Gephardt suffers Iowa poll upset. Deam ahead, in first place

http://desmoinesregister.com/opinion/stories/c5917686/21884420.html

Yepsen: Poll is big uh-oh for Gephardt
By DAVID YEPSEN
Register Political Columnist
08/03/2003
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Is Howard Dean on his way to the Democratic presidential nomination? Could be. Today's Iowa Poll of Democratic caucus-goers shows the former Vermont governor has moved into first place in Iowa, knocking Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt from that long-held perch.

That's more great news for Dean, who's been enjoying a lot of that lately, and another hard blow to Gephardt, whose campaign seems flat. It's also bad news for Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who is in third place. Not because he's running third here, but because of what a first-place Dean finish in Iowa is going to mean to Kerry's chances in New Hampshire.

Consider the scenario this poll suggests: Dean upsets Gephardt in Iowa. That could knock Gephardt out of the race. (He's already had trouble raising money, and an Iowa defeat means a rejection by the very people who elevated him to national stature in 1988.)

A caucus victory in Iowa is always worth a few points going into New Hampshire. Since Kerry and Dean are in a virtual tie in New Hampshire, an Iowa victory for Dean could push him over the top in the Granite State. Any candidate who wins both Iowa and New Hampshire is going to be hard to stop for the nomination. Which is why you can look for all the other candidates to start scuffing up Dean a little more.

more........................

However, Dean is in no position to surprise anyone anymore. In fact, he may be peaking too early. But that's a whole "nother column.

http://desmoinesregister.com/opinion/stories/c5917686/21884420.html

As seen tonight. those attacks on Deand record have yet to begin.

Iowa is a state with a lot of small farmers, who are being crowded out by large corporate farms. There is a lot of bad feeling in Vermont about Dean favoring agri-business, and not doing much for small farms.

While all over Deans own camopaign sites, you will see him talking about his fighting for family farms:


Then in February, you come up with this crap from Holhut about Vermont Governor, Howard Dean for President -- how about the 'rest of the story'? Dean is of the Dean Witter Reynolds Deans, and right out of the capitalist corporate mold, ever the supporter of the rich and powerful, big business and growth, growth, growth (like cancer).

He recently brought in a huge Canadian factory that makes equipment to manufacture plastic bottles. To do this he got the zoning changed on the beautiful farmland around Arrowhead Mountain Lake (the very same lake mentioned by Hightower in that issue where dirtbag Dean approved the slaughter of swans as "aliens"). He agreed to provide the factory with an eight million dollar bridge across this environmentally sensitive lake to boot.

Then he brought in a Canadian industrial pork and egg baron, Lucien Breton; Dean and his hand-picked Commissioner of Agribusiness encouraged this guy to build a 700,000-bird egg factory and got it defined as a "farm". They grow nothing on the land, have caused enormous problems for neighbors and hurt family farms in the area.

Dean has fought on the side of Monsanto to make rBGH easily available and untraceable in the milk supply and announced that as an MD, he knows that rBGH is safe.

Dean and his Ag Commissioner support product disparagement laws (see Nader's column) with rBGH and Alar in mind, the really funny thing is that Commissioner Graves continually issues dire warnings against touching raw milk to your lips. In fact the PP ran a story a while back about Laini Fondiller, the goat lady, who was harassed and threatened for years because she produced cheese from eight or nine goats without approved, automated processing equipment.

http://www.populist.com/98.4.letters.html

Interview with Lee Light
Lee and Bob Light run the Hollister Hill Farm in the Marshfield/Plainfield area. They were dairy farmers for about 20 years, before finally selling their cows in 1997. Now they run a diversified farm, raising beefalo, pork and poultry, making maple syrup and hay, and running a bed and breakfast. The Lights moved to Vermont from New Jersey in 1972 as part of the back to the land movement (the New York Times ran a front page article on them on June 9, 1975). On July 11, 2002, Lee Light spoke with DEMOCRACY IN ACTION in her kitchen, where she prepares scrumptious breakfasts for B&B guests. Speaking generally, she said, "Howard Dean's a real middle-of-the-road kind of guy... He's pretty good on health care, but I think he's very moderate." Asked for her views on Dean's record on agriculture, and she was quite critical.




QUESTION: What can you tell us about Howard Dean and agriculture?

LEE LIGHT: When he was lieutenant governor working for Snelling he made some gestures that sounded like maybe he really understood issues affecting family farms and whatnot. But early on it became clear that that wasn't a priority. He's been governor for 11 years and we've lost a lot of farms, and we've also been a state that hasn't fought against the bovine growth hormone factory farms. I don't even think it's an issue for him. He has a commissioner of agriculture that hasn't bucked that trend towards bigger agriculture. The Agriculture Department he never fully funds; he's always cutting the budget. In a state where farming is so much part of our identity and there's so many people who move to Vermont or live in Vermont that want to farm on whatever scale, that there should be a lot more interest in the Agriculture Department and he's just not there. I mean yeah he goes and taps the maple tree and shows up at Dairy Festival, but as far as really fully supporting an agriculture community, he doesn't. And I don't think he's that different from the world in general, because family farms are sort of like a romantic notion. But I think in the long run we'd be far better off with family farms than factory farms, and rural communities where people have a sense of community.

QUESTION: Has he done anything positive for agriculture?

LEE LIGHT: What he'll say is that he strongly supports the North East Dairy Compact. Well that was the simplest thing for any politician to hang their hat on. But it was not really enough of an increase in pay to really keep people in. And the same thing happened here on our farm. We farmed and our son came on the farm to farm with us and we farmed with us for about ten years... The problem with low milk prices is that the next generation sees it as like, am I going to work as hard as my parents and not make any money and never have a vacation? So the younger generation doesn't want to continue to do it unless they put up those big million dollar operations where there's thousands of cows and the cows never go outside and it's a whole different form of agriculture.

QUESTION: What would be two or three things that Howard Dean could have done?

LEE LIGHT: I think the state of Massachusetts does pretty good as far as what farms they have left. And one of the things they have in Massachusetts, it's a land trusting program like we have here in Vermont. What happens here in Vermont is they'll give a farmer "x" number of dollars and that land is tied up forever. It can never be subdivided and built on; it always remains the same. But what they do in Massachusetts is they do it for, it's on a generational basis with twenty-year increments, and a farm can apply for that money and it's a smaller amount of money, but what that money does is it modernizes, makes places more efficient. They'll bring in a team of experts to help the farmers figure out a plan of how to go forward and then at the end of that 20 years if the next generation comes out and wants to renew it there's a new source of money. Because when you get all that money all one time here in Vermont, what happens is that close to 40 percent of the money goes for taxes so that's gone. And then what the farmer does is they take that money and they reduce their debt because they've been farming at a loss. And then they'll farm, maybe they'll be okay for a while, but as long as the price of milk is lower than what it costs the farmer to produce, they're going to wind up back in that same black hole, where they can't make enough money to keep the thing going and will eventually go out of business...

http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2004/dean/dean0702/lightint.html


Crisis in Agriculture in Vermont
A Special Report about Governor Howard Dean's Agriculture Department
From Vermonters for a Clean Environment, Inc.

March 20, 2002


Agriculture has been a mainstay of Vermont's economy and culture for centuries. The state of Vermont does and should take an active role in supporting agriculture. However, in recent years, support for agriculture has been twisted by our state government so that it no longer means what it once did -- support for family farms and sustainable way of life. Instead, support for agriculture has come to mean support for practices that generate the most dollars in the shortest time with the least concern about their impact on other Vermonters , present and future.

http://www.vtce.org/deancrisisagvt.html


USDA Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy was fired because he accepted gifts and trips by Tyson Foods. It is illegal for the secretary to accept favors from those he is supposed to regulate. Vermonters deserve the same protection. Leon Graves spent many days wining and dining Lucien Breton of the Vermont Egg Factory and he was overly concerned about Dan Smith's lobbying payments. At the very least he is guilty of the appearance of impropriety by being overly friendly with those that he, and only he, is authorized to regulate. Representative democracy should involve more than just lobbyists and state bureaucrats, but also the citizens and the communities who have to live with the results.

http://together.net/~wudchuck/987_watchman_34.html

Prior to Dean's becoming governor of Vermont, Vermont was pretty much a rural state. Now it is rare to find places that do not look pretty much like anytown U.S.A. wit more Wal-Marts, Toys 'R US and strip malls than anyone in the state needs.

Dean did a lot of talk about an idea called smart growth, and while Vemront is not New York City, Dean was failrly active in Paving Paradise and putting up Parking lots.

A lot of growth, and not much smart.

I would expect to hear Gephardt pulling out a bit of talk abour Deans record when he beings more active campigning in Ipwa (Gephardt has barely done any campaigning at all). AS ususl, the seasoned politicians are waiting until months before the caucuses and primaries and it is very, very likely, that Deans records in each state will be brought out soon after labor day.

Again, Dean did a lot of talking about preserving Vermont and family farms, but allowed agribusiness and roads and residential subdivisions, and re-zoning to roll over a lot of small family farms.