Howard Dean was a guest on Vermont Public Radio's "Vermont Edition" on Friday. I listened but didn't have time to post about it then. Howard was a little difficult to understand at times since he was calling in but he was able to hit a few major points.
There were topics that Howard declined to discuss; for example, he wouldn't comment on any of the Democratic nominees saying that if he commented about one, the rest would ask why he didn't say anything about them. So his policy is to not say anything.
Howard said that he would like to see the Democratic Party adopt a system of rotating regional presidential primaries beginning in 2012:
"I think the thing to do is to move some of the other primaries back and then rotate them through so in the future every state can count on having some significant input into who the presidential nominee is."
Vermont will be holding its presidential primary on Town Meeting Day in the beginning of March. Howard says if no presidential candidate is able to win 3 of the first 4 primaries, if not all 4, then voters can still exercise some influence:
"I think if it's not done in the first four primaries then I think probably the voters will wait until March to decide who it is. So, you may see some folks head up here, as for example Jimmy Carter did 1980 and Dick Gephardt did in 1988."
The interview got a bit contentious when host Bob Kinzel repeatedly referred to the "chaos" of the upcoming primary calendar and to Howard's "threats" against Florida and Michigan. Howard emphasized that he's not issuing threats but enforcing the party's rules:
"The rules say that (which were agreed to by Florida) that Florida would go on the fifth of February. They chose not to do that so they get sanctioned--that's not a surprise. I'm not carrying out a threat, it's not ‘us against Florida'. The rules are very clear: once you set the primary schedule, once everybody agrees to it, it has to stay intact because every state of course feels that they're the most important state."
He makes it clear here that the rules will be enforced across the board. Howard added that he is not overly concerned by New Hampshire SoS Bill Gardner's not setting the date of the NH primary yet.
This isn't the first time Howard has mentioned his support for a rotating primary system, which I believe is also supported by the National Association for Secretaries of State (or some such group). For example, this is from an interview he gave in October to the Johns Hopkins News-Letter:
We need a system where we rotate the primaries. We put four states early, which are geographically and ethnically diverse. It's the first time we've ever done that, and that's a good thing and they're small states. But for states like Maryland, you need to be in a rotation where you're not always the first state and you're not always the last state.