Why did Dean lose? Poll for those who did not vote for him.

[genius]

I thought it would be good to have some objective choices. Most of the people here did not vote for Dean. It would be good to know why those people did not vote for him. I can only have ten choices. So if there are additional reasons, note them below.

[ginnyinWI]

1. I voted for Kerry over Dean because

I liked what Dean was saying, for the most part, but I didn't like his temperament--it reminded me of Bush! I sensed a bit of cockiness, short-temperedness, that I didn't think was good in a president.

Kerry was always on message, cool and in control in the primary debates.

[Chipper Chat]

9. You took the words right outa my mouth - plus

I feel his perceived lack of tact was a real turnoff. Perhaps he was just showing his "newbieness." His next campaign may surprise us all with its maturity!

[leesa]

34. Yup. You bought the RW spin.

[Maple]

2. Media killed him

with 'the scream'

[ccarter84]

4. bingo, sadly 'yarg' is all that is needed to sum that up

[Buck_Fush]

13. it wasn't even a scream! the media trashed him for nothing, we let them

[The Gigmeister]

18. The same media that appointed him the winner in August?

The media LOVED Govenor Dean...They were as surpised as anyone that he didn't win after polling in the 40s when everyone else was in the teens.

When reality fails, blame the media?


Someone needs to invent an anti-denial pill or we're NEVER going to move forward.

[blondeatlast]

21. I saw the "scream," live.

It looked very bad to me, but I had decided to vote for another candidate already.

His pseudo-progressive stance as opposed to his gubernatorial record did it for me.

I could live with him being DNC chair, though.

[Philly Buster]

14. Exactly

People in the room said it sounded nothing like it was made out to be on TV. They said he had to scream to be heard but on TV all the background noise is reduced.

I liked him and would have voted for him in the primary but I live in PA and our primary is so late it's meaningless.

[The Gigmeister]

17. He lost BEFORE the "Scream".

Weak and tiresome excuse. Get off of it.

[mattclearing]

55. As a Dean supporter, I felt he waited too long to pivot for moderation.

He continued "throwing out the red meat" long after it was time to go back to being boring policy wonk Howard.

He would have had the nomination sewn up if he would have shifted his somewhat militant persona when he was crowned the frontrunner.

[pstans]

30. Don't forget about...

The media also killed Dean with the "We aren't safer with Sadaam captured" and the confederate flag thing.

The media didn't want Dean to win, so they painted the picture that he wouldn't be electable. Hmm, why would the media do that?

[Radical Activist]

37. The media created Dean

He was promoted and covered constantly before Iowa. He was declared the front-runner by the corporate media before a single person had cast a vote. oops...they got that one wrong. The media turned on Dean after he lost Iowa, but the truth is that Dean got a huge amount of support and name recognition resulting from months of positive news coverage. Dean was the choice of the corporate media, and I'm glad Iowa voters made their own decision about who the real front-runner was.

[bobweaver]

3. Because I wanted Kucinich

[Albert Einstein]

54. A lot of people switched to Dennis when they looked at the issues.

Much of Dean's early support came from people thinking he was from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party, like Wellstone and Kucinich. When they found that Dean shared more conservative than liberal values, the idealists switched to Kucinich and those who wanted someone more liberal than Dean along with someone who they believed could get publicity went with Kerry.

[Tom Rinaldo]

5. These are at least fair choices

However sometimes you walk into the ice cream store with enough money for just one scoop, though several flavors are appealing. None of our candidates were perfect, though for me Clark came closest, which is why I backed him, but I can admit that Clark would have made an even better candidate if he had more experience at being one under his belt prior to running last time.

So we could do a poll like this for all of our last batch of candidates, and people will never agree because we see them differently and because there are always "wild card" factors like the media's coverage which we may not all view the same either.

Dean was always in my top three candidates. I went back and forth between him and Kerry for second place behind Clark. I liked Dean's fire, I liked his clarity about the Iraq mistake. I liked his following though I got into online "fights" with some. I thought Kerry had, you know, a little more of that gravitas thing. He had a military record and he had specialized in foreign affairs in the Senate. I thought that would help Kerry in the General Election this time around with War and Terror on people's minds. On edit I will add that I also respected Kerry's early leadership in the anti Viet Nam war movement and hoped Kerry would draw from that well of moral convictions if he became President.

With the "wisdom" of hindsight I now would clearly rank Dean as my second choice from last year's field, I was immediately uncomfortable with the way Kerry ran his nominating Convention and it wasn't until late September that I thought he hit his stride. That was too late. Dean would have been aggressive earlier in my opinion. Clark however was and still is my clear first choice.

[BlueEyedSon]

6. Because the media crucified him

Remember the scream?

on edit: just realized Maple expressed this POV earlier. Seconded!

[jojo54]

7. Good poll, Genuis

and I voted for Kerry, partly 'cause by the time the vote got to Jersey, it was pretty much locked. Now, I choose "all of the above" but I really should have voted for the NAFTA and WTO. I've been against that from the very beginning.

[Crunchy Frog]

8. None of the above.

It wasn't about not liking Dean, it was about preferring someone else, if your asking about why I didn't support him. As far as voting goes, if we had had a primary and all the candidates had been listed on the ballot, I would have voted for Clark. Again, not because I don't like Dean, but because I prefer Clark. As it was, our state had a caucus and it was a choice between Kerry and Kucinich, with the knowledge that Kerry already had the nomination wrapped up. Given that situation, I actually voted for Kucinich.

I guess a handful of people in my state actually did vote for Dean, but not enough for him to win any delegates so it would have been kind of pointless, whereas we ended up winning 15 delegates for Kucinich. Besides, by that point, I preferred Kucinich to Dean.

I do think that Dean would make a good DNC chair.

[Leilani]

10. I supported Clark because I really believe in him as a person

I also supported him because I knew that Bush would run the type of campaign that he did.

I knew he would frame the election about security & terrorism & Iraq, therefore I thought Clark was the best equipped to neutralize that issue. I didn't have the same confidence in the other candidates to be able to play on that field.

I still don't believe that Dems, as a group understand that the country perceives them as weak on security, & considering this was the first Presidential election after 9/11, I knew the Dems would be vulnerable.

When Kerry was nominated, I hoped he could be effective on these issues, but I knew he didn't get it when he chose Edwards as Veep.
That told me he wanted to run a happy, positive campaign, based on domestic issues. He wasn't ready for the war that was ahead.

Looking back, Dean would have been a better fighter than Kerry, but I still think he would have had problems, being stereotyped as a New England Liberal & not having FP experience.

[bklyncowgirl]

11. I went back and forth between Dean and Kerry

I liked Dean's combativeness and the thought that if we were going to lose at least we'd go down swinging. I was concerned about his lack of experience in foreign policy and his lack of experience in media campeigning.

I'd followed Kerry since the Iran Contra days and had always had him on my list of people I would like to see run for President. I thought he had the best combination of experience and gravitas. I was concerned about his rather lackadaisical campeign style and his lack of fire.

Being a contrarian I would have voted for Kerry had I voted in the Iowa caucuses and for Dean in the New Hampshire primary and later. I guess Dean's post scream damage control worked on me and I also thought he was being screwed all around. Since I live in New Jersey by the time the campeign got to me it was just Kerry, Kucinich and Sharpton, I felt it was better to give Kerry a big margin than to register a protest vote for Kucinich with whom I agree on just about every issue.

What a difference a year makes. I did not fully trust Clark back during the primaries. Having watched him for about a year now, I've come to appreciate the General. I've likewise come to appreciate that Dean's lack of foreign policy experience is more than made up by his savvy--he has a habit of being right. I think that my concerns about Kerry's lack of fire were sadly borne out by the campeign.

In the end, none of these guys were perfect.

[CWebster]

12. Just a question

for those who indicated the reason was the "scream" or Dean was perceived as "unelectible".

Don't you think the media, the Right and the Right-leaning corporate Democrats will see to it that any viable challenger is crucified or tagged an "unelectible"?

Why allow them to define the race based on their deliberate manipulation to steer conventional perception?

Have you witnessed a more disconnected politician than Kerry? He was portrayed as most electible because he had that elitist Senatorial dignity as his image---except that Bush was deemed more electible because he was someone you could have a beer with. Kerry was removed from the reality of most people's lives. Kerry ran on his war hero status(which was compromised by his anti-war protesting) while we were becoming deeper in the quagmire of Iraq. It was as if it was totally disconnected with reality--that showing up Bush as a chickenhawk or AWOL was all that counted. That and ABB.

Democrats have to stand for and run on something more than we're-not-as-bad-as-them.

[blondeatlast]

23. This kind of nitpicking goes nowhere.

If you want to blame the media for the perception of Dean as unelectable, don't let them off for their portrayal of the candidate most Dems chose. They were probably wrong on both counts.

I don't wanna have a beer with the president. I'm a lot smarter than that.

It appears we are going to fight the primary wars all over again. I thought this was an honest question, but instead it's dump on those who didn't choose Dean. I should have known better.

Please, can't we effing move on?

[CWebster]

25. Sorry, hit a nerve?

Now you want to move on? Now that your argment has been challenged? Now that you can't have it your way and stick it all in a tidy little box tied up for you with a neat bow?

Now, sidestep it and try to deflect it onto some primary war issue when it weren't me who wanted to fixate on why Dean lost.

[hollowdweller]

15. Because 80% of his money came from individuals not the usual donors

[The Gigmeister]

16. Others...

He wasn't ready for Prime Time.

He melted-down after a HUGE lead because he didn't expect to have that huge lead and didn't know what to do with it.

His orange cap wearing volunteers looked like Jim Jones Cult members to Billy-Bob and Betty-Jo Iowa Farmer.


(And please note...NOWHERE did I mention there was a conspiracy to take him down or that the media took him down. Those are nothing but excuses given by weak-minded people who are still in denial).

[CWebster]

19. Actually, I would agree with you to a certain extent

I have some ambivalent feelings about Dean's focus on the young--Not that it isn't admirable to engage the young, but not at the expense of seniors and other interest groups who might view it as some pop culture event. There were many older Dean supporters who were poorly represented by the campaign.

As for your comments about the media's participation in destroying Dean, why then do so many claim that as the reason they wouldn't consider Dean? Essentially, the scream was created out of thin air and replayed thousands of times at the onset of the primaries, whereas Bush commits gaffes on any given day and it never gets covered.

Who is in denial?

[The Gigmeister]

20. You and others are in denial.

This place in an echo chamber and distorts reality where Dean is concerned.

"The Scream" was AFTER Dean took a devistating loss in Iowa. Not even any of you can argue that simple fact.

"The Scream" was NOT "Presidential". Not even close. Passionate, yes. Presidential, no. It was an embarrassment.


Dean was not ready for Prime Time and he melted-down.

[CWebster]

22. What exactly is presidential

Bush--someone you can have a beer with? Kerry the tall dignified Senator from the upper crust?

What exactly is "presidential" unless someone is defining what it is and isn't?

The whole thing was little more than the same crap they pulled at the Wellstone memorial?

But you remind me, aside from Kerry's big pow-wow with all the media top brass just before Iowa, look and see where his citizen soldier funding went--Max Cleland and Iowa politicians. Already setting up Iowa and Vislack suddenly became a player. Who the hell is Vislack?

[blondeatlast]

24. so the majority of the Democrats were wrong?

It's a democratic process. The Dems spoke, Kerry was their choice, Dean wasn't. Neither was Clark, Kucinic (my choice), etc.

No one was wrong, no one was right. There are no perfect candidates. Dean is NOT a god--I'm sure it would bother him to be thought as such.

Dean could have taken off and run as an Independent. He had the grassroots support, no doubt. HE chose to stick with his party. I think he did the right thing.

[CWebster]

26. So the majority of voters elected Bush?

ditto.

You act as if the process isn't manipulated by manufactured consensus.

Dean actually questioned why he should stay with the Party after what they put him through. It was Gore that encouraged him, by reminding him about what the fight was all about: for the country.

[The Gigmeister]

41. Yes.

Again...

Denile of reality is not going to help us win in 2006 and 2008.

[NashVegas]

53. Andrew Johnson Was Shitfaced Drunk At His VP Inauguration

and went on to the office.

[sandnsea]

27. The Kucinich thing

The very idea that a person is one way for 50 years and then suddenly sees the light, sorry, no sale. Kucinich was too far left to ever have a chance, but at least he is who he is. Just as Kerry is who he is. And I'll let it go at that.

[RafterMan]

56. The Kucinich thing

The very idea that a person is one way for 50 years and then suddenly sees the light, sorry, no sale.

Are you talking about Kucinich on abortion?

[dmkinsey]

28. I question one of your statements

I suppose it's safe to say that MOST people here didn't vote for Dean but I think it's a close number. Lot's of Dean folks here.

I give Dean a lot of credit for energizing the Party and bringing a bunch of new people into political action.

The Dean people were always "the most gung-ho in any group"
The problem ,in my view was that they didn't have any real experience so their effort didn't translate into success.

I was a Dean supporter until Iowa and it wasn't the scream that put me off. What sent me to the Kerry group was the fact that Dean didn't finish first or second and was far back in third. I realized that the Dean organization didn't have the skill to succeed.

[JaneQPublic]

29. self delete.

[sportndandy]

31. The DNC counted the votes in the primaries

and they wanted a moderate like Kerry not a fire-brand like Dean. Sorry about he conspiracy theory, but it does help explain why Kerry is not out challenging the results of the general election.

[TrueAmerican]

32. I did not want Dean because a better candidate

was available. His name is Wesley Clark. Clark would of been the better candidate for the General Election. So none of the above is the answer for me. I wanted Clark, It wasn't Anti-Dean.

Maybe we should be asking why nobody voted for Clark?

[leesa]

33. Dean didn't do anything wrong. The GOP, via their controlled

media, chose Kerry because he could be relied on to support the corporate effort and the oil wars.

Many Democrats are just as susceptible to the RW spin machine as Republicans are. The machine tells them Dean is bad and they believe it. The machine tells them Kerry ran a bad campaign and they believe it. The machine tells them Gore ran a bad campaign and they believe it.

[Nashyra]

35. The media

I prefered Clark, however I do think Dean would have also made an electable candidate. He was honest, but he was also quick to anger so it seemed. I think any candidate would have been brought down by the "liberal media" In hindsight I think that Rove was more afraid of Dean than he ultimately was of Kerry. As hard as I worked for Kery after Clark through his support to him, I think Dean would have put up a hell of a fight, he ultimately would have been as electable as any other candidate.

[Radical Activist]

39. Then why did the media choose Dean in the primary?

The corporate media gave Dean the most news coverage and the most positive coverage before Iowa. He was declared the front runner as soon as they could say it with a strait face, months before a single vote had been cast. Tim Russert was on Meet the Press every Sunday calling him the only anti-war candidate, which much of the media repeated. Why didn't they want people to know about other anti-war candidates. Maybe because Dean was more corporate friendly than they were?

Dean's top contributor during the early primary season was employees of media giant AOL Time Warner. That should tell you something about who the corporate media supported. They only turned on Dean after he lost Iowa.

[The Gigmeister]

44. QUIET!! NO REALITY ALLOWED!!!

THE BIG-BAD MEDIA HATED DEAN AND TOOK HIM DOWN!! THAT IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!!!

[The Gigmeister]

43. LOL!! Tinfoil futures, ANYONE???

Dean was the DREAM CHOICE for Rove and the Idiot in Chief!! He would have been CRUSHED in the general election. At least Senator Kerry made it close and almost pulled it off...And after 9-11, we shouldn't have even been in the game.

Dean? An Anti-War candidate at a time when the American people were still reeling from 9-11? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

HELLO REALITY!! HOW ABOUT MAKING A HOUSE CALL HERE????

All you Deniacs just refuse to accept the simple fact that Govenor Dean wasn't ready for Prime Time, melted-down and lost a THIRTY FREAKING POINT LEAD IN THE POLLS!!!!

The "Media" LOVED DEAN!!! They all proclaimed him the run-away winner LONG before the primary in Iowa...LONG before Dean and his immature candidacy BLEW IT!!!

Please stop throwing that excuse around? The ONLY place it plays is here...Your echo chamber. It doesn't play in the real world!!


Look...

I LOVE the man! I fully support Govenor Dean as head of the DNC. His passion, vision and leadership is sorely needed at this time. But he is simply NOT "Presidential". He's NOT a good candidate. He can't keep his mouth shut when he needs too. He's TOO passionate. Senator Kerry is a Statesman. Dean is a Firebrand! And given the tools of the DNC, given talking points, given time before he's able to respond, Dean will CRUSH the repukes as head of the DNC.

Run with THAT! Not all your kooky conspiracy theories that deny simple facts and history!!!

GEEEEEEEZE!!!

[CWebster]

45. Who was ultimately right?

Speaking of blowing it. ;-)

Sounds like you got all the right-wing talking points down, though.

The media may have loved Dean because he was exciting and mobilizing people and raising tons of money through grassroots donations, but ultimately can't have that, can we?

The media really couldn't deny the emergence of Dean.

[The Gigmeister]

49. "Right Wing Talking Points"??

Cute...

Again...Your denile is not going to help win anything in the future.

[robcon]

36. Objective choices????

It was the scream!! Obviously.

I like Dean, but he was the least presidential person running - behind even Al (doesn't know what the Fed is) Sharpton and Bush. Dean should be a senator.

[ThorsHammer]

38. I think the war climate hurt him, and also think Dean/Clark would have won

[GiovanniC]

40. Before the Iowa Vote, Tim Russert (Meet the Whore)...

asked Dean about Vietnam and how his back prevented him from being drafted... then Dean supposedly went off on a big skiing holiday. Dean was less than convincing when answering that question, and it made him look bad, even if everything was completely on the up-and-up (which I believe it was).

At the time, I mentioned that on a thread dealing with the interview, and was attacked by several hardcore Dean supporters whose argument could be summed up as, "Dean is perfect, there is no room for improvement, and nobody gives a shit what you think."

I liked (and still like) Howard Dean, but had a real tough time with a lot of his supporters. When it was all said and done, I knew that if (some of, not all of) his supporters were so belligerent that they turned ME off when I was VERY open to a Dean candidacy, they would really have troubles with people who were more on the fence. In the end, I believed that they would turn off more voters than they would gain. Dean himself did not lose my vote... his supporters lost it for him.

[CWebster]

47. Contrasted with Kerry's war hero act

what difference did it make?

Good thing all those Dean supporters didn't hold a grudge and voted for Kerry, huh?

[txaslftist]

42. I voted Kerry over Dean because obviously....

I f*d up.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. The entire summer of 2003, the media were full of nothing but

Dean, Dean, Dean, and his adoring admirers. Judging from the media stories, though, I couldn't tell much of what Dean stood for, other than that he had an emphatic and rousing speaking style and attracted a lot of youth.

Having just moved halfway across the country, I resolved that I would try to go hear each of the presidential candidates as they showed up in the Twin Cities.

The first one to hold a rally that was open to the general public was Kucinich, in August 2003. By the end of his speech, I was in tears, because I had been waiting literally for twenty years for someone to say those things. I got involved with the Kucinich campaign and stayed with it till the March caucuses.

I would have gone to rallies for the other candidates, to see what vibes I got from them in person, but frankly, no one else held rallies that were open to the general public or to small contributors for several months, at least not any that I heard of in time to attend.

I was in Iowa the weekend before the caucuses, going door to door for Kucinich, and I expected Dean to win. His were the only other canvassers we ran into. Also, all the news media were talking about how Dean was going to win Iowa for sure. The only indication I saw that perhaps the media were missing clues was that there were a lot more Edwards signs than I had expected.

I was astounded when Kerry won Iowa and Dean came in third. (And yes, the infamous "scream" hype came after he had placed lower than expected in Iowa.)

In retrospect, I wonder if he wasn't done in by the perception, a perception that damaged McGovern back in 1972, that his was, as the media back then said, a "children's crusade." Iowa has a higher-than-average proportion of elderly residents, and their reaction to the young Dean volunteers may have been, "Harumph, young whippersnappers. What do they know?"

Kerry has been around a long time, and I wouldn't be surprised if the older voters in Iowa thought that he had paid his dues, that he was qualified to be president, and that it was his turn.

[FightinNewDem]

48. Two Factors

1.) A perceived lack of credibility on issues of national security. Note that I said "perceived", since his actual policy paper, written by former Clinton aide Ivo Daalder, actually has a lot of good points.

2.) The Deaniacs. Yes, the Deaniacs. Most Dean volunteers were decent, committed, and dedicated people, who were in it for all the right reasons. However, there was a subset that came across as sanctimonious, self-righteous pricks. They would show up at other candidates events and be disruptive, they would write vicious letters to the editor trashing Kerry, Clark, Lieberman, et al, and would generally act in a truly annoying manner. In places like NH and IA, this sort of thing can make a huge difference in how a candidate is perceived by the electorate.

[Connie_Corleone]

50. Didn't seem presidential...

very little/no foreign policy experience, Deaniacs were irritating, got sick of hearing about him, not really liberal, hyped up too much by the press, a terrible performance on Meet The Press June 2003 (my opinion)and no one I knew liked him, including myself.

All of this was way before the "scream".

[noonwitch]

51. I didn't think Kerry or Dean could beat Bush, I voted for Clark

I believed that Clark could win-if Kerry had picked him as a running mate, he may have done better, too (nothing against Edwards, I do like him).

[American Tragedy]

52. His tax plan was the number one reason that I didn't vote for him.

It didn't bother me personally, but I knew there was absolutely no way that he would be able to run on an economic plan that included raising everybody's taxes, no matter what. The right-wing machine would have destroyed him easily, just by forcing him to explain himself over and over again, much as they did to Kerry.