Politics

Howard Dean: ‘At this point, I’m supporting Hillary Clinton’

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Despite reports that former Vermont Governor Howard Dean might be considering another presidential run, the Democrat said Wednesday is currently supporting a Hillary Clinton presidential run.

“At this point, I’m supporting Hillary Clinton,” Dean, who ran for president 2004, told The Des Moines Register in a short interview in Iowa on Wednesday.

When asked by the paper if he has ruled out his own run for the presidency the former Democratic National Committee chairman cut the interview short: “Ahhgh, we’re done here. Thank you.”

Dean was in Altoona, Iowa Wednesday to speak at the 57th annual Iowa Federation of Labor Convention, the paper reported.

On Tuesday, there was some speculation that Dean’s visit to Iowa and scheduled visit to New Hampshire next month was a sign that the Democrat — perhaps best known for his signature “Dean scream” in 2004 after he placed third in the Iowa caucuses — might be “testing the waters” for a run in 2016.

As TheDC recalled in a Tuesday report, Dean said in June he was open to another presidential run.

“I am not driven by my own ambition,” Dean told CNN. “What I am driven by is pushing the country in a direction that it desperately needs to be pushed; pushing other politicians who aren’t quite as frank as I am who need to be more candid with the American people about what needs to happen. I am not trying to hedge, it’s a hard job running. It’s really tough. I am doing a lot of things I really enjoy. But you should never say never in this business.”

In his conversation with the Register Wednesday, Dean added that Republicans need to be defeated.

“[Republicans] are destroying the country, they’re taking away people’s right to vote, and that’s the core of what makes this country a great country,” Dean added to the Register. “I think we’ve got to get rid of them. They’re really a cancer on the United States.”

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