Q&A with former Vermont Governor and DNC chairperson Howard Dean

Former Democratic National Committee Chairperson and Vermont Governor Howard Dean visited UNC-Chapel Hill to campaign for Hillary Clinton Wednesday.

Assistant State and National Editor Danielle Chemtob sat down with Dean to discuss the 2016 election.

The Daily Tar Heel: You and Sen. Bernie Sanders are both from Vermont. A lot of students supported him in the primaries. Why should they now support Hillary Clinton?

Howard Dean: First of all, she knows the issues cold ... Secondly, she’s willing to bring in the people who opposed her to work with them, and that includes the Republicans. We have to unify the country and I think Hillary’s the only person who can do that. Thirdly, I think we want a reasonable foreign policy that doesn’t result in sending foreign troops all over the place and I think she has more experience in that than anybody else who’s run.

DTH: What would you say to students who are considering voting third party?

HD: The first thing I’d say is we need a system where a third party is not wasting your vote so that you can vote for a third party without having that dilemma ... But in the meantime, a third-party vote is a vote that makes it easier for Donald Trump to be president of the United States. The truth is that Hillary Clinton has a program that is more effective than any of the third-party people ... So, I would argue that Hillary Clinton is the most qualified person, and I would ask that people consider voting for her and not just not vote for her because their candidate didn’t win. When I lost I had to go talk to my supporters about voting for John Kerry, and, you know, they didn’t want to do it. John Kerry represented the Washington establishment, I didn’t. But the truth is I knew John Kerry would be a better president for the country than George W. Bush.

DTH: Your campaign is famous for the “Dean Scream.” How do you feel about the political gaffes in this election cycle?

HD: Trump has changed the field on political gaffes ... This is the hardest job in the word and my attitude is if you can’t get through a campaign season, which is full of booby traps and unfair people, then you probably shouldn’t be president. I’m more amused than anything else by the “I Have a Scream” speech. I’ve had a lot of fun with it over the years, but it didn’t really have an effect on my campaign. I think campaigns are tough and should be tough because this is the most important office in the world, and you better be able to deal with everything when it comes.

DTH: A lot of states have cut funding for higher education, including North Carolina. How do you think Hillary Clinton will help those states?

HD: What we need to do is fund the first couple of years of public education so the students can come here for next to nothing ... And we also, in my view, need to forgive half the student debt in the country ... Most people cannot afford the amount of debt, and they’re never gonna pay it back because they can’t. This is gonna be a crisis — why not take care of the crisis before it happens instead of wait til it happens?

DTH: You were chair(person) of the DNC, and you’ve been in politics awhile. What has led up to the emotions and the feelings in this election?

HD: These are people who have been left behind by globalization. Many of them are not that skilled, they are used to being able to work hard and support their families. This is not about trade — for North Carolina, trade has been great. Trade has created huge amounts of jobs both in agriculture and in industry in North Carolina. But there are states like Ohio and Indiana where trade has been tougher ... But the issue is not trade, the issue is the speed of the internet and it’s robotics and automation ... It’s mostly older people who don’t have the benefit of a great education and they’re having a tremendous amount of trouble with the speed of change in the economy. Killing all the global trade treaties is not gonna have any effect at all — it’s gonna hurt North Carolina. 

The way to do it is to put effort into rural America, into places like central Ohio and West Virginia, which Hillary is already talking about in order to allow everybody to participate in the benefits of globalization.

state@dailytarheel.com