I was at an event yesterday in which Howard Dean was speaking (along with Mark Steyn and Fred Thompson). He said something regarding the U.S. tea party movement that I'd heard others also saying before - e.g. from Reason.com:
... polls by the New York Times and Bloomberg have found that although a vast majority of Tea Party supporters favor smaller government, they don’t want cuts in their Medicare or Social Security, a contradiction perfectly captured in a sign at a Tea Party rally: “Keep the Guvmint out of my Medicare.” Indeed, the Bloomberg poll discovered that even though Tea Partiers dislike ObamaCare, they want Medicare to offer more drug benefits and the government to force insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.
Dean seems to be a bit of an unusual Democrat, given that he was endorsed by the NRA (although he's not the only one) and that he seemed to be arguing that the size of the deficit was the largest issue facing America (although still arguing that the distribution of wealth across society was a big problem).
Still, he seems correct in his statement that a Conservative crowd in Canada fits into the moderate Democrat category in much of the US. e.g. Here's a recent statement from the Calgary Herald:
Survey results presented to Conservative delegates at the party’s annual general meeting Saturday morning show Albertans want the government to better fund health care, post-secondary education and housing for homeless people — even if it means running a deficit. The survey of 601 Albertans conducted in June and October this year shows three in four believe the province has a “pressing social deficit,” and 65 per cent say the province should base spending decisions on the public’s need for services, not on the government’s ability to pay.
