Clark criticizes Dean's reregulation plan as bad business
BROOKLINE -- Democratic presidential candidate Wesley K. Clark criticized rival Howard B. Dean yesterday, arguing that the front-runner's business proposal abandons the success of the Clinton administration.
The retired Army general, in his harshest assessment of a rival to date, said Dean's plan to reregulate US businesses is a major departure from Bill Clinton, who strongly backed the deregulation of energy and telecommunications markets.
"The results in the '90s spoke for themselves," Clark said at a brief news conference in which he referred to Clinton six times. "Regulation is not going to get our economy moving again. It failed in the past, it will fail again."
Dean, a former Vermont governor, said Tuesday that if elected president, he would move to reregulate business sectors such as utilities and media companies to restore faith after corporate scandals such as Enron and WorldCom.
Responding to Clark's criticism, Dean spokeswoman Tricia Enright said: "Under the Bush administration, the balance of power has shifted against the American people and toward greedy pharmaceutical companies, powerful energy corporations, and media monopolies. If Democrats are not concerned with protecting consumers, workers, and the average American, then they are truly out of touch."
Dean staked out a traditional Democratic position that was largely abandoned by Clinton and the new Democrats, who tried to build a coalition of labor and business in the 1990s. While appealing to the liberal base that he energized with his war opposition and support for civil unions, Dean opened himself up to criticism of class warfare from Republican and Democratic rivals.
Clark, who has enlisted several of Clinton's economic advisers for his campaign, said the Democratic Party's hopes of defeating President Bush next year are doomed if they support more regulations.
"I don't think our party can win a general election if we abandon proven policies that have worked, that were the cornerstone of our success," he said, citing the job growth and the balanced budgets of the Clinton years.
Clark, who like Clinton hails from Arkansas, said he stands with the former president's economic policies. Clark was in Brookline yesterday at a recording studio, working on future campaign advertisements. 