Do You Believe Dean Made The Right Decision?

Simple question, yes or no.

I say no, because I wanted him in the race until at least March 2. I would have liked to have seen what he could have done if he concentrated on California or New York.

Plus he would have been guaranteed to win his first state - doesn't Vermont hold it's primary March 2 also?

I don't think he should have stopped campaigning before he won a state.

But others may argue that by dropping out now, it is surely to boost Edwards chances though.

I don't know by how much, but it certainly didn't hurt Edwards.

he'd be throwing money away....it's clear he hasn't got enough mainstream appeal.

He hasn't got enough media subservience

The man has a mighty appeal. He has been shit on right and left,not just by the media, but by his own party (which I will never forgive)and still takes nearly 20% of the Wisconsin primary vote.

but with all the media pressure and trashing he would have received had he stayed in, I don't think he had a choice. He wanted to go out while he still felt he'd be missed.

he could have continued on and won delegates in NY, California, and several other states and perhaps gone to the convention with a bloc of delegates which could have made the difference.

"Again, this is the final idiotic decision in a string of idiotic decisions. Howard, you've been screwed by your own campaign. This was not the time to quit. Edwards is about to go broke and kerry is going to be crippled by scandal before long.

Say hello to 4 more years of Bush, folks. Kerry or Edwards will never win in Nov.

I'm sorry you lost confidence in this partnership, Governor. The grassroots certainly held up it's end of the bargain."

Posted by **** at February 18, 2004 12:24 PM

An interesting view, but given the difficulty in catching up in delegates (due to continued allotment to Kerry even if he fails to win) and failing to win himself, I have to say Howard was right to quit now. It seems his share of the vote was destined to be stuck at 20 to 25% no matter where he went.

I'll repeat it yet again - He is second place in the delegate count. That represents a lot of viability at the convention and in deciding the future of the Democratic Party, whether or not he's the nominee.

There may be good reasons why Dean should have left the race, but the reasons you stated weren't them.

I see your point about concentrating on CA or NY, but if he couldn't afford to pay his staff through March 2nd, then the ethical thing to do would be to drop out. I don't know what the money situation looks like for the campaign so it's just speculation on my part.

Dean is doing great things for our party and it's obvious that he isn't going to win the nomination at this point so perhaps we would all be better off if he concentrated on other things. :shrug: Then again, what do I know.

Does "NO" mean that I think he should have stayed in with a full fledged campaign?

Or...

Does "NO" mean that I think that if he's going to drop out, he should have dropped out entirely and not half-way?

-- Allen

P.S. Nothing personal MagicRat... I know you're not a professional pollster... but this is an excellent example of the type of things that are wrong with polls. Whether the questions are intentionally vague or whether they are poorly phrased... whether the person answering the poll question misunderstands them, or whether the one doing the analysis purposely twists the results out of context... these types of things aren't fully addressed in the +/-4% margin of error disclaimers.

Did he run out of money, or expect to be running out of money?

Beyond the demands of his own life (which is his own business), the fundraising is the only indicator he should have considered in assessing his chances for continuing to the convention. Because as we all know (but some of us are still unwilling to admit), second place in the delegate count does not mean out of the race by any rational definition.

If Edwards is still a viable candidate, so is Dean and then some.

If the fundraising was dropping off substantially, then I'd reassess in his situation. It would be interesting to hear his rationale.

I voted NO because I believe in Howard Dean.

And now Kerry's speech writers are going to have to look elsewhere for material....did you hear him last night? He almost said there were two Americas.

Reed + political wind = John Kerry.