Reply #135: Stop falling for campaign rhetoric. Here's the truth about Dean's record:

[kerry-is-my-prez]

Dean is very conservative. He is very far to the right when it come to issues such as criminal justice, drugs, and just about everything except the war in Iraq and civil unions. Even in those areas – he has not always been 100%.

he's against medical marijauna,

he does not support the Kyoto Treaty,

supports NAFTA,

after the terrorist attacks he said he believed that the attacks and their aftermath would “require a re-evaluation of the importance of some of our specific civil liberties,"

he fought against having methadone clinics in Vermont (they all had to go to neighboring states),

he's against Affirmative Action,

he sided with the Republicans in Congress (against the Democrats) to support their draconian Medicare bill),

drastically increased funding for prisons and prosecutors (some reports say as much as 150%) and drastically decreased it to Criminal Defense attorneys,

he told a group of defense attorneys that "My job is to make your jobs as tough as possible,"

says that Criminal Defendants get all the breaks,

stated that he "wanted to appoint to the Vermont Supreme Court a justice who would consider "common sense more important than legal technicalities" and "quickly convict guilty criminals (he’s appointed conservative Republican judges over moderate Democratic ones).

said on at least one public occasion that the state should spend less money providing the accused with legal representation, saying that "95% of criminal defendants are guilty anyway,

is buddies with all of the energy companies in Vermont (Enron and Halliburton among them) "Nearly a fifth of the roughly $111,000 collected in its first months by Dean’s presidential PAC came from people with ties to Vermont’s electric utilities,

his tax policies in Vermont favored the wealthy at the expense of the poor (the poorest fifth of Vermont non-elderly taxpayers—paid 10% of their income in Vermont state and local taxes, one and half times the share the wealthiest Vermonters pay),

tried to turn down funding for low income mentally ill defendants,

stated that "welfare reform has been an incredibly positive force. Vermont was the first state in the nation to institute welfare reform, and we’ve had great success with it,"

said some welfare recipients "don't have any self-esteem. If they did, they'd be working" and scaled back Vermont's welfare program, reducing cash benefits and imposing strict time limits on single mothers receiving welfare assistance.

he now supports an embargo against Cuba (now that he realizes he needs the Cuban vote in Florida),

wants to increase defense spending,

Dean and the legislature made sure that snowmobiling was included as one of the permitted activities in the protected region of the Champion Land preserve in Vermont (the snowmobilers org. received hundreds of thousands of dollars every year from Vermont’s Agency of Natural Resources (ANR), all under the guise of “environmental improvement funds (they're very powerful ya know),

opposed state recognition for the Abenaki tribe,

many environmentalists from Vermont were VERY unhappy with him (not just one or two but MANY) for the way he favored corporations and developers over environmentalists

he supports the death penalty,

he has an "A" rating from the NRA,

he says he agrees with AIPAC (over the APN - a more Progressive organization),

basically thinks that protestors are criminals, disagreed when the free Mumia protestors were let off

Use of the trespass statute as a tool to silence dissent has become commonplace in Dean’s tenure in Vermont and that practice is currently before the federal courts as an unconstitutionally over-broad restriction on First Amendment rights.

has announced his support for a policy in which Washington will decide which countries are allowed to have nuclear weapons and will reserve for itself the right to forcefully disarm those who do not voluntarily disarm by U.S. dictate. In this crucial regard Dean's position is in close accordance with the Bush doctrine of coercive disarmament and preventive war.

And you're asking ME a Progressive Democrat who has taken the time to read up on the issues, has taken the time to look at Dean ACTUAL record, rather than just listening to his phony rhetoric, why I would support Clark????

You need to do some reading up on this candidate.