I Never Did Understand Why The "Dean Scream" TooK Dean Out Of Contention......

[global1]

could someone refresh my memory as to why Dean was eliminated?

[dkf]

1. In the scheme of things it seems ridiculous.

And then we were stuck with Kerry. Ugh.

[MADem]

2. It had to do with an isolating microphone and incessant pounding by

corporate media elements.

When you isolated that scream, as they did, the poor man sounded "unpresidential." They played it over and over again, like a pounding nail.

He had other issues, too, but that one was a bit of icing for his farewell cake.

[global1]

14. And The Current Repug Field Looks Presidential?.......

Come on - all sorts of people go to sporting events and make asses of themselves. We don't criticize them. The guy was exhibiting pure emotion when he did what he did. Seems to me I want somebody that has emotions in the WH versus cold hearted asses like Bush or Cheney.

[MADem]

16. Who said anything about the current field of Republicans? Not me?

Why are you even trying to suggest that I said or even thought that?

Come on, indeed.

I answered a question about Howard Dean. I didn't discuss the nitwits running for the GOP nom AT ALL, and for you to insinuate that I did is pretty damn low.

If you're looking for a fight, look elsewhere.

[global1]

29. Whoa Partner - You Took My Comment To Be About You And I .....

simply was reacting to the word "unpresidential". I brought in the 'current field of Republicans' - those nitwits. I was not trying to dis you in any way. I'm sorry that you interpreted it that way. That was not my intention. The only fight I'm looking for is to make sure the Repugs don't get back into power. Chill!!!!

[MADem]

53. OK--I'm fine. It's sometimes difficult to guage intent with just the written word! nt

[Enthusiast]

23. Right.

Cain didn't even know that China is a nuclear power. Yet he is one of the GOP front runners.

The media dictates how the populace will feel about a specific issue like the Dean scream. Democracy cannot survive without a free and fair media. This is made more clear every single day.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

94. They routinely withhold all kinds of important information about Republican candidates

and/or refuse to deliver nothing but mild scrutiny of them because they don't want to "influence" the election. :eyes: :puke: Even the NYT was covering up information (i.e. warrantless wiretapping) that could have harmed Bush in 2004. :banghead:

[Enthusiast]

95. If we actually had a "liberal media"

there wouldn't be a single Republican in the house or senate.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

97. Republicans are lovable bafoons...

whereas Democrats can't wear flannel shirts. I don't know how they do it; those fuckers are masterfully brilliant.

[Liberal In Texas]

15. Yeah, talk about "out of context".

RW people I knew back then kept laughing and laughing about it. Now look at the three ring circus they've got going.

It was a real hatchet job. I think he was railroaded.

[MADem]

17. He was railroaded. He was making too damn much sense!

He was a plainspoken guy who appealed to people who were sick of the bullshit and double-talk. He also wasn't terribly willing to be squeezed into a box. He sure as hell didn't conform, and neither did his spouse.

I liked the guy. Still do.

[newspeak]

44. the media had to get him on something

he had a very zealous crowd and he was attempting to talk over the crowd. However, it was a perfect time for the corporate media to bring down someone they didn't choose. Every network showed repeatedly Dean talking over the crowd. And some of the obscene talking heads made comments about Dean screaming and that he may not be mentally all there. With this emotional outburst, he may have a temper and not be emotionally stable. I kid you not, some of these cretins on the telly made those comments. Another one of those, he's not like our beloved little boots who everyone wants to have a beer with and he never gets belligerent or mean when he drinks, right media? Or, that alleged insider trading with his own company, well his MIL lost money, would he screw his mother-in-law? Or, I don't want to talk about using drugs because it might influence the kiddies. Or, my driving record was scrubbed and it's nobody's business, and that goes with my military record.

Our McPravda media makes heroes into villains and villains into heroes.

[Blue_Tires]

45. +1

[MADem]

55. I have a theory about how/why Dean got the hook.

I think the GOP had already crafted a game plan to "get" Kerry in the general election(Swift Boats, Flip Flop, etc.), but Dean was a harder nut to crack. Why? Because Dean was difficult to label and would simply tell 'em to fuck off, while Kerry would try to intellectualize his retorts. Kerry was much easier to prick and deflate than Dean, because Dean had less hot air--he was much more direct and substantive. He also didn't change his mind to please his audience--he'd only shift if given more information to consider.

You always try to take down the most dangerous predator first and early, and save the easy pickins' for last. That's Campaign Strategy 101.

It's happening with the GOP field, now, too. Who's the one who is saying "Fuck you" right now? It's Cain. He won't last, because he's a pervert, but he's not waffling or whining--so he needs to go before people get used to the idea that being a harassing perv is somehow "OK." Who's the one who (if history is any indicator) is the one who will, as the campaign goes on, have hurt feelings, fits of pique, get all kerfluffled at the worst time, be decisive one minute/confused the next, and will flip flop (remember that word, and how it was applied to the Dems--the GOP has one of their own who damn near invented the term) to suit his target audience--that's Mittsy, right there.

[karynnj]

69. Have to disagree

I can't picture Kerry whining that he did not want to "be a pin cushion" as Dean did when subjected to the usual challenges a front runner gets.

At that point, Kerry had not spoken of the $87 billion and he really did not have the type of record like Romney (or like Brown) where he really flip flopped. Of course, the need to vote yes or no and the existence of alternative bills will always lead to examples that really mean nothing.

Not to mention, Kerry got an unexpected 38% of the vote in Iowa. Dean got 18%.

[MADem]

71. Kerry took things to heart. Even when Dean griped, he was

more "snippy" and prickly about it--curmudgeonly, if you will. Sometimes, that "in your face" stuff--if not over-used--is sometimes effective and makes people less willing to feel they can screw with you.

Kerry tried WAY to hard to smooth things over and still the roiling waters. Dean was more likely to froth the waters up. Kerry was more likely to give you a dissertation; Dean the Cliff Notes.

It's just a difference in personality. All water under the bridge, at this stage, anyway!

I did note upthread that there were other issues that "helped" Dean out of the race, but had he had better organization and relied more on adults who would actively supervise canvassing and GOTV efforts, rather than just all those kids in those irritating orange hats (some of whom were rude and left a bad impression, and who didn't cover their territory) it might have been different. He didn't have enough clout on the ground, certainly, and was counting on a wave of disaffection to carry him through. It was an unfortunate miscalculation for him.

That was one strange race, though, looking back....

[karynnj]

73. I agree with your description of the differences in their personalitties or

maybe the way they filter their responses. I admire Kerry's discipline in channeling the anger that at times he has to feel.

My personal experience has been that the person I least want to have to "debate" or challenge in any situation is one who manages always to be calm, logical and seemingly reasonable. It is not that he gives up, he is tenacious. The odd thing is that on committee's where he is questioning people, his questions are often the most direct, succinct, and focused - and he follows them until he gets an answer. Yet I agree that that clarity and brevity is not typical of his answers. In the debates where he was time limited, his answers seemed to have those qualities.

I also liked Dean. In fact, throughout 2003, I wanted either Kerry or Dean and feared that they would split the same pool of voters giving us someone like Gephardt or Edwards.

It was a strange race. Unlike the current Replican circus, there were multiple candidates who I think would have been decent Presidents - starting with Kerry and Dean, but including Clark and Gephardt. I was actually much happier with my choices in 2004 than in 2008 - where I chose Obama by process of elimination.

[MADem]

78. You're right--it was an embarrassment of riches on our side.

Crying shame we couldn't have pulled it out. That "lowest common denominator" at play--people are terribly stupid, some of them, and ya just can't fix stupid!

I chose Obama because my candidate (HRC) didn't make the cut. I'll back him this time, too--we would not fare well under a Cain, Perry or Romney Supreme Court.

[karynnj]

66. You would rather they cover Dean's campaign flop and Kerry's unexpected win

That was the alternative. You also know that they always do this by showing the best moments of the winner and the worst of the loser - it makes for a simple narrative.

[WingDinger]

85. They will tell you if your choice is within bounds.

[PADemD]

35. "They" being Wolf Blitzer on CNN

the station I was watching at the time

[MADem]

56. About the only person I saw cry "Horse shit!" was, ironically, Diane Sawyer.

She did a fairly long piece on it--not just 30 seconds, it was fairly in-depth and she didn't mince words. She was apparently in the middle of the room at the time and had video/audio of how it sounded to HER and everyone else in the hall. She averred he was getting a bum shake out of the whole thing.

Oddly enough, she got her start as a press flack in the Nixon White House. She was the last person I would have expected to cover that story in fact-based fashion.

[tsuki]

91. And the millionaire jackels saw their big paychecks declining if Dean

broke up the media conglomerates like Carter did AT&T. Never say the media does not act in its own best interest.

[eShirl]

3. because enough people backed away when the media pundits labelled him "uncool"

no, it doesn't make real sense

[mdavies013]

4. He's a democrat...and a progressive democrat at that. Neither party wanted him as the nominee

Because he would have killed in the debates and won across the board.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. I think it was because it was interpreted as his becoming unhinged...

While this time around, the entire Republican lineup is genuinely insane... :crazy:

[Eddie Haskell]

22. I just watched it again.

It was exciting to see an enthusiastic candidate. It was an absolutely harmless show of emotion.

[Cosmocat]

65. ABSOLUTELY!

People talk about how unauthentic pols are, it was a nice show of emotion.

The "liberal media" totally ballooned it, and as most in the thread have noted, destroyed his campaign with it.

Rs can do ANYTHING, ANYTHING, and it gets deflected as "a partisan witchhunt."

Meanwhile, a D can have his campaign and career savaged over things like this, a flagpin ...

[Rhiannon12866]

75. It's still painful for me to watch because of what came afterwards.

How many times were we forced to watch this and then hear the inevitable criticism? I agree that he was just enthusiastic, but the media didn't interpret it that way... ;(

[KeepItReal]

6. He wasn't the establishment's choice

They bent over backwards to paint him in a negative light

[tavalon]

28. Correct

Makes ya think about Obama in a different light, doesn't it? With the exception of OWS, the peons have never really been given a choice or a voice. And actually, OWS is us taking our voice to the streets, nothing we are given, something we take.

[SammyWinstonJack]

48. Exactly! nt

[DCBob]

7. There were some other issues leading up to that.

He should have won Iowa but he made some misstatements that brought him down. So the scream thing was just more bad press that just took its toll. But yes it was ridiculous and should have been a non-issue. But the media loves stuff like that and it just became a feeding frenzy.

[eridani]

8. He didn't win Iowa because Kerry had a better ground operation

--run by specialists in GOTV for caucus states.

[DCBob]

11. I vaguely remember something about a negative comment Dean made about the Iowa primary..

and that also got blown out of proportion by the media but I think that was a major factor in his loss.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

38. Oh, and vote swapping by Gephardt, Edwards and Kucinich.

[eridani]

84. All of whom were bringing up the rear.

That's why they negotiated with each other instead of the frontrunners.

[karynnj]

70. Silly excuse - if that were the case, why didn't Hillary win Iowa rather than coming in third?

The fact is that Kerry and his family did win people over - meeting with them one on one. He also had many veterans who had supported him for years and many MA party people who spent a lot of time in Iowa.

Kerry did not get much media at all - other than questions on when he would drop out - until Iowa.

[eridani]

83. He had people specifically soliciting signed pledges

The Dean volunteers, mostly out of state newbies, just talked to people without getting commitments. The big influx of outside volunteers had another effect--when Dean was actually in Iowa, he paid more attention to them than to Iowa voters and volunteers.

[karynnj]

90. You know that signed pledges did NOT insure that the person

caucused or that if they did, they caucused for him. If a person wanted to, they could even change as many times as they wanted while the caucus was going on. (There were obviously many who early on were committed to Gephardt, who left him when his campaign and Dean's started attacking each other.) Every campaign tries to categorize the voters they come in contact with. It is an internal measure of how their campaign is going. I read Trippi's self aggrandizing book and he speaks of how they did try to label voters they contacted by numbers.

But written commitments are a good idea for several reasons. It tests whether a person is convinced enough that they are for a candidate that they are willing to "sign". It also it makes it less the subjective opinion of the canvasser, who might be tempted to take a "sure, maybe" as a "yes". One thing that was said in I think Walter Shapiro's book is that he observed that Kerry's "number 1"s remained number 1, more so than the other candidates - especially those who became number one after personally meeting Kerry.

[Chemisse]

9. I was a Dean supporter at the time

My initial reaction was to recoil at the weirdness of it.

There has been so much 'weird' in politics since then that, looking back on it, the Dean scream seems like a port of sanity in a storm of batshit crazy.

[DCBob]

13. Me too. same reaction.

it was just so unfortunate though and seems so absurd now.

[Chemisse]

50. It sure does seem absurd now. Things certainly have changed. n/t

[Eddie Haskell]

18. Nothing weird about it but your reaction.

Most people would rather eat nails than be associated with someone who is ridiculed. It's fear of being ridiculed that keeps people in their place. It's fear of being ridiculed that keeps people silent.

[Chemisse]

49. I fail to see how my reaction was 'weird'.

It was my honest, gut reaction. I quickly tried to cover for it mentally by finding ways to excuse it, and I hoped it wouldn't take him down, but it did.

It was during the aftermath that the media ridicule factor came into play, in the way you describe, so that even his firm supporters abandoned him rather than go down with the ship.

But don't tell me my reaction was 'weird' just because it doesn't fit in with your explanation of how things changed after the Dean Scream.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

58. Have you heard the recording of the event with Dean's voice NOT isolated?

[Chemisse]

82. Hmm, possibly not. I didn't realize there was one that differed from

what we heard (over and over again) after it happened.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

86. Here:

The media used a filtered setting used to filter out crowd noise. This recording doesn't make him sound crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQh0BEUlJWY&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL9124295168892A55

[Chemisse]

88. omfg - I could barely even hear the Scream

That is very revealing.

[JHB]

89. Precisely. Why did that one get played over and over...

...when it was a technical matter that one could reasonably presume broadcast professionals are aware of (or have people close at hand who could set them straight)? (not that I want to completely discount the "pundits and campaign press are self-centered and dumb" factor)

The campaign was faltering at the time for other factors, but this was used to give it a swift kick out of the ring.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

92. I felt the same way when I first heard it un-filtered.

The version I saw was from the same vantage point as the original clip so the contrast of the audio AND visual was even more stark.

The "liberal media" who played it over and over again, being in that business, knew better. The mic setting used, a setting meant for such speeches, was meant to amplify voice and filter crowd noise.

[Rambis]

72. People in the room at the time disagree

It was electric! How it was portrayed and spun into a negative was a tragedy of epic proportions!

[Enthusiast]

96. "port of sanity in a storm of batshit crazy"

Ain't that the damn truth!

[vi5]

10. Because "Democrats" were looking for any reason.....

He was advocating liberal policies and spoke like a liberal and pushed back on Republicans. The people that run the party couldn't have that, especially within the first 5 years after 9/11. Kerry was the safe bet. They were betting everything on his SuperWarHero record and credentials.

The scream just provided them with an ample excuse. And it actually is pretty telling that THAT is what ends up disqualifying a Democrat, meanwhile Republicans get away with anything and everything and nothing is a deal breaker for them.

[DCBob]

12. The war hero thing definitely helped Kerry.

Then the GOPer dirt machine took that away. Assholes.

[karynnj]

77. Kerry was more liberal than Dean

Dean was a centrist Vermont governor, regularly opposed by the Vermont progressives. I don't know of others, but I was more impressed by the strength of character, maturity, and eloquence of his testimony in 1971. I knew, of course, that he was a vet. I did not know that he was a highly decorated war hero - or that the situations for which he got his two major awards showed not just bravery, but the silver star showed a serious attempt to better protect his men by thinking through alternative actions before he was in the midst of an ambush in the insane missions his superiors dreamed up.

Think conceptually, would someone who prepared to the best of his ability as a 25 year old to protect his men and himself, not as President take care to do what he said - to go to war only as a last resort and to take the time to prepare properly - neither of which Bush did.

But the scream did not "disqualify" Dean, the failure to win any state in the first 16 caused him to pull out - even at that point, he was not "disqualified" for any cause - he simply did not win.

[still_one]

19. The Democratic establishment with the help of the MSM worked to derail his campaign. It was perhaps

the best example of the real power of the DLC, and planting through the MSM the lie that Howard Dean was somehow unstable.

[radiclib]

20. The context has been forgotten

He had just suffered a devastating loss (fourth place?) in Iowa after nearly being the presumptive nominee, and was just trying to rally the troops to continue. But he had also recently caught some flak in the media for responding sharply to an obnoxious questioner at a town hall meeting (...oooh, he's ANGRY!..) and this somehow fed the "angry" meme the press had created.
And yes, there is a different standard for Dems.

[quaker bill]

21. Because the media likes to make and break candidates

They will run with the Cain thing until his numbers plummet. Then he will be an "also ran" which can be ignored.

The point is and was that a few dems conspired to undo Dean. Deals were brokered to make sure he did not win Iowa, one between Gebhardt and Kerry, and another between Kucinich and Edwards. Thus Edwards ended up number 2 on the Kerry ticket.

That ticket was always a loser. I said as much here before Iowa.

The Swiftboat Veterans had been hounding Kerry ever since Nixon invented them. The fact that he did not have a strategy together to deal with them the very day he announced his run remains stunning to this day, but it was not unpredictable.

[Tesha]

24. He began to speak out against the Media so the Media ended his run.

"The Dean Scream" was a lie, but what difference does
that make if the lie gets the job done, ehh? And it did!

Tesha

[tavalon]

25. The powers that be didn't want him

Next question.

[Enthusiast]

26. K&R...........Let's examine this closely.

Cain didn't even know that China is a nuclear power, yet he is one of the GOP front runners.

The media dictates how the populace will feel about a specific issue like the Dean scream. Democracy cannot survive without a free and fair media. This is made more clear every single day.

[brooklynite]

27. It actually didn't...

The "scream" became a metaphor for a campaign that collapsed for organizational reasons. Remember that the speech came after the Iowa Caucus which Dean lost; I was in New Hampshire the day after and could see why; he didn't have a campaign team in place that 1) knew where he was going to be; 2) knew how to organize events that are critical for New Hampshire campaigning; and 3) couldn't turn out people to actually vote.

[JHB]

32. I think it was a combination of that and some of the other points in this thread...

The campaign was faltering for the reasons you cite, but the spin that selected the audio that isolated the scream from the rest of the audience's cheering and made a big deal of it over and over had to do with other actors (other campaigns, "pro-business" lobbies in the party, junior-high-level campaign media) wanting to put the coup de gras on him quickly. Without that, there was the chance he'd siphon off support that would go to other candidates in the primaries, and to remove the possibility in a tight race the faction that supported him could win some populist concessions in the final deal-making.

Whatever the actual motives, I did get the very strong sense that Very Serious People wanted him gone, and were leaning heavily on an excuse to do so.

[onenote]

36. you are correct

If Dean had won the Iowa Caucus, the scream woudn't have meant anything -- it would have been laughed about, but it wouldn't have been a big deal because when you win, you can act wild and crazy and its okay. But coming on the heels of his loss, it was symbolic of a failing campaign, not one with momentum.

[XemaSab]

57. I think that the NH team expected him to come into NH in first place

and they were sort of shocked that he came in in third.

I also think that one of the missing pieces is that there are a lot of former Massachusetts residents in NH, and so the deck was already stacked for Kerry. (Yes, Vermont is also next door, but I don't think Vermont politics influence Portsmouth and Manchester as much as Massachusetts politics do.)

[barbtries]

30. i think it was a media campaign

someone wanted him to fall. i couldn't believe it when i finally watched the video. sad

[Le Taz Hot]

31. Would love to.

Dean got too close so the DEMOCRATS saw to it that he was taken out just so their "has a chance to win" chosen candidate could lose to the worst. president. ever.

There was a coalition of Democrats: Edwards, Gebhardt & Kerry, iirc that pooled their resources and 1) aired ads in Iowa and New Hampshire comparing Dean with Osama Bin Laden, and 2) operatives called voters in Iowa IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT "campaigning" for Dean which royally pissed off a whole lot of people.

The "Dean Scream" was a result of the use of a (what we used to call in the olden days) a uni-directional microphone which means it only picks up sounds that are directly in front of it (Dean) and not the cheering crowds (multi-directional mic) so that "Dean scream" sounded like he was losing his mind In actuality, the volume of his "scream" was in proportion to the noise level in the room. Now, how that mic got there, no one really knows, but given the Democrats' dirty tricks history, I know where the lion's share of suspicion is.

[Laelth]

52. I agree. He was destroyed by his own party.

He is a goo-goo. The DLC/corporadems couldn't allow him to be the nominee.

-Laelth

[McCamy Taylor]

33. Because the corporate media said it did.

[seaglass]

34. His reaction was out of context with what happened that night and he

sounded unhinged. The media ran with it but he was already losing.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

59. Have you heard the recording of the event with Dean's voice NOT isolated?

[seaglass]

81. I saw it live when they cut in on Edwards. It was the tone of his voice not the volume. n/t

[Hassin Bin Sober]

87. Check this out.

The media kept playing a filtered mic version. This is the only one I could find but I've seen others from the original camera vantage point that didn't make him sound "crazy" because they weren't filtering crown noise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQh0BEUlJWY&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL9124295168892A55

[seaglass]

101. I listened to it. It doesn't change what I heard that night. "The scream" had nothing to do with

how I voted and I never thought he was actually crazy because of it. I understand this is painful for his supporters but I feel the results of the Iowa campaign were the end for Dean, not "the scream."

[Whisp]

37. or the Reverend Wright issue and Obama.

that thing had legs on CNN for WEEKS.

like Obama is responsible for what other people say and think.

while Cain, who is directly responsible for his own actions, is protected by those same people
and the real harm that scum has done is played down.

I don't know how those viscious creeps on tv news sleep at night sometimes. Do the sellouts all gather together after hours and decide amongst themselves or is the order given from higher up.

[WinkyDink]

39. He was made to seem unbalanced, operative word "made."

[spanone]

40. the MEDIA destroyed him.

[WI_DEM]

41. The media made it bigger than it should have been. The media always manipulates the news.

[Nye Bevan]

42. Ever since the Nixon/JFK debate when Nixon appeared unshaven

things like this have been magnified in the media age.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

43. It did not take him out of contention

Other responders cite any number of things.

[Blue_Tires]

46. My biggest question about Dean is why the party scrapped his 50 state plan

which was making great stides

[XemaSab]

62. I can't give you an answer

without one of these. :tinfoilhat:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

47. Because he raised his voice, by God

You're not allowed to raise your voice.

You can describe how well you sleep at night after allowing people to be executed. You can describe how important it is to let people die like dogs in the street without health insurance. You can grope and assault your way through a string of women and continue making jokes about women.

But you can't raise your voice. No. That's unthinkable.

[NorthCarolina]

51. Normally it wouldn't have, but the MSM told folks it should...

and so it was.

[Odin2005]

54. I was a Deaniac at the time and it was an obvious M$M hit job.

[Macoy]

60. He is Unsuitable to be a Puppet.

The “scream” showed Dean was a man of passion, a person committed to his heart felt beliefs……in other words, someone who could not be controlled like a puppet and totally unsuitable to be President.


Macoy

[kentuck]

61. It wasn't a "scream" - it was a "rebel yell"...

"Yee-haww !!" Very common at sporting events and throughout the South and other places.

It was meant to urge on his supporters and to not give up simply because we lost Iowa. I didn't think it was inappropriate.

But when the Repubs called it a "scream" and made him out to be some type of maniac, there was no one there to defend him and the media ran with the Republican characterization and that was the end of the campaign.

[iris27]

63. It has never made any sense to me - not then, and not now.

I had more enthusiasm (and did more) for Dean's candidacy than for anyone since.

[karynnj]

64. He didn't get enough votes - and Kerry won 14 out of the 16 states that decided before Dean quit

The Dean scream was after losing Iowa where he was favored to win, getting 18% to Kerry's 38%. This gave Kerry, a known quantity in NH , a lot of momentum - and in the last poll before Iowa was already in single digits behind Dean. Dean was already then off his peak, but he kept about the same % he had in that poll, with Kerry picking up almost all the undecideds and many Clark supporters. This led to another Kerry win.

At that point, Dean was still not out, but he was a definite underdog. One problem he had is the money he raised in 2003 - more than the other candidates by a lot was spent in NH an d Iowa - Trippi really was not a prudent manager of Dean's money. The next five states - MO, SC, ND, NM,AZ, and DE were all bad states for a New Englander - Dean announced he was skipping that days event to concentrate on the next set. This would have worked if Edwards and Clark would have taken the states, leaving no clear front runner if they split. If Edwards was the frontrunner, Dean would be a good contrast to the conservative, pro Iraq Edwards. But, Kerry won 5 of the 7 making him really pretty hard to stop. (Had he been a media favorite, this would have been the point where everyone agreed he was going to win.

Dean ended up losing the next set to Kerry and he pulled out.

[Rex]

67. SO that the country could be run by a puppet.

The paymasters would have no way to gain leverage over Dean, so they called up their slaves in the M$M and made sure he would have no chance at winning. And it worked.

[in_cog_ni_to]

68. He was taken out because he wasn't a Veteran. Instead, we got stuck with

an easy target, John Kerry. The Dems just KNEW he was a sure bet...being a Vet in a time of war. IF the Democrats wanted Dean to stay in, he would have stayed in. They wanted a Veteran to run. Idiots that they are. :(

Howard Dean would have won.

[JackRiddler]

74. Political assassination by corporate media, plain and simple.

[kentuck]

76. Yep.

End of story.

[Mz Pip]

79. Didn't Dean come in 3rd in IA?

Seems like that might of had more to do with it than the scream. IA gave Kerry quite a bit of momentum.

However IMHO Dean would have been a much better candidate than Kerry was.

[ecstatic]

80. The MSM, combined with hatred from the left and right

I was for Dean, but many others on here weren't. In the end, it became too much of an uphill battle and primary-voters jumped ship.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

93. He Already Lost IA At That Time And He Certainly Wasn't Beating Kerry In NH

.

[dballance]

98. Dean Said Israel Needed to be treated like other contries

That was his downfall. He wanted to treat Israel like any other ally and not give them endless support no matter what they did. That's what ended his campaign.

[JI7]

99. It didn't , the Scream happened after he lost Iowa, not only to Kerry, but Edwards came in 2nd

and Kerry was already leading in NH.

[TransitJohn]

100. "why Dean was eliminated?"--he was anti-Iraq War. eom

n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

102. The order was given by TPTB and he was deleted.

Cain being deleted as well. No actual outsiders are allowed.

[Lady President]

103. People like my mom

My mom is a very bright lady who certainly understands politics, so I don't mean this insulting to her at all....

My mom and I were talking on the phone watching returns when the "Dean Scream" occurred. She was appalled. She immediately thought he was a loose cannon. I'm sure the Scream was the first major exposure to Dean for a lot of other people too. You have to remember that the microphone was really, really amped up which made it sound so much worse than it was.

For the record, she thought he was great as DNC chair.