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-- Buh-bye Howard Dean

Buh-bye Howard Dean

Ya'll come back now, ya hear! Now go back to Vermont, wrap yourself in a confederate flag, and shoot your other foot. I'll be keeping my tax cuts, thank you very much.

Arrogant and cocky till the end, refusing to throw support behind anyone else. Talk about a God complex!

Re: Buh-bye Howard Dean

quote:

Originally posted by Shakka Ya'll come back now, ya hear! Now go back to Vermont, wrap yourself in a confederate flag, and shoot your other foot. I'll be keeping my tax cuts, thank you very much. Arrogant and cocky till the end, refusing to throw support behind anyone else. Talk about a God complex!

He has kinda of thrown support towards Edwards already stating that Edwards would be better than Kerry, probably helped Edwards yesterday too. Either way I don't care as I wouldn't throw support to either Edwards or Kerry.

EEEYYYYYYAAAA

bye bye

Say it isn't so! We need one more good ranting from Dean just for old time's sake before he tucks his tail and runs. He could even enter it and win $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos!


[[[smoke]]]

I'm not going to California, or Texas, or New York! I'm not going to South Dakota, or Oregon, or Washington, or Michigan! I'm not going to Washington DC to take back the White House!

Yeeeaaaarrrrrgggghhhh

Just heard Dean's speech about him droping. Really wish he would of won, guess America just isn't ready for progressive change

I wonder how things would be if California was held earlier, we after all have lots of electoral college votes Most likely Clark and Dean top two.

I won't deny that I liked Dean, I was in full agreement with many of his social policies, but I was always a tad sceptical of his approach to economic issues.

I can't say that I wasn't hoping he wouldn't lose it and pull another 'yeaaaaggghhh' though, because quite frankly, that made for the best political speech ever.

This sucks

I can't say that I was a big fan of the man, but I can't discredit his entertainment value - it almost began to rival Bush's.

It was ineviteable, though somewhat sad. His campaign is extremely memorable, and has most certainly reshaped campaign financing for the future. It�s amazing just how much money he whipped up from mere grassroots support, something from which was certainly frowned upon by a certain someone who lives and dies on corporate donation financing.

What�s more, without a doubt Dean helped a great many people who disagree with the Republican policies get off their asses and contribute to a cause. He created a huge base of support, and no doubt that support will continue onward with whomever is chosen as the Democratic candidate.

It will be a chilly day for the Republicans once the Bush Co. are collectively thrown out on their asses come November. Not only will they have to face defeat in spite of all their money raised for worthless mudslinging, they will also have to face the reality that Dean had a great deal to do with it.

**Ever hear of Michael Dean??????** (There are some relations here)

quote:

Originally posted by MisterOpus1 It was ineviteable, though somewhat sad. His campaign is extremely memorable, and has most certainly reshaped campaign financing for the future. It�s amazing just how much money he whipped up from mere grassroots support, something from which was certainly frowned upon by a certain someone who lives and dies on corporate donation financing. What�s more, without a doubt Dean helped a great many people who disagree with the Republican policies get off their asses and contribute to a cause. He created a huge base of support, and no doubt that support will continue onward with whomever is chosen as the Democratic candidate. It will be a chilly day for the Republicans once the Bush Co. are collectively thrown out on their asses come November. Not only will they have to face defeat in spite of all their money raised for worthless mudslinging, they will also have to face the reality that Dean had a great deal to do with it.

It remains to be seen whether the left will remain unified or not.

Thus far they have been, but I think many Deaniacs will probably vote for Nader.

If they do, then they have little right to complain about a continuation of GWB's policies if he wins a second term.

My money is still on Bush at this point despite his Administration's many blunders, but perhaps I'm not giving my fellow Americans enough credit there.

The Republicans down here are all running ads about making America into a "christian nation" (their perverted view of Christianity).

I'm going to move when I can.

Well, shit. One more ranting would have cemented his place in history.. Oh well, Dean and his butt ugly wife can now fade back into mediocrity. Good thing she didn't take any time off from her practice...



BWAHAHAHAAA!
[[[smoke]]]

Well Dean was facing an uphill battle from the beginning really. Not only was he fighting the Republicans, he was fighting the other Democrats who tried so hard to hack him down while he was leading the race (especially Lieberman and Kerry) that at times you had to question whether they were really representatives of the same party. In the latter part of his campaign he was fighting the media as well: the overhyped reaction to the Iowa speech basically cost him the campaign - it had nothing to do with policies, just an inaccurate character judgement (had Dean done anything prior to that that would justifiy his reputation for being "angry"?).

In any case, as some here have pointed out, Dean's campaign still changed the nature of the Democratic race and his impact will still be felt come November. He was the first to overtly criticise president Bush (during a period where criticism of the "commander-in-cheif" was considered "unpatriotic") and was one of the few Democratic candidates to have criticised the war both before and after it had occurred. He got the ball rolling, injected a lot of enthusiasm into the race and made all the other Democratic candidates work that much harder just to keep up. So the controversial campaign may be over, but his memory will live on.

So long Mr. Dean.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Well Dean was facing an uphill battle from the beginning really. Not only was he fighting the Republicans, he was fighting the other Democrats who tried so hard to hack him down while he was leading the race (especially Lieberman and Kerry) that at times you had to question whether they were really representatives of the same party. In the latter part of his campaign he was fighting the media as well: the overhyped reaction to the Iowa speech basically cost him the campaign - it had nothing to do with policies, just an inaccurate character judgement (had Dean done anything prior to that that would justifiy his reputation for being "angry"?). In any case, as some here have pointed out, Dean's campaign still changed the nature of the Democratic race and his impact will still be felt come November. He was the first to overtly criticise president Bush (during a period where criticism of the "commander-in-cheif" was considered "unpatriotic") and was one of the few Democratic candidates to have criticised the war both before and after it had occurred. He got the ball rolling, injected a lot of enthusiasm into the race and made all the other Democratic candidates work that much harder just to keep up. So the controversial campaign may be over, but his memory will live on. So long Mr. Dean.

He ran a pretty leftist campaign (for America anyways), but he was probably more conservative as governor than Kerry.

I'll miss the laughs.

"Si se puede!!!!!!!!1111111111111111"

He really went nuts that night.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade In the latter part of his campaign he was fighting the media as well: the overhyped reaction to the Iowa speech basically cost him the campaign - it had nothing to do with policies, just an inaccurate character judgement (had Dean done anything prior to that that would justifiy his reputation for being "angry"?).

You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Despite the fact that the media overhyped his reaction to the Iowa speech, the media in the same regard built up his popularity prior to his downfall. Virtually every single magazine had his face on the cover hyping his grass roots appeal, his huge money making fund raising campaign, etc., etc., etc. There are quite a number of times in past elections where the front-runner got carried away and gaffes cost them the nomination/election. And I would say that Dean HAD done many things previously to justify his reputation as being "angry". I can go back to many posts here prior to that speech where I and many others sympathized with his anger but criticized the fact that the man had very little to offer asides from his vehemance and rhetoric. The sad fact of the matter is that Dean did much to incite and unite the opposition to Bush, yet when people moved on past that anger stage to look for a candidate to beat bush, dean had not. While the other candidates were talking about the actual issues, and discussing why THEY would be a better presidant than Bush and the other candidates Dean was still on rinse and repeat.

quote:

Originally posted by occrider You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Despite the fact that the media overhyped his reaction to the Iowa speech, the media in the same regard built up his popularity prior to his downfall. Virtually every single magazine had his face on the cover hyping his grass roots appeal, his huge money making fund raising campaign, etc., etc., etc.

Yes, but that's just it: he wasn't built up by the media, he was built up by a swelling of grass-roots support. He never received preferential treatment from the media before or after emerging as the front-runner in the race, and whatever positive media coverage he received was made very much after the popular support had already been built.

It would be interesting to go back and do a survey - after it became apparent that Dean was the front-runner - of the ratio of positive to negative articles printed about him compared to those printed about his rivals. Similarly, it would be interesting to take note of the number of negative things said about Dean by the other candidates, compared to the amount of negative things the other candidates said about each other: I can't really be in any doubt, though, Dean was crucified by his own party. Read this:

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17881

quote:

There are quite a number of times in past elections where the front-runner got carried away and gaffes cost them the nomination/election. And I would say that Dean HAD done many things previously to justify his reputation as being "angry".

There's no doubt he was "passionate" about his cause - and willing to share his distaste for Republicans and centre-right Democrats - but, until the Iowa speech, he always had a lid on his anger. Can you think of any specific examples where he allowed his rage to get the better of him, showing any sign that this side of his personality may detract from his chances of being elected against in November? I certainly can't.

quote:

I can go back to many posts here prior to that speech where I and many others sympathized with his anger but criticized the fact that the man had very little to offer asides from his vehemance and rhetoric.

Well the man's passion was certainly a major drawing point, but if you think all those people jumped on the bandwagon just because he raised his voice a bit then you're missing the point. To be sure, there are some of his policies that I disagreed with (his stance on guns, to a lesser extent tax etc.) but by and large, in my opinion, his policies were very appealling. Can't you see why a population would be attracted to a politician - regardless of temprament - committed to a less aggressive, more impartial foreign policy, universal health care, grass-root job growth and fiscal conservativism (in the days of $500 billion deficits)?

quote:

The sad fact of the matter is that Dean did much to incite and unite the opposition to Bush, yet when people moved on past that anger stage to look for a candidate to beat bush, dean had not. While the other candidates were talking about the actual issues, and discussing why THEY would be a better presidant than Bush and the other candidates Dean was still on rinse and repeat.

I'm not sure what you mean by this: the other candidates were waging a far more negative campaign than Dean. I had been critical of Kerry - for starters - for a long time before he emerged as the front-runner for his negativity towards Dean. The fact that he was so obscure in his policy definition though (he tended to give ambiguous, non-committed answers and defined his stance largely in opposition to Bush and the other candidates) probably ended up working in his favour: after all, if you're so steeped in vagueness that it doesn't look like you have a definitive opinion on anything, then it at least gives you the impression of being a highly electable centrist right?

At least Dean had the courage to define his stance from the beginning and stick with it, which is more than I can say for most of the other candidates. How many (aside from Dean, Kucinich and Lieberman) provided a definite opinion on the war on Iraq for instance, without flip-flopping or being obscure?

Can't say I'm going to complain...

Bye bye, I knew you would lose!

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Yes, but that's just it: he wasn't built up by the media, he was built up by a swelling of grass-roots support. He never received preferential treatment from the media before or after emerging as the front-runner in the race, and whatever positive media coverage he received was made very much after the popular support had already been built. It would be interesting to go back and do a survey - after it became apparent that Dean was the front-runner - of the ratio of positive to negative articles printed about him compared to those printed about his rivals. Similarly, it would be interesting to take note of the number of negative things said about Dean by the other candidates, compared to the amount of negative things the other candidates said about each other: I can't really be in any doubt, though, Dean was crucified by his own party. Read this: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17881 There's no doubt he was "passionate" about his cause - and willing to share his distaste for Republicans and centre-right Democrats - but, until the Iowa speech, he always had a lid on his anger. Can you think of any specific examples where he allowed his rage to get the better of him, showing any sign that this side of his personality may detract from his chances of being elected against in November? I certainly can't. Well the man's passion was certainly a major drawing point, but if you think all those people jumped on the bandwagon just because he raised his voice a bit then you're missing the point. To be sure, there are some of his policies that I disagreed with (his stance on guns, to a lesser extent tax etc.) but by and large, in my opinion, his policies were very appealling. Can't you see why a population would be attracted to a politician - regardless of temprament - committed to a less aggressive, more impartial foreign policy, universal health care, grass-root job growth and fiscal conservativism (in the days of $500 billion deficits)? I'm not sure what you mean by this: the other candidates were waging a far more negative campaign than Dean. I had been critical of Kerry - for starters - for a long time before he emerged as the front-runner for his negativity towards Dean. The fact that he was so obscure in his policy definition though (he tended to give ambiguous, non-committed answers and defined his stance largely in opposition to Bush and the other candidates) probably ended up working in his favour: after all, if you're so steeped in vagueness that it doesn't look like you have a definitive opinion on anything, then it at least gives you the impression of being a highly electable centrist right? At least Dean had the courage to define his stance from the beginning and stick with it, which is more than I can say for most of the other candidates. How many (aside from Dean, Kucinich and Lieberman) provided a definite opinion on the war on Iraq for instance, without flip-flopping or being obscure?

Well, I'm not entirely sure what news media you were watching, but in my opinion, he WAS built up by the media. I can go back and dig up all the times, newsweeks, us news and world reports, newspapers, etc., where he was on the cover of virtually every political magazine with only casual references to the other candidates ... and this was long before major campaigning was underway. I saw this day after day after day leading up to the primaries. He received far more coverage many times over than any other candidate. He was continually hyped and touted as being the man to beat over and over again by most news networks. Political commentaries and media reports such as this:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinio...benedetto_x.htm

http://archive.salon.com/news/featu...dean/index.html

Were blaring over all the major headlines. What WAS news was Dean's unprecedented ability to raise money through broad internet efforts. The media however, erroneously misconstrued his ability to raise money with his ability to capture votes when it came time to go to the polls and appeal to the democratic parties broad-based constituents in their entirety ... not the age 18-25 internet users bracket. I'm sure Dennis Kucinich would agree that Dean received far more media attention than he deserved as Kucinich complained about on his website:

http://www.kucinich.us/pressreleases/pr_102903.php

I'm sorry but to me, the "since the public didn't vote for Dean he MUST have been misrepresented by the media, sinister democrats, gop, etc." argument seems akin to a persecution complex when I examined the issue in-depth. I have found one source that attempted to characterize the media's coverage of the election campaign, though I'm not 100% sure about the source's objectivity. With regards to the media coverage of Dean from December to January 1st:

http://www.mediatenor.com/cand_040108.pdf

As one can see, Dean had almost 2 TIMES as much coverage in the media than his closest competitor Clark. He had more than 3 times as much coverage than Kerry. With respects to whether these reports were "favorable" or "unfavorable", one can cleary argue that Dean proportionally beat out every other candidate with the exception of Clark and perhaps tied Hillary Clinton. Furthermore there were clear trends that the ratio of positive news stories were climbing. Then looking at the trends for Kerry and Edwards, we can see that they are diminishing.

Moving into the Jan 1st to 15th phase, we can look at media reports and again see that Dean has the lion's share of the media coverage:

http://www.mediatenor.com/cand_040119.PDF

Once again we can take note that Dean has a SIGNIFICANT amount of coverage by the media. While it's true that he has a greater number of negative statements, if we look at the proportional number of "positive" statements he receives it still looks to be comprable. Furthermore, each of the networks gave wide variations on their coverage of a candidate dpeending upon the news network. One should also note that he received far more positive statements and less negative statements than Bush.

Now looking from the Jan 1st to Jan 22nd phase we can start seeing that the media is putting more negative coverage on Dean:

http://www.mediatenor.com/cand_040126.pdf

Despite the fact Dean is still receiving the lions share of the coverage (he is still the front runner) some "negative" based coverage is growing particularly AFTER the Iowa caucuses. True there was some negative coverage prior to Iowa I believe that to be due to other reasons as I shall discuss in your next section about Dean's anger.

Finally in the Jan 1st to Jan 29th phase we can see that Dean's coverage is on the decline while gaining an equal stance on negative vs. positive reports though that is disproportional to other candidates:

http://www.mediatenor.com/US_Elec_3001.PDF

Now one may look at this as a smoking gun of some sorts, however, it looks to me as completely natural when taking into account the political chain of events.

A) Dean's overwhelming coverage in the media and characterization of the front runner was undeniable.
B) The media "favorably" covered Dean up until January 15th and somewhat past then. There was criticism of Dean but that was ienvitable given his coverage and his position as front runner.
C) Sometime after the 15th Dean's negative characterizations were somewhat on the rise and after Iowa definetely on the rise.

Now why is this? I beleive that a number of things happened that gave rise to the negative reports prior to the Iowa caucus. First, did you see any of the democratic debates? I wathced most of them and as "the man to beat" Dean was constantly attacked by the other candidates who were jockeying for his lead, particulary gephart who was fighting hard for Iowa. They sunk into a negative attack campaign which ultimately hurt BOTH Dean and Gephart in Iowa while the other candidates largely escaped the melee. Furthermore, Dean DID have a reputation for anger which I will elaborate in the next section. After the Iowa caucuses I think it was pretty clear WHY Dean was portrayed more poorly (yet still maintained about even on the pros/cons) in the media. A combination of his rant only fueled his anger image (I couldn't stop laughing and it reaffirmed my suspicions of Dean) and abysmally poor showing in Iowa taking into consideration his reputation, caused many news casters to question their expectations of Dean's campaign which could naturally account for the more negative reports. Plus there a number of other gaffe's that got a lot of publicity (remember his appeal to the "cofederate south"?) which fueled the political amusement of the election coverage.

As for Dean's anger issues, I think that it was an issue long before his gaffe.

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/20/dean/

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3869798/

To me, I always viewed as Dean as an angry, rhetoric slinging candidate who barely discussed his issues at all and only when he got tired of constantly bashing bush. Like I said, I think that Dean incited the anger of people but when they moved on to actually discuss who was the best candidate to be our next president, Dean was still busy bashing bush. True I may have been biased from the get go from my dislikes of his economic policies but that was the impression I got from Dean more so than any other candidate, and especially after watching the debates.

At any rate, I guess what I'm trying to say is that I simply do not buy it that the media lead the american public away from Dean. First of all I never thought that Dean truly had the votes there to begin with ... support yes, votes no. Second of all, if anything, I think Dean was the one responsible for Dean's loss, not the media. The coverage swayed each and every which way for virtually every single candidate and varied between all the networks. He played the game of politics, won the coveted media golden boy spot, and blew it. Yes the scream speech was overhyped but that's expected when you are the front runner. If Kucinich or Sharpton had done the same thing, it would have barely gotten any coverage at all. If Dean had done in whilst trailing the others he wouldn't have gotten much coverage of it at all. But he had the spotlight, he had a reputation for anger, he fueled that perception, and the media gleefully accepted the attention/ratings grabber.

At any rate, there are a number of reasons that I feel explain Dean's loss. Some of them are outlined here:

http://archive.salon.com/tech/featu.../dean_internet/

http://archive.salon.com/news/featu...dean/index.html

And here was a very interesting, thorough analysis Dean's campaign and why it went the way it did:

http://www.corante.com/many/archive...g_deanspace.php

So in summary, though I admire Dean for stimulating the democratic party, he simply played a poor game of politics. Yes it's important to fire up grass roots appeal to reform the democratic party blah blah blah blah. But that's simply not what people are looking for. They're looking for someone to beat Bush, and it didn't look like that someone was Dean. Regardless of Kerry being vague on issues that give off the appearance of being a "moderate" he does what Dean could not do. He can get the vote of the entire democratic party AND stands an excellent chance of grabbing swing voters. And what is probably the number one issue most democrats considered important? Electability. Something I always doubted Dean had (and the national review agreed with me) that Kerry and Edwards possess. My personal sway is probably Kerry .... I heard him give a townhall speeches (speeches that were some 40 minutes to an hour long not the crap 2 minutes soundbites on tv) and I liked a lot of what he had to say. And if you ask me that was probably the main contributors towards the success and failure of Dean. Many of these people in Iowa and New Hampshire attended, watched, or listened to the local speeches these canidates gave. Many likely formed their opinions from those rather than what the national media said at that point. As one Iowan said ... they thought of dean as arrogant.

Edit: and as for the democratic party itself deep sixing him ... I don't know exactly how they did that. Sure the candidates joined together to attack him but he was the frontrunner and he was capturing the media spotlight ... was there something else to be expected? If the other candidates didn't attack him they would have had no chance of stopping his momentum. The alternet article doesn't really use a lot of facts ... it makes a lot of presumptions and uses a lot of big brother rhetoric. I'll say one thing: if the democratic party itself was trying to lock dean out, WHY did he get so many superdelegates??? If you remember, Dean maintained the lead in delegates over any of the other candidates (even Kerry!) despite not having won a SINGLE contest and not even coming close in most cases ... and this lead continued for after several primaries. I remember seeing dean's lead and being pissed off about the undemocratic concept of superdelegates. (Superdelegates by the way are unpledged votes that are independant of state primaries. They are typically leaders and major organizers of the democratic party.)

quote:

Originally posted by DaveSZ It remains to be seen whether the left will remain unified or not. Thus far they have been, but I think many Deaniacs will probably vote for Nader. If they do, then they have little right to complain about a continuation of GWB's policies if he wins a second term. My money is still on Bush at this point despite his Administration's many blunders, but perhaps I'm not giving my fellow Americans enough credit there. The Republicans down here are all running ads about making America into a "christian nation" (their perverted view of Christianity). I'm going to move when I can.

Well Iran just elected a bunch of Islamic Fundamentalists, why cant we?

Occrider:

Sorry it took so long to reply. I was half way through a response the other night and Acrobat Reader (as per usual) froze my machine when I tried to reopen one of the pdf links.

Anyway, starting again, they were interesting links (how do you find this stuff?) especially the media studies at the top. They seem to me to suggest that:

1) Dean's rise in popularity was preceded by heavy media coverage.
2) Dean's fall in popularity was preceded by largely negativeheavy media coverage.

I think that Dean's initial rise in media coverage can be explained by his outspoken opposition to the Iraqi war, given that he was one of the few politicians willing to speak out against it at the time. It's one of the benefits of being passionate, forthright and eloquent I guess - you make great fodder for 30 second soundbites. In this sense I was probably wrong to suggest that "he never received preferential treatment from the media" (although I meant it more in terms of quality of coverage - i.e. positive vs negative statements - rather than quantity of coverage) and his exposure in the media undoubtedly had some hand in his rise to the leader of pack. However, Kucinich's graphs do not give us an insight into the "quality" of the coverage Dean was receiving, nor do they provide an undeniable causal relationship between Dean's exposure and Dean's ascension as Democratic frontrunner. Similarly, even if we were to somehow deduce that Dean's rise was one arbitrarily fueled by several different media sources at the same time, it still doesn't change the fact that the media were heavily involved in his downfall as well.

Now I don't want to labour this point. I don't want to pretend that Dean was in no way responsible for his decline (he was) or that the media deliberately conspired against him towards the end (they didn't), but the fact remains - as those statistics you've provided will attest to - that Dean faced a media negativity far exceeding those of his rivals, and even if it wasn't the sole cause of his loss (which it almost certainly wasn't) it did have a lot to do with it.

It all comes back to the buzz surrounding the term "electability". After Dean emerged as the leader, the focus started to shift away from policies and into less tangible areas such as temrprement and ideology, which were to become the foundations upon which this "electability" of the candidates were to be decided. It was probably at this point that the media stopped becoming an unwitting ally of Dean (giving him plenty of opportunity to get his points across) and became his unwitting enemy: when the Democratic voters were looking for that mild-mannered centrist capable of treading lightly so as to avoid stepping on toes, Dean - due to the "image" constructed by the media - no longer seemed quite so appealling. He was too "angry". Too much of a "liberal". It was this strawman (which, even if it wasn't true, enough people on both sides of the political fence believed in it to make it irrevocably damaging) that killed Dean (and Clark, and Sharpton, and Kucinich): not his policies, nor his temprement (was he the only one of the Democrats angry at Bush?), nor his ideology (he was far from the most Liberal of the candidates - even Kerry and Edwards, in some ways, could be categorised as further to the left than Dean). So when the goalposts shifted (from policies to electability), you are quite right in saying that Dean didn't do enough to change tact, to convince the voters that he was electable. Sadly, however, the factors influencing his perceived electability were largely beyond his control, due to the fact that Dean-the-man had taken a back seat to Dean-the-image - an image fuelled by the media (perhaps unintentionally) and the other Democratic candidates (most certainly very intentionally) - of an angry, liberal, unelectable lunatic.

Now it's difficult to objectively defend this "theory", but this was how the race seemed to me: the leading candidate was assissinated by an inaccurate portrayal of his potential to be elected into office. No, he didn't do enough to assuage himself of this image. Yes, he made a number of silly mistakes that made the construction of this image a bit too easy. Nonetheless, considering what he was up against, he did well to stay in the race for as long as he did, bearing in mind what he was up against, essentially from the very beginning.

Anyway:

quote:

Edit: and as for the democratic party itself deep sixing him ... I don't know exactly how they did that. Sure the candidates joined together to attack him but he was the frontrunner and he was capturing the media spotlight ... was there something else to be expected? If the other candidates didn't attack him they would have had no chance of stopping his momentum.

The other candidates have the right to question the front-runner and his policies, absolutely, but there was so much vitriol in the nature of the attacks led by the other Democratic candidates, that it would be easy to disbelieve the fact that they were actually running for the same party. Kerry and Lieberman were especially harsh in the nature and frequency of their attacks. Once again this in not a stance that I can easily justify objectively (unless you have a link that breaks down the criticisms levelled by the candidates against the other candidates? ) but Dean was basically fighting for the preservation of his image on three fronts at once against the media, the GOP and - of course - Joe and the gang. The fact that he was still a front runner until his over-hyped eruption at the Iowa wake, is a testament - if nothing else - to the strength of his policies, and the wide degree to which they were embraced by members of the Democratic party, even if his strawman image eventually turned the voters off.

quote:

The alternet article doesn't really use a lot of facts ... it makes a lot of presumptions and uses a lot of big brother rhetoric. I'll say one thing: if the democratic party itself was trying to lock dean out, WHY did he get so many superdelegates??? If you remember, Dean maintained the lead in delegates over any of the other candidates (even Kerry!) despite not having won a SINGLE contest and not even coming close in most cases ... and this lead continued for after several primaries. I remember seeing dean's lead and being pissed off about the undemocratic concept of superdelegates. (Superdelegates by the way are unpledged votes that are independant of state primaries. They are typically leaders and major organizers of the democratic party.)

You're starting to lose me here. I'm not especially familar with the specifics of the way in which these primaries are conducted (especially since they seem to vary from state to state?) and this is the first I've ever heard of "superdelegates".

However - if you're hinting at what I think you're hinting at - then you are quite right. Dean wasn't undermined by the Democratic party itself (or this "DLC" mentioned in the alternet article) but only by the other candidates and their respective campaigns. I'm not into conspiracy theories, and I doubt there's one to be found here.

Nonetheless, I do believe that the article was correct in suggesting that a lot of people were angered by Dean's antipathy towards Democratic centrism and even if they didn't coagulate to undermine Dean's campaign from within collectively, they probably had some say in Dean's downfall as well (though they were well within their right, of course, to adopt this stance).

It looks like Al Gores endorsement was a waste. LOL

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