This is an excerpt from The Stakes 2020, BuzzFeed News' newsletter about what really matters in the 2020 campaign. You can sign up here.
This week I texted with Howard Dean, who was, back in the fall and winter of 2003–4, the next president of the United States. He was the progressive governor of Vermont, a doctor who had signed a universal health care law, and a strident voice against the Iraq War. I asked him about how it felt then, and what he sees when he looks at the candidates — and in particular, progressive, Northeastern Elizabeth Warren — now.











