With all the rumors of voter fraud, then maybe Dean got screwed in Iowa.

Why not? If it's all about the machines like Malloy says, then what's to keep them from screwing with us in the primaries to help get rid of the candidate who had ALL the momentum going at the time? I would've self-destructed, too, with a Dean Scream after that shocker. Maybe there was something fishy with that election, too. Corruption knows no bounds.

That's right, it was the "Iowa Caucus". There weren't any voting machines.

But there were late night calls to caucus goers from the other camps who claimed to be from the Dean team.

Lots of dirty tricks in IA, the Congressional Dems all ganged up on Dean.

but New Hampshire uses electronic voting machines. Dean and his supporters were very excited about the polls leading up to the New Hampshire primary, yet Dean lost by a hefty margin. Kerry was selected for us. Vote fraud isn't just a GOP phenomenon.

Iowa has a caucus. What happens is everybody meets at their local meeting place and they caucus in person. Nobody votes on machines in a caucus. There are no ballots.

They're not called Deanics for nothing

because we like Dean and were his supporters.

And then many many of us became Kerry/Edwards supporters ..including Dean. And we followed this thing through and we're hoping this isn't the END!

IMO Dean is doing an incredible job since he stopped his campaign for the presidency. Not only is he taking on a monumental task, he's taken the right strategy IMO (organizing alongside the party instead of within or without the party) and he's doing an incredible job of it.

a couple of the other blowhards who followed. Appreciate the help on that one ;)

There was NO Iowa primary

I've been saying it for over a year now: Deanites and Bushites are identical, except Bushites worship God; Deanites worship Dean. Facts? Nonsense. Faith in Dean overcomes facts like a tsunami puts out a sputtering match.

with thinking like this.....

look at all the threads here promoting Dean in 2008, when not one of the people who start and champion these threads can show how Dean would do better than Kerry.

I won't bother taking you back to the insanity of a year ago; I'm sure you remember.

For me, the real deal sealer was when two of my Clark Meetups were infiltrated by Dean supporters who played the troll game: sweetly bringing up all the anti-Clark and RNC talking points over and over and over. One woman got so mad at us for continuing to answer her questions that she stormed off in a rage, actually crying with anger.

She got into her car, which had a Dean sticker on it of course, and drove off. This was after Clark first declared, and was surging ahead of Dean in the national polls.

Such people are not rationally looking at the pluses and minuses of a Dean candidacy and deciding he would be the Democrats' best candidate: they are, rather, caught up in a personality cult, a religion. I can admire and respect passion and loyalty. But not when it is clung to to an irrational degree, as this stuff is.

Fact 1) A northeastern Democrat has not won the White House since 1960

Fact 2) The last three Democratic presidents of our generation have been from the south-LBJ, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton...

Fact 3)Since 1964 non southern Democrats running for president are 0-5 while southern Democrats are 3-1

Fact 4) The Democratic candidate needs to be competitive in the south and southwest to have a greater than fifty percent chance of winning

How anybody can look at these facts and argue that we should put another northeasterner on the ticket is putting personal vanity over the good of the Democratic party....

Dean was against the war from the start and this in a huge reason he was better than Kerry. There was a lot of capital with a huge number of people about this. Also, Dean spoke in a clear, concise manner that was easily understood by even the dumbest of voters. Kerry was too complex, he was right, but too complex. Another way Dean was better than Kerry is Dean never took any crap from anyone. Just watch how Dean is treated with respect and even a little fear on the conservative TV shows. Dean was not afraid to say what he meant and meant what he said. He did not go back and forth and re-explain things. Now this all said, it is impossible to say how the "liberal" media would have undercut him like they did Kerry.

fyi I'm not a Deanite. I liked Dean, thought he could win, but Clark was my first choice. Pardon my ignorance about the caucuses as opposed to primaries. Not everyone's a perfect genius like you are.

"Deanite"...good gawd what a handy label.

What are you, a Liebermanite? a Hillarynite?

It's the mentality that Dean lost Iowa because of some evil machinations between the media, Gephardt, Kerry, Edwards, and the Republicans that is absurd, and deserves to be lashed out against.

There are people here who swear that the Republicans were, and I quote, "terrified" of Dean. There are people who swear that Dean lost Iowa because "thousands" of Republicans crossed over and voted for Kerry because they were afraid of Dean. No evidence, mind you, just the statement.

If that's you -- if you think that shoe looks good on you -- then wear it.


I was a "Clarkie," by the way, one of the earlier members of the "Draft Clark" movement.

I have no other claims to the particular conspiracy theories that you're talking about.

Mistakes are mistakes, and everyone makes them.

Willful ignorance, on the other hand... ;-)

I read quotes about how republicans were saying "thank god they didn't nominate Dean".

And the other campaigns did coordinate with each other to stop Dean.

came from Rove in a memo he sent around to cheer up the Republicans, and likely, to try to piss off Dean supporters.

Look, I've spoken with a lot of Republicans, some of them insiders, including one who has helped Bush with certain policies, and was once upon a time mentioned as a Bush potential cabinet member. They were deeply disappointed Dean was not the nominee. It wasn't just the presidency -- they felt they'd win that no matter what -- it was a total blowout they wanted, and they thought Dean would give it to them. You folks can look for solace wherever you want, but the idea that the Republicans were "terrified" of Dean is false; moreover, it is totally unsupported by facts.

That means we need to nominate somebody who hates the queers and child-killers of our party to win.

Straw man much?

We'll never fucking know how the election would go down anyway. what the point of this?

bush into the comparison!

Dean is making us proud by his grassroots work on Democracy just like Kerry has made us proud by the way he ran an excellent campaign and I think he won..that's why I was so crushed when bush is the one who supposedly is going to be inaugerated.

not all Dean people fit that mold, just as not all Bush voters belong to the religious right.

a traitor by ignorance or otherwise!

We saw the primaries as a choice to nominate a maverick instead of some safe choice that would give us a repeat of 2000.

Dean laid out the issues and strategy that we think could have won. When Dean lost we were upset because we saw the democrats shoot down what we thought was their best candidate, not because we worship the ground he walks on.

Bringing Dean back up is just our way of saying "okay, you tried it your way, maybe you can hand the ball to us now?"

ARRRRGHHHHH from Dean to make it sound louder than it was and softened the audience noise. The reports from the people in the audience is that they couldn't even HEAR Dean when he screamed that ARRRGGGGHHH. People we are manipulated in every way, shape and form from these fu****s! Get used to it!

The Scream occurred AFTER Dean gave his CONCESSION speech AFTER the Iowa CAUCUS.

If you don't understand that, I can type it in slower

I was there.

would have lost by a mile well, Kerry figuratively speaking could be said to lose by an inch but guess what he still lost so again "an inch is as good as a mile". Stop peddeling that horse puckey here Billy Bunter, Kerry did what he does best and that is flip then flop and runs away from a fight. My were we had by the Dean naysayers, rather have voted for a mile loser than an inch worm with no balls.

disruption of Dean, it made me take a second look at him, read his words, I bought his book, and I realized that he was a true soldier which we needed desperately...

It is why he was gotten rid of. No tin foil hat here, it was more than obvious. Edwards was my first choice though more for VP from the beginning..interesting how that all played out..

We gather in our precincts and bribe one another to join groups. I was in the Edwards group and we were the largest, Kerry was a close 2nd (how ironic) and Deanies maybe had 8 ppl in their group.
You can take in other groups too to gain more seats.
It is pretty fun! Definitely more fun then voting.

n/t

A lot of factors came into play on that day.

The media exaggerated every "gaffe" he made.

You know, like when ALL the other campaigns laughed and laughed and laughed about how Dean said we weren't necessarily safer with Saddam gone.

Hahahah! What a fool!

Oh wait, that's the majority of the opinion in the US now.

Howard Dean is a visionary, and our party sure needs a new one right now. His conference call was inspiring, and more and more are coming back now to the blog.

I get so angry when people make fun of us, and call us worshippers, that I get more determined. It is a great inspiration to me to have someone scoff.

well, it was A machine, the Democratic party machine. But it was our fault. We let it happen through a combination of inexperience, poor local infrastructure and leadership, and yes, a little subterfuge, which is how the game is played in Iowa.

I only wish we had a do over, because a couple of critical mistakes cost us that caucus. Of course it didn't help the way the media framed the whole thing. Not to minimize the awesome job done by the Kerry folk at the Iowa caucus. As bad as we were, they weer spot on perfect, and that's what it's all about: execution on the ground.

How that lesson got so lost by the time the nationals rolled around is just a mystery to me.

After hearing "all we need to do is GOTV" during the primaries and then seeing Dean get squashed... When the democrats started saying that last week I started to get nervous.

donations to rent vans on voting day to help take people to the polls. That made me feel good.

There were 55 Million votes that Didn't get scrubbed!

is that we were not enough like them at all, that we will try harder next time.

I guarantee you, though, what I am seeing and hearing is that execution on the ground won't be a problem next time if they don't squash us like wee little bugs.

:hi:

They chose somebody who they thought could get elected. Dean's message might have resonated with Iowans, but in the end, they chose the safe route, set the ball in motion, forced the rest of the country into choosing the same man, and in the end, voted for the Chimp anyway.:eyes:

Iowans played us for the fool.

Besides, Iowa is a caucus system, no voting machines were used.

That was a caucus- a remnent of the 19th Century! Had nothing to do with voting machines.

While it's true that IOWA- of all places- shouldn't have such a disproportionate impact on the nominee, and it's true that the media set Dean up for a fall- corruption had little to do with it.

As one of the foot soldiers on the ground posted here the night before the caucuses- Iowa was just a tough nut to crack, and Kerry had the better organization for the process there.

but never could put my finger on it. Now the question is, if there primary results were tampered with, was it the Republicans attempting to derail Dean, or are the Democrats in on the election shams too?

It was as if the media wanted Dean to be the nominee, particularly the corporate media in my view. During November Dean and Clark were virtually tied in the polls, but Dean got ALL the media attention, Clark was almost totally ignored during this time. After the Dean scream and the Kerry win, the press turned on Dean in a hurry. Kerry and Edwards became the flavor of the day for the press and it was over before we had time to realize what happened. I don't think the media did a fair job of reporting by any stretch during the primaries. Also, the front-loading of the primaries was a piss poor idea. I have gained a lot of respect for Dean with time. He is very articulate and his heart is in the right place. He would make a great DNC head to replace McC in my view.

Dean was being smeared just before the caucuses. Just like Kerry with the Swifties, he didn't effectively counter it quickly enough, and it ended up sticking. That set him up for "the scream" after the caucuses.

Second, there were unrealistic expectations concerning cell phone only voters who were going to magically save him after the supposedly "inaccurate" polls which showed him losing ground were published. I became very concerned when some Kerry supporters were declaring landslide based on the big advantage he had with cell phone only voters.