'Dean Divers' put spotlight on candidate's record

For hours on end, they camp out at the state archives housed in an 1890 mansion, scouring public records, documents and correspondences in a search of crucial details about former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, the Democratic presidential front-runner.

State officials have dubbed them "Dean Divers."

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Some searchers have spent hours at Chittenden Community Television, watching public access television tapes of Dean's news conferences and debates.
Jess Wilson, channel director at the station, said one woman from rival Dick Gephardt's campaign spent the better part of a summer day watching tapes of news conferences in the 1990s, when Dean discussed budget cuts and Medicare. Since then, Gephardt has accused Dean of changing positions on some issues.

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Some researchers have asked to open records kept in 145 crates at a state warehouse in Middlesex, Vermont, but Markowitz said he reached an agreement with Dean to keep those private for 10 years after the governor left office. Two of Dean's predecessors made similar arrangements, although the records were cracked open after just six years.

"What was new was the political aspirations of the person being negotiated with," Markowitz said of the length of time records will remain private.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/21/elec04.prez.dean.divers.ap/index.html

Dean had harsh words for what he called the "radical right wing" in Congress, particularly members of the House, and Gingrich's Contract With America.

However, he applauded the efforts of Senate Budget Committee chairman Pete Domemici, R-Nev., who presented his own balanced budget plan last week.

Dean said he disagreed with some of the details of Domenici's plan. But he said Domenici's was a serious proposal that did not include tax cuts and recognized the need to put a permanent end to federal budget deficits.

Dean also said he could defend Domenici's approach to reducing Medicare costs. He said he supported more managed care for Medicare recipients and requiring some Medicare recipients to pay a greater share of the cost of their medical services.

"I fully subscribe to the notion that we should reduce the Medicare growth rate from 10 percent to 7 percent, or less if possible," Dean said.

The Vermont governor has been an outspoken critic of the Contract With America, which he continued to describe Wednesday as the "Contract On America".
http://12.32.36.99/TimesArgus.pdf

The 'Willie Horton' example was raised. It is an unfortunate reality that attack ads have become part of our political culture. It would be impossible to anticipate how opponents might mis/use even the most innocuous of documents. Setting new barriers to access in an attempt to anticipate attacks would be, at best, unfortunate. Ironically, such barriers would probabley become an issue, detracting from the Governor's proud record of achievement ( the reality of the possibility is evidenced by controversy surrounding President Bush's gubernatorial records, Mayor Giuliani's records, and records of former Governor Gilmore;
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President Bush did not use his election to put restrictions on his gubernatorial records, beyond thos allowed by Texas law. The Texas Attorney General recently furthered clarified Mr.Bush's gubernatorial records by declaring them 'state records' subject to the Texas Public Information Act.
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In the face of public outcry, Governor Bush's records were recently removed from his father's presidential library back to the Texas State Archives for review under the State's open record law.
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Again, the reality is that gubernatorial records are part of our collective institutional (state government) records and thus are important to government continuity accross institutions.
http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2003/dean.pdf