Washington ? America likes to elect governors and former governors to the presidency and, by and large, that is a healthy habit. Of the last five presidents, all but the elder George Bush prepped for the job in statehouses in Georgia, California, Arkansas and Texas. State executives learn valuable lessons about budgeting and about working with legislators. By and large, they are closer to the problems of everyday life — and more accountable for dealing with them — than senators or representatives, federal bureaucrats or generals.

One lesson I have learned — from ignoring it too often in the past — is the importance of listening to the journalists who have covered these candidates in their state capitols. It is particularly important to heed the critics and to take note of the shortcomings the state executives have displayed at home. Those problems are likely to recur if and when they reach the White House.

Reg Murphy described vividly Jimmy Carter’s fractured relationship with the Georgia Legislature, an accurate forecast of the difficulties he ran into with a Democratic Congress. My former colleague Lou Cannon portrayed Ronald Reagan’s rather offhand way of managing his subordinates in Sacramento — a clue to the wide powers he delegated in Washington, not always wisely.

A host of Little Rock reporters described Bill Clinton’s vivid private life and the evasions that earned him the nickname “Slick Willie.” And Molly Ivins, though hardly a dispassionate observer, gave plenty of evidence about the buddy-buddy relationship of George W. Bush and the corporate power structure in Texas.

That is why I strongly recommend a little paperback published by a team of reporters for the Rutland (Vt.) Herald and Times Argus titled “Howard Dean: A Citizen’s Guide to the Man Who Would Be President.” The publisher is Steerforth Press.

The nine contributors have covered Dean during the span of years that he held office in Vermont — as legislator, lieutenant governor and governor. Their views are balanced — closer to the Lou Cannon model on Reagan than any of the other examples I have cited — and I could detect no personal bias in any of their individual chapters.

The Dean who emerges from these pages is a more complex and interesting politician than the man on the stump this past year — less strident and in many respects more impressive.

The chapter on his environmental record, titled “Green and Not Green,” by Hamilton E. Davis, the former managing editor of The Burlington Free Press, is a model of balance. “A clear fault line runs down the center of Howard Dean’s stewardship of Vermont’s environment,” Davis writes. “On one side is his strong support for the purchase of wild land that might otherwise be subject to development; during his 11 years as governor, the state bought more than 470,000 acres of such land. …

“On the other side of the fault, however, is Dean’s record on the regulation of retail and industrial development. His critics charge that his preference for the interests of large business over environmental protection sapped the vitality from the state’s regulatory apparatus, especially Act 250, Vermont’s historic development-control law, and from regulations pertaining to storm water runoff and water pollution.”

More intriguing than the analysis of his record in vital policy areas are the insights into his governing style. Davis’ take begins with the observation: “Say this about Howard Dean; he is his own man.

“He tends to think through problems himself, rather than work them out in consultation with others. Dean often spoke on an issue before receiving advice from his staff. … Dean would listen politely to opposing points of view when the conversation involved people he cared about, but he could be testy and confrontational when challenged on policy by people he didn’t know. He had a reputation for being impulsive and occasionally arrogant.

“His staff and his small cadre of friends, however, saw him differently. They liked him enormously, and they were extremely loyal to him.”

Similar contradictions and complexities emerge in almost every chapter, and it helps that editor Dirk Van Susteren has not tried to smooth everything into a single sweeping perspective. Some of the lessons I draw from it are cautionary, but it does not diminish Dean’s stature or make his quest of the presidency seem absurd.

The country has much it needs to learn about this man, and this book is a great place to start.

— David Broder is a columnist for Washington Post Writers Group.