Dean stressed his firm opposition to the war in Iraq as a factor which sets him apart from other candidates, noting that all of the other presidential contenders gave at least initial support to the war.

“Their kind of foreign policy experience is not the kind we want in the White House, and mine is,” said Dean, receiving cheers from a largely supportive audience.

Closer to Home

A month after the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry, Matthews probed Dean about his support for civil unions when he was governor of Vermont.

Mass. Gov. W. Mitt Romney and other state leaders have said they want to reserve marriage for heterosexual couples but allow civil unions with all the legal benefits of marriage for gay couples.

Dean, who signed a controversial bill establishing civil unions but not same-sex marriages in Vermont, said last night that the government was obligated to ensure “equal rights under the law.”

He said he would leave individual states to decide whether to satisfy this goal with civil unions or marriages.

But Dean said he wanted to focus on campaign issues beyond the traditionally contentious topics of “abortion, guns, God and gays.”

While apologizing for a recent remark that he wanted to be “the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks,” Dean criticized Republicans for making race a divisive factor.

He said it was important to focus on issues where people share a common concern, such as education, health care and the economy.

On a lighter note, Dean named A Beautiful Mind as his favorite movie—a question that several previous candidates to appear on “Hardball” have not answered as readily.

When asked his favorite book, Dean held up a copy of his own, Winning Back America, which he joked was selling for 20 percent off on amazon.com, compared to 40 percent off for Kerry’s book.

Harvard College Democrats President Andy J. Frank ’05 said Dean seemed more comfortable yesterday than he has in previous television appearances.

“He gets less flustered by questions now. He sticks to his campaign themes a little more readily,” Frank said.

But other students said after the broadcast that they did not feel Dean responded well to the tough questions.