Pubdate: Mon, 06 Oct 2003 Source: Capital Times, The (WI) Copyright: 2003 The Capital Times Contact: http://www.captimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/73 Author: David Callender Note: our newshawk writes: The 'heckler' was Jim Miller, assisted by myself, Gary Storck Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Howard+Dean Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Jim+Miller Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Gary+Storck Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Ben+Masel DEAN SPEECH DRAWS 5,000 HERE Candidate: Flag not owned by Ashcroft, Limbaugh, Cheney Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean had one of those moments Sunday that give politicians pause whenever they consider visiting Madison. As the physician and former Vermont governor was turning from his pledge of universal health insurance for Americans to assail the nation's prison-building binge, he was interrupted by a heckler. The voice asked: Could Dean justify why the government is jailing patients who use marijuana for medical purposes? Dean told the crowd of about 5,000 outside the Kohl Center that his stance on the issue was "a little complicated," but "since you asked about it, I'll divert from my speech for one second." The crowd erupted in cheers. Dean, who is promoting himself as a grass-roots alternative to Republican President George W. Bush, told the crowd that the reason he's been so successful "is not just because we say things and get in the president's face, but because we believe that all of you are not foot soldiers, but that all of you are in a sense running the campaign." That means listening to his supporters and not just giving speeches, he said. So Dean responded to the question. Dean said the nation needs to consider nonviolent drug crimes as a "medical problem and not a judicial problem," a statement that drew more cheers. He said he is reluctant to promise action on the issue "for the same reason I'm pro-choice: I don't like politicians making medical decisions." But he said if he were elected, he would ask the Food and Drug Administration to review all studies, recommend the appropriate medical uses, "and we will follow their recommendations." Dean added that based on his review of the studies, the FDA would most likely recommend that marijuana is "fine for HIV/AIDS and cancer patients and ... it would probably not be fine for glaucoma, where the risks outweigh the benefits." Dean's response won grudging approval from longtime pro-marijuana activist Ben Masel, who said a friend posed the question. "It was the best answer we've heard from him to date," said Masel, who said he was pleased by Dean's answer that drug abuse should be treated as a medical problem and not a crime. "And I give him credit for being willing to take a less-than-sycophantic question. There are a lot of campaigns that would have hauled us out rather than answer the question." The departure from Dean's standard stump speech was just the kind of exchange that some supporters said attracted them in the first place. While the event was part of a four-day, seven-city swing through college campuses to draw what the campaign calls "Generation Dean," or 18- to 30-year-olds, at least half of the crowd looked like it was well past the generation's upper age limit. Among those supporters were Henry St. Maurice, his wife, Mary, and 4-year-old daughter Emma, who made the two-hour drive from Stevens Point so they could finally hear their candidate speak. The couple said they've already donated more than $1,000 to Dean and are part of about 40 regular volunteers in their community who first came together via one of the campaign's Web-based "meet-ups." St. Maurice said he first encountered Dean while he was living in Vermont, "where it's so small you can't avoid shaking hands with the governor sometime." When he saw Dean on the campaign trail on C-SPAN in June, "it just clicked with me right away." St. Maurice, who traces his political roots back to Gene McCarthy's insurgent campaign for president in 1968, says Dean's organization is unlike anything he's ever seen. "This has really been a ground-up organization," he said. Like many in the crowd, the St. Maurices were first drawn by Dean's early and outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq, but ultimately chose to support him because of his unabashed liberalism on a host of other issues. Dean received some of the heaviest applause when he told the crowd to wave the American flags many had brought to the rally. "We are going to win because we are going to remind Americans that that flag does not belong to John Ashcroft and Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. It belongs to the people of the United States of America, and that is us," he said. Dean also drew heavy applause as he recounted how many of the reasons Bush gave for invading Iraq have since been proven false. Bush promised that as president, "I will send our troops anywhere in the world to defend the United States of America," but "I will never send our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters and our grandchildren to a foreign country in harm's way without telling the truth to the American people about why they're going there." He was just as aggressive defending organized labor. His campaign had asked supporters to bring canned goods to help striking Tyson Foods workers from Jefferson, a request that yielded about six large. He also assailed last year's Republican-inspired tax cut. "The truth is the middle class never got a tax cut," he said, contending that any tax breaks that middle-income taxpayers may have received were swallowed up by tuition and property tax hikes or cuts in local services. "This was a service cut, not a tax cut." This was Dean's third trip to Wisconsin this year and the first visit by any of the major Democratic candidates for president. Dean is widely regarded as the party's front-runner. With Democratic primaries set between the traditional early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina and the vote-rich primaries in New York and California, political observers say a win here could provide candidates with much-needed momentum, and potentially weed out some weaker contestants. Many Democratic leaders here have yet to endorse a presidential candidate. Senate Minority Leader Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, was one of the first in the nation to endorse Dean. Dean also met Sunday with U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz, but Dean aides stressed that the meetings were a courtesy call and not a prelude to endorsement. Wisconsin, which Bush lost by about 6,000 votes in the 2000 election, is also expected to be a key battleground state next fall. Bush has already visited the state eight times since taking office, most recently last Friday for a $2,000-a-plate luncheon in Milwaukee. Dean swiped at Bush for that visit, saying the president "could never draw 5,000 people out in Madison to support his policies." But not everyone in Sunday's crowd was sold on Dean. Brian Buchanan, a law student and potential member of the "Generation Dean." was among about 40 students camped outside the Kohl Center waiting to purchase Badger basketball tickets, which go on sale Nov. 1. "His issues don't appeal to me," said Buchanan, who described himself as a Republican. "I expect this to go over well in Madison, but I don't think it will go over nearly as well in the rest of the state. I definitely think he'll really excite the primary voters, but he might be a little too liberal for the general election. He brings back memories of Mondale and Dukakis." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake