In 1991, after prolonged painful public agonizing and offering the U.S. Senate seat to people who declined it, Governor Robert P. Casey officially offered the Senate vacancy caused by the tragic plane crash that killed Senator John Heinz to his own Secretary of Labor and Industry Harris Wofford, formerly a top aide to President John F. Kennedy, Peace Corps Director R. Sargent Shriver, and a close friend of Martin Luther King, Jr.
In a press conference discussing his appointment, Wofford was asked if he minded not being Casey's first choice. "Not at all," Wofford said. "I wasn't my wife's first choice either." This quip killed the first choice issue, and Wofford went on to beat former Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh in a special election and then to lose, narrowly and tragically, to Congressman Rick Santorum in the 1994 general election.
The nomination for Secretary of Commerce is now in a similar position to the gubernatorial nomination for John Heinz's Senate seat. The first choice (at least as far as is publicly known) Governor Bill Richardson, has chosen to withdraw, and now there is a last minute appointment to be made.
The best candidate available has the same credential as Bill Clinton's first Secretary of Commerce: he served as Democratic National Chairman while the Democrats won the White House. In Dean's case, of course, the Democrats also regained control of both the House and the Senate, and became a national force seriously contesting elections in almost every state.
But Dean's credentials for Secretary of Commerce go far beyond his service as Democratic National Chairman. His rise to national prominence exemplifies the manner in which the Democrats are the more pro-business party: we are the pro-innovation party. We are the party of "early adopters" of new technologies. We are the party that recognizes that knowledge and a strong legal structure are keys to business development and innovation.
Al Gore did not invent (or ever claim to invent) the Internet, but he did work successfully to make development of internet protocols needed for email, and easy internet access for consumers, posters, and website hosters a major priority of the federal government.
Howard Dean not invent (or ever claim to invent) social networking, or the blogosphere, or use of the web for political purposes, but he enormously aided all three by his campaign successes in both fundraising and volunteer mobilization. The Wall Street Journal wrote numerous articles about Dean's innovative use of the Internet, and at least one of them called him an "internet CEO."
The United States could use a spokesman for business who understands that business is about a lot more than making money. The United States could use a spokesman for business who knows that entrepreneurship is about much more than developing a series of profit centers, and then selling out. The ethos of living for the profitable payday of selling one's business to a bigger corporation--and the whole idea that "selling out" is positive career decision and a positive goal for a small business to aspire to--has really hurt American business at a grass roots level.
I am old enough to remember when business leaders considered themselves stewards of their businesses, and hoped to pass their businesses on to either their children or their younger employees. But the ethic of stewardship has been greatly attenuated.
In my legislative district, venerable bank buildings are now parking lots.
Community newspapers that lasted over 100 years were sold to a national chain, then stripped of resources, and then folded. Few businessmen and businesswomen are among the community leaders. The reuse of abandoned industrial sites has long been the key land use issue. The whole ethic of a private sector that serves broad public purposes has fallen into disuse and obscurity.
Howard Dean is a man who can help create new meaning for the business community in the 21st Century, just like he did for state government in Vermont, for political activism around the country, and for the Democratic Party as a whole.
A Business Week article in August, 2003, described his record in Vermont as that of a "fiscal conservative with close ties to business" and noted that "business leaders were especially impressed wtih the way he went to bat for them if they got snarled in the state's stringent environmental regulations."
A onetime stockbroker who left Wall Street (no, he had no connection to Dean, Witter) to go to medical school, Dean has helped make "fiscal responsibility" one of the touchstones of what Democrats should stand for. He has said "he doesn't mind being called a liberal, but I really am not one." His view is that the Republicans have gone so far off the deep end that they have essentially forced moderates and even many old-line conservatives into the Democratic camp.
Dean's first choice in cabinet positions, he has publicly said, would be the Department of Health and Human Services, for which he would be eminently qualified. But he is also eminently qualified to be Secretary of Commerce, and if appointed to that position, would likely be one of the great Secretaries of Commerce in our history.
One of the most pro-business Democrats in the Pennsylvania legislature I have served with was Jeff Coy, now a member of the Pennsylvania Casino Control Commission. He actively supported a company, AMP, that was facing a hostile takeover from Tyco, whose CEO, Dennis Kozlowski, would ultimately be imprisoned for stealing millions of corporate resources.
A legislator unsympathetic to AMP's plight complained that AMP had never made any campaign contributions to Pennsylvania legislators. Coy himself was a strong fundraiser in a heavily Republican district. But he knew what business was really about.
"You know," Coy said. "Businesses don't exist to make campaign contributions. They exist to make products and employ people."
Howard Dean also knows what businesses are all about. That's why he would make a great Secretary of Commerce, even if the position is not his first choice and he is not Obama's first choice.
Calvin Coolidge famously said that the business of America was business. We need a Secretary of Commerce who will say that the business of business IN the United States IS the United States.