Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D), famous for his Iowa “scream speech” in the 2004 presidential primary race, said Thursday that he’d consider running for the chief executive’s office again.
“I am not driven by my own ambition,” Dean told CNN in an interview at the left-leaning activist Netroots Nation conference. “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.”
Dean said he was sure that if former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were to run in 2016 she would face challengers like Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) or Maryland Gov. Michael O’Malley (D), but also acknowledged that the Democratic Party may raise an eyebrow if he were to announce his own bid.
“If you had to put a gun to my head and make me decide right now, I wouldn’t,” Dean said. “But who knows?”