November 5, 2003

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OK, say you’re the average not-from-Vermonter. Four years ago, Howard Dean completely did not exist. I mean, honestly, had someone approached you four years ago talking about “Howard Dean,” could your face have been anything but blank at that moment?

Today, if you don’t know who Howard Dean is, you pretty much need to put down Snarkmarket and pick up a newspaper clue.

And your cred is dodgy at best if you’ve never heard of Zephyr Teachout.

Well, so, my eventual point is that we ostensibly know all about Howard Dean, the presidential candidate. But most of us know precious little about Howard Dean, actual former governor of Vermont. And there’s a way to change all that, if you’re interested.

The jointly-owned Rutland Herald and Times Argus have thought to bring all us clueless non-Vermonters this snazzy archive of all their articles related to Howard Dean since their online web operation started in 1999. It is a brief, but stellar peek at Dean’s job as governor, well before anyone was thinking of him as a Presidential candidate.

Sift momentarily through the archive and you will find interesting artifacts like this little number, from Nov. 28, 2001, in which the newspaper’s editorial board remarks about the yet-nascent notion that little VT’s governor just might be thinking of running for President in ‘04. Marvel at the way they talk about 2003’s Democratic front-runner (let’s not quibble) the way we talk about Dennis Kucinich today.

A sample:

The fact is that, if Dean has only a 1 percent chance of winning, there still may be benefits from running. For one thing, he is an active player in the nation