Did Kerry's money help him take Iowa?

[Fixated]

Do you recall Kerry taking millions in his own money about a month ago for his campaign? Do you think that this played a major role in boosting Kerry, or were other forces at work? I'm not positive, myself.

[sallyseven]

1. Maybe people listened to him

and liked what he said. That happens sometimes.

[Fixated]

6. .....

I'm not discounting his ideas, but his numbers were plummetting.

[sandnsea]

2. Dean's didn't help

Kerry had everything going against him. Lagging campaign. Staff firings. Aloof, patrician, new englander. Had to loan his own campaign money. Absolutely the worst possible candidate.

And he won. He won because he does the work, knows the issues and offers a vision. Same reason he's at 37% in NH tv news poll today, just reported on CNN.

[jpgray]

3. Dean spent more than Kerry in Iowa, if I remember (nt)

[isbister]

4. It was probably helpful

and couldn't have hurt. One thing we do know is that Dean's outspending everyone in Iowa didn't help him.

[emulatorloo]

5. I was there, I saw it - He campaigned hard and people liked him

He connected with people, he had great things to say, he came down hard on Bush and he had plans for the future. He was funny, angry, moving and inspiring. People saw it and they liked it. I saw people yell, I saw people cry, I saw people get inspired.

[blm]

7. The media declaring Kerry's candidacy dead for months dried up fundraising

and that didn't seem to bother too many here at the time.

Kerry had to bet on himself.

Internet message board users were trumped by the influence of Kerry's record, his ads, and the support of Firefighters and veterans. People noticed. He was the one they wanted.