Howard Dean: On Hillary as the 'inevitable nominee'

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean for a time led the field for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004. He later served as Democratic national chairman and founded the liberal advocacy group Democracy for America. On USA TODAY's Capital Download, he discusses the state of the Democratic Party and declares his support for Hillary Rodham Clinton for president. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: It's hard to run for president, and it's even harder to be president. So why are politicians lining up to run?

Dean: This is the most important office in the world, and it's an office where you can change a lot of things and do a lot of things that you think are important, and I think that's the attraction. I actually ran because I wanted a balanced budget and I wanted universal health care. That was my platform.

Q: Were you confident you could do the job?

Dean: Oh, yeah. I didn't have a lot of doubts about whether I could do the job.

Q: For some, there are other motives.

Dean: Power is an incredible motivation and certainly people have those kind of motivations, and I did, too.

Q: Some people run on the theory that lightning can strike, even for a long shot.

Dean: I never thought of myself as a long-shot candidate. I thought about it in 2000. That lasted a day. I came down to tell (then-vice president) Al Gore I was thinking about running against him and before I landed back in Burlington, it had leaked and my numbers went down 20 points in Vermont ... which was of course the intention of the leak. So welcome to big-time Washington.

When I decided I was going to do it (four years later), I just did it. I didn't think about it as a long shot. I had a vague path about how to win. But i just did it because I wanted to do it. I thought it was important.

Q: Democrats lost control of the Senate in the midterm elections this month, lost governorships.

Dean: And worst of all, they've lost ground with state legislatures. ...

Now, the Republican message was mindless but it was incredibly disciplined. It was 'I'm not Obama.' You know what the Democratic message was? 'I'm not either.' How stupid is that?

Q: What should the message have been?

Dean: You should take the page out of Bill Clinton. 'Well, I voted for Obama. Of course I voted for Obama; he's a Democrat. But there are some things I disagree about. And there are some things I disagree with you about and one of them is the economy and you haven't done' – and off to the races you go. ...

People in Washington are always out of touch. Even the people I like are out of touch. And one thing people do not understand in Washington at their core is that 90% of Americans have done worse in the last 20 years and 10% have done a lot better. All the growth in the last 20 years has gone to the top 10%. Now, I'm not saying that because I'm a left-wing Democrat. I'm saying that because that's a big problem in capitalism ... and we need to talk about that.

Q: Was President Obama the problem?

Dean: Where you can blame Obama, he wasn't messaging at all, partly because his own people were saying 'don't go near these races.' The only effective messenger the party has is the president. If you have the presidency, you have the big megaphone. But unfortunately the only person who can deliver that message is the president. And our Democrats were so timid about the president. We needed the president out there talking about what's happening to the little person here.

Q: We asked readers for questions; here's one Steven Farnsworth sent via Twitter: 'Does Sen. (Bernie) Sanders represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party?'

Dean: He's not a Democrat, so the answer is no. But what Bernie does represent is a deep concern over working families. ... What Bernie Sanders is committed to is justice for working people. I don't think that's a bad slogan to have these days.

Q: Is that the Democrats' slogan now?

Dean: Not as much as they should be.

Q: Will you support Hillary Clinton for president in 2016?

Dean: I am going to support Hillary. I've known her for 25 years. Other than the people who have served in the office, I think she's the most qualified person to be president of the United States.

Q: Are you convinced she'll run?

Dean: I'm not convinced she's going to run, but if she does it will be for the right reasons and I'll support her.

Q: Have you told her you're going to support her?

Dean: Yes.

Q: What did she say?

Dean: 'Thank you.'

Q: Is she the inevitable nominee?

Dean: If she runs, she's the inevitable Democratic nominee.

Q: Will she win the general election?

Dean: That remains to be seen. You never want to take a general election for granted, no matter what happens.

Q: Who would be the smartest candidate for Republicans to nominate against her?

Dean: Bush or Romney ... because they're moderate, sort of, and they're more experienced and they can raise a lot of money and they're less likely to scare the American public.

Q: Who will they nominate?

Dean: Who knows?