TIME was given exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to Dean and his campaign, interviewing him multiple times, as well as his wife (Judith Steinberg), mother and others close to him. The cover package includes photography by award-winning photographer Gregory Heissler, a chart detailing the similarities between President George W. Bush and Howard Dean and a chart highlighting ten days that shook the race for President.
TIME National Political Correspondent Karen Tumulty reports that, a year ago, Dean predicted he would come in "dead last in fund raising." Now hes No. 1, and hes done it the hard way: $20, $50, $125 at a time. Half of it, he claims, came from people who had never before given to a politician. Small individual contributions have leverage, because only the first $250 gets federal matching funds. And donors who havent hit their $2,000 legal limit can be tapped again. So theres more where that came from.
Other details reported in TIMEs cover package include:
- Protests in response to Vermont Civil Unions legislation: Calls poured inan average of 8,000 a day, according to longtime aide Kate OConnor after he signed the Vermont Civil Unions bill. "If you have a couple hundred a day normally, its a big deal," she says. Dean was running for a fifth term, and he had signed the civil-unions bill six months before Election Day. It didnt look good. "We were campaigning, and people would be wearing gas masks, like we were poison," says OConnor. Protesters screamed that Dean was a "faggot"; so many threats were made that he had to wear a bulletproof vest. A detail that, to his credit, Dean never offers on the campaign trail, even to gay audiences, TIME reports.
- His mother on him being a liberal insurgent: When asked whether her son is truly a liberal insurgent, Andre Maitland Dean told TIME, "Hes not really." Then she added with a chuckle, "I hope they dont find that out just yet."
- Why Dean stopped drinking: Dean tells Cloud that his bachelor party was so raucous that it helped persuade him to stop drinking 22 years ago. Quite sensibly, he wouldnt provide the details of the nights festivities, buteventually, ineluctablysomeone will. Still, Dean practically squeaks today: he doesnt drink alcohol or even caffeine. The good doctor also doesnt smoke, TIME reports.
- His Father: On his father, Dean says he was "a gargantuan figure. As we say in politics, he took all the oxygen out of the room."
- His brother: The CIA wont discuss the rumor that Deans brother Charles was killed while working for the CIA in Laos.
- His familys reaction to him taking premed classes: Howard Dean was nervous when his parents found out he was taking premed classes. He describes his father as "a strict disciplinarian," and he was sure the old man would think leaving finance for medical school "was crazy. But he never said one word about it. I would have done it anyway, but it just would have been harder ... In some ways that was the best thing he ever did."
- Requested African-American roommates at Yale: At Yale, where he enrolled in 1967, when Bush was beginning his senior year, Dean requested that the school pair him with black roommates to give him another view of the world. He got two African-American roommates and one from rural Pennsylvania. "I had known people of different kinds before," Dean says, "but I had never lived with people that were so different, and it was wonderful." Though he says he "didnt do much protesting," Dean opposed the Vietnam War, TIME reports.
- Clinton watcher: Throughout the 90s, Dean had been a close Clinton watcher. Like Clinton, Dean also used a political strategy of triangulation: on one hand, Dean alienated progressives by tightening spending and successfully pushing tax cuts. "Howard would start {each budget cycle} by cutting programs for the needy, things like wheelchairs and artificial limbs," says state auditor Elizabeth Ready, who has been both friend and foe to Dean. Horrified liberals would have to claw each benefit back from the tightfisted Governor. But at election time, Dean marginalized Republicans by appealing to socially liberal groups like environmentalists. "Every year, as the first thing in his budget, {Dean} put $10 million aside for conservation," says Don Hooper, a Vermont conservationist.
- Similarities with President Bush: The article includes a chart detailing similarities between Dean and Bush, including that they both were raised Republican, they come from old money, both went to Yale, both quit drinking, and they both speak Spanish.
Full text of the story is on TIME.com.
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