I was watching c-spans archived "Road To The White House", from last Sunday. Most of the show is following Edwards in Oaklahoma and Dean speaks in the last 20 minutes (around 1:04:00 on), while visiting a child care center in Iowa.
Prisons, Fostercare, these are programs that Dean says we can save money on by investing in children's programs. We all knew that, but it's nice to hear someone with a program that actually is designed to work that way. Designed.
But the brilliant part is ...
... how he argued that universal healthcare is good for the betterment of child care centers since currently most centers cannot afford benefits such as health care and have a high turnover and/or low quality as a result. That's brilliant.
There are a lot of socially constructive jobs that attract motivated and creative people because those jobs are special which can benefit when you give the individual the same guarantee of healthcare we should all expect.
Currently in the US you cannot buy into most plans very easily at any cost as an individual, and it's prohibitively expensive for most when you can. Dean's plan is that all children and people that do not have insurance and below a certain income (~$33K/yr) will be insured and everyone else will be able to buy into the same plan the Congress uses (!).
I was once out of work with no COBRA (company was totally shut down two weeks before Christmas, btw, the investors had plenty of money and we were 6 months into a 2 year development project, it was entirely optional on their part). Insurance was hard to find and I could pay. I ended up with care for my family but not myself due to a past operation I had had. (Everything's fine now and the insurance issue could probably have been worked out over time if I tried hard enough, it was just the paperwork mountain that having any medical history requires... it's their first line of defense against actually insuring the sick).
Most politicians are really just promising to vote the right way when the bills come before them. (Senator Edwards, please vote right on the bills Dean sends before you.)
This guy is smart. My own Clark/Dean/Dean/Clark idea has Dean on the inside. I'm starting to think you need Dean for his ideas. Dean/Clark because with Clark/Dean you have to think they would not really use Dean's ideas, and Dean would be relegated to the role of traditional do-nothing VP.
But Dean as President means Deanology (ferget koolaid, this guy is smart), and I think he would still let Clark be a strong VP, and probably let him take a lead role in NATO diplomacy and possibly other geopolitical matters.
But I'm still undecided.