supported by Vietnam, won control of the country in 1975 and remainsin power.
The two men apparently were suspected of being spies, although theU.S. and Australian governments said they were tourists and stronglyprotested their detention.
The Dean family learned in March or April 1975 that Charles hadbeen killed but had to wait a quarter of a century for abreakthrough. Remains believed to be those of Charles were found lastmonth in a rice field and returned to America just afterThanksgiving.
"While we are saddened that he is not still with us, we arecomforted by the fact that he is finally coming home," Dean said atthe repatriation ceremony in Hawaii.
Taking off the spin
For all his hard-charging ways, Dean can temper his manner to playto the audience, in ways that some see as calculating. Speaking to abipartisan audience of New Hampshire Rotarians, he said "we don't dothe red meat" for such a crowd and gave a mellow policy address.
"The nice thing about talking to this Rotary," he said, "is I cantake the spin off my fastball." AP
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