WASHINGTON – Former Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.) predicted that there is going to be a “contested” Democratic convention in the 2020 presidential election.
“The party should move wherever they are comfortable moving and there’s going to be a process for that. I’m not very worried about where the party is going to move – too far to the left or too far to the right or any of that. I mean, we have a pretty open party and there’s going to be a vote and it’s going to be a contested convention and the party will move where the party thinks it should move,” Dean told PJM after speaking at a recent Washington Campus event at the National Press Club in Washington.
“We were pretty damn successful in the last election and I think, I don’t know Alexandria [Ocasio-Cortez] but I think she’s terrific to have on board. And I also think people like Conor Lamb are terrific and they’re not going to vote the same all the time, and I don’t have any problem at all with that. I think that’s the way it should be. It would be better if everybody didn’t agree on everything all the time and did what they thought was right for the country,” he added.
When asked why he thinks the there will be a brokered convention, Dean replied, “I expect that, yeah. I think there are so many people running I don’t know how you get to a majority but we’ll see, I’ve been wrong before, many times.”
Last year, Dean said he thinks the Democratic presidential nominee should be someone under 50 years of age. Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was asked if he still has the same view on the Democratic primary as more candidates jump in the race.
“I mean, I would support whoever we nominate but I think the best – we need to continue the generational change in my party,” Dean said. “I think we need a new young face who will energize, especially young people. Look, our base is young people, women and people of color, and in order to energize our base we have to have people who look like them on the ticket, so that’s why I’m not so crazy about a septuagenarian.”
Dean, a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, argued that “getting rid of corruption” is a winning issue for Democrats and should be at the top of the party’s agenda heading into 2020.
“Absolutely, people hate corruption no matter what party engages in it – and right now only one is engaging in it,” he said.
Dean was asked if he thinks the Democratic Party is moving too far to the left by electing members such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
“No, I think they are great. I mean, they’re not going to mold the – as I said in there, the vast majority of new people are in the middle of the road of the Democratic Party and they came from districts in the middle of the Democratic Party,” he said.
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