What The Candidates Did BEFORE Becoming Politicians

What the candidates did before becoming politicians

By BILL STRAUB
Scripps Howard News Service
28-AUG-03

Dr. Howard Dean was intently examining a patient at his Shelburne, Vt., medical practice in August 1991 when he learned that he was about to surrender the operating room for the state Capitol.

The governor, Richard Snelling, was dead from a heart attack. Dean, who continued his work as a physician even after becoming Vermont's Democratic lieutenant governor five years earlier, was next in the line of succession.

Now, having completed five two-year terms as the Green Mountain State's top elected official, Dean is looking to switch jobs yet again, looking to become the first physician to serve as president of the United States.

All nine candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination had, or continue to maintain, jobs before entering the political field. Labor Day provides the candidates with an opportunity to wax rhapsodic about working men and women, although none of them opted for the sort of dirty-hands career Samuel Gompers had in mind when he originally pushed for the day of recognition.

Unremarkably, six of the nine contenders settled on the law as their life's work, hanging up a shingle, in some instances, as an entry into politics. Even President Bush, the scourge of the legal profession as a result of his support for tort reform, thought about becoming an attorney, only to give it up after failing to gain acceptance to the University of Texas law school. He turned to business, traded Sammy Sosa while serving as managing partner of baseball's Texas Rangers, and eventually assumed the world's most powerful position....MORE

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Thanks for posting this! Something that paints candidates in a good light equally is a breath of fresh air. I really like this quote from Edwards: "I am proud of what I did as a lawyer," Edwards said. "I fought for kids and families in very difficult circumstances, where they were the underdog, where they were fighting against powerful forces on the other side, oftentimes big insurance companies . My job was to give them a chance. They needed a champion and I was their champion. And many times I was the only hope they had."

They like to take on the big companies.

Dennis J Kucinich first ran for city councilman at 21 and was defeated but at the age of 23 he won. Before that he was a college student and worked at nights to pay his tution I am pretty sure he was the first in his family to go. He was the oldest of seven kids. I disagree about none of the candiates doing any work before they became politicans, Kucinich did a variety of work, heres something I bet you didnt know, Dennis was once a hospital orderly. Nevermind I got it
"The candidate most difficult to categorize professionally is Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who might simply be called a politician. A truck driver's son, who changed residences 21 times around Cleveland while growing up, Kucinich was elected to the city council in 1969 at age 23 and elected mayor eight years later when he was 31.

After losing a re-election bid in 1979, he taught at Cleveland State University and Case Western Reserve and, for a time, even served as a radio talk-show host and TV reporter. In a remarkable political comeback, he was elected to Congress in 1996 and has remained there."
Hes a politican but hes done some neat stuff. I think one of those schools is his alma mater I am not sure though.

surgical technician. When he was in grade school, he did janitorial work to pay his tuition, and in high school he was a caddy.

He belongs to the union that includes cameramen and keeps his membership because he's a strong supporter of unions.

I saw a photo of Frank Kucinich(dennis's dad), and it was a little fuzzy but I could see the resemblance. Dennis's parents were good people, unfortunely they never owned a home and they never got their social security checks so you can see why Dennis is very for lowering the retirement age. I also saw Gary, one of Dennis's brothers, seemed like a nice guy and I hear Gary is a vet, I dont know all of his siblings names. When you can get close to a candiate and know him and his family, and know his struggle you know youre supporting a friend and a candiate. Hes like a pal Dennis. If you heh are in to astrology Dennis is a libra, I am not but I hear libras are nice people and Dennis is no exception. He in the movie the moment is now went to his school to talk to the kids, he was real friendly and genuine. Cleveland is lucky to have him pretty soon we are gonna be lucky to have him. He remembers where he came from, and thats another emotion we share.

In both Canada and the USA lawyers seem to make up a much larger percentage of the political leadership than their percentage of the population. I just wonder what politics would be like if some kind of affirmative action constitutional change limited lawyers or law school graduates to a percentage of seats in congress or parliament equal to their share of the total population. You know, just one or two lawyers tops. Would politics be any better or worse? At a first guess you might actually get some form of tort reform passed.

has been protected by lawyers in govt. It's the business/republicrats that want to dicker with the individuals access to the court in order to redress grievances committed by the mighty, the wealthy and the powerful.

Yet most of the money spent on such tort cases ends up enriching lawyers. The plaintives may once in a while get riches beyond the wildest dreams of Joe Average but all to often they get very little once the legal bills are paid. The current legal system is far too much like a lottery with the lawyers selling the tickets and ending up winners most of the time.

I don't believe that's the case. And once Joe is compensated, the larger effect on corps is punitive- That's the muscle that should act as insurance for future good behavior.

Setting a tiny cap on punitives or pain & suffering is not the way to fix this. Collecting these damages is the only thing consumers have to protect themselves from corporations willing to sell faulty products. We've seen with the Bush Administration that you can't trust regulations, they'll just change them. A multi-million dollar settlement seems outrageous, but not when you consider them in context of a multi-billion dollar company. It is often the equivalent of a $100 fine to you or me. But if there are enough of them, they have to pay attention, not to mention the publicity. If you don't want lawyers to receive the bulk of the money, change the way lawyers are allowed to bill lawsuits using damages as payment. Cap their fees at $100 an hour, have citizen committes review the billing, there's ways to do this without letting corporations get away with selling dangerous products.

Politicans write laws. Lawyers study law. Therefore, they are usually the best legislatures. But non-lawyers are usually equally or better suited for executive postions. If we limited the number of people that understand law from serving we would have badly written laws or more lawyers working for the politicans to write the laws. In otherwords, government would need to get bigger to fill the lack of experience by our elected legislatures that don't know what they are doing.

Mike

Perhaps if there were fewer lawyers in office then the legislators would be forced to write simple laws that the average person could understand. Lawyers having been schooled in "lawspeak" assume that laws written using that tongue will be understood. As only lawyers understand lawspeak, this only means that there will be lots of future jobs for lawyers.

I know Kerry was waterskiing the Mekong Delta. What were the others doing?

I know Kerry came from a wealthy background? What about the others?

and in between him not being mayor and him being state senator. A professer and a consultant at a company which he still is.