Howard Dean presidential campaign, 2004

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Howard Dean was a former governor from the small state of Vermont. He would lose the nomination to Senator John Kerry. He would mostly get third in almost all the states. He won his home state of Vermont

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[edit] Campaign start

Howard Dean declared his candidacy for the 2004 Democratic Party presidential nomination on June 23, 2003, in Burlington, Vermont
Howard Dean declared his candidacy for the 2004 Democratic Party presidential nomination on June 23, 2003, in Burlington, Vermont

Dean began his bid for President as a "long shot" candidate. ABC News ranked him eighth out of 12 in a list of potential presidential contenders in May of 2002. In March of 2003 he gave a blistering speech at the California State Democratic Convention that attracted the attention of grassroots party activists and set the tone and the agenda of his candidacy. It began with the line: "What I want to know is, what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?"

That summer, his campaign was featured as the cover article in The New Republic and in the following months he received expanded media attention. His campaign slowly gained steam, and by autumn of 2003, Dean had become the apparent frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, performing strongly in most polls and outpacing his rivals in fundraising. This latter feat was attributed mainly to his innovative embrace of the Internet for campaigning, and the majority of his donations came from individual Dean supporters, who came to be known as Deanites, or, more commonly, Deaniacs. (Critics often labeled them "Deany Boppers", or "Deanie Babies", a reference to his support from young activists.)

During his presidential campaign, conservative critics labeled Dean's political views as those of an extreme liberal; however, in liberal Vermont, Dean, long known as a staunch advocate of fiscal restraint, was regarded as a moderate. Many left-wing critics who supported fellow Democrat Dennis Kucinich or independent Ralph Nader charged that, at heart, Dean was a "Rockefeller Republican" — socially liberal, while fiscally conservative.

[edit] Message and themes

Dean began his campaign by emphasizing health care and fiscal responsibility, and championing grassroots fundraising as a way to fight special interests. However, his opposition to the U.S. plan to invade Iraq (and his forceful criticism of Democrats in Congress who voted to authorize the use of force) quickly eclipsed other issues. By challenging the war in Iraq at a time when mainstream Democratic leaders were either neutral or cautiously supportive, Dean positioned himself to appeal to his party's activist base. Dean often quoted the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone (who had recently died in a plane crash) as saying that he represented "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party". His message resonated among frustrated Democratic primary voters who felt that their party hadn't done enough to oppose the policies of the Republicans. Thus, Dean also succeeded in differentiating himself from his primary opponents.

Dean's approach organizationally was also novel. His campaign made extensive use of the Internet, pioneering techniques that were subsequently adopted by politicians of all political persuasions. His supporters organized real-world meetings, many of them arranged through meetup.com, participated in online forums, donated money online, canvassed for advertising ideas, and distributed political talking points. In terms of money, publicity and activism, Dean therefore quickly staked out a leadership position in the field of candidates. In this way, he was able to bypass existing party and activist infrastructure and built his own online network of supporters. In terms of traditional "ground troops", however, Dean remained at a disadvantage. Dean adopted a coffee shop strategy to visit grassroot activists in all 99 Iowa counties, but he lacked the campaign infrastructure to get voters to the polls that his opponents had.

[edit] Fundraising

In the "invisible primary" of raising campaign dollars, Howard Dean led the Democratic pack in the early stages of the 2004 campaign. Among the candidates, he ranked first in total raised ($25.4 million as of September 30, 2003) and first in cash-on-hand ($12.4 million). However, even this performance paled next to that of George W. Bush, who by that date had raised $84.6 million for the Republican primary campaign, in which he had no real challenger. Prior to the 2004 primary season, the Democratic record for most money raised in one quarter by a primary candidate was held by Bill Clinton in 1995, raising $10.3 million during a campaign in which he had no primary opponent. In the third quarter of 2003, the Dean campaign raised $14.8 million, shattering Clinton's record. All told, Dean's campaign raised around $50 million.

While presidential campaigns have traditionally obtained finance by tapping wealthy, established political donors, Dean's funds came largely in small donations over the Internet; the average overall donation size was just under $80. This method of fundraising offered several important advantages over traditional fundraising, in addition to the inherent media interest in what was then a novelty. First, raising money on the Internet was relatively inexpensive, compared to conventional methods such as events, telemarketing, and direct mail campaigns. Secondly, as donors on average contributed far less than the legal limit ($2,000 per individual), the campaign could continue to resolicit them throughout the election season.

Dean's director of grassroots fundraising, Larry Biddle, came up with the idea of the popular fundraising "bat", an image of a cartoon baseball player and bat which appeared on the site every time the campaign launched a fundraising challenge. The bat encouraged Web site visitors to contribute money immediately through their credit cards. This would lead to the bat filling up like a thermometer with the red color indicating the total funds. The site often took suggestions from the netroots on their blog. One of these suggestions led to one of the campaigns biggest accomplishments — an image of Dean eating a turkey sandwich encouraged supporters to donate $250,000 in three days to match a big-donor dinner by Vice President Dick Cheney. The online contributions from that day matched what Cheney made from his fundraiser.[1]

In November 2003, after a much-publicized online vote among his followers, Dean became the first Democrat to forgo federal matching funds (and the spending limits that go with them) since the system was established in 1974. (John Kerry later followed his lead.) In addition to state-by-state spending limits for the primaries, the system limits a candidate to spending only $44.6 million until the Democratic National Convention in July, which sum would almost certainly run out soon after the early primary season. (George W. Bush declined federal matching funds in 2000 and did so again for the 2004 campaign.)

In a sign that the Dean campaign was starting to think beyond the primaries, they began in late 2003 to speak of a "$100 revolution" in which 2 million Americans would give $100 in order to compete with Bush.

Political commentators have claimed that the fundraising of presidential candidate Barack Obama, with its emphasis on small donors and the internet, has refined and built upon on the model that Dean's campaign pioneered.[2]

[edit] Endorsements

Though Dean lagged in early endorsements, he acquired many critical ones as his campaign snowballed. By the time of the Iowa caucuses, he led among commitments from superdelegates — elected officials and party officers entitled to convention votes by virtue of their positions. On November 12, 2003, he received the endorsements of the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Dean received the endorsement of former Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore, on December 9, 2003. In the following weeks Dean was endorsed by former U.S. senators Bill Bradley and Carol Moseley Braun, unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidates from the 2000 and 2004 primaries, respectively.

Other high-profile endorsers included:[3]

Several celebrities from the entertainment industry also endorsed him, including Martin Sheen, Rob Reiner, Susan Sarandon, Paul Newman, and Robin Williams[4]

Many pundits would blame such endorsements for the campaign's eventual collapse. Dean was running as an outsider, and accepting the support of such establishment figures was seen by some as hypocritical.[citation needed]

[edit] Iowa results and the "Dean Scream"

On January 19, 2004, Dean's campaign suffered a blow when a last-minute surge by rivals John Kerry and John Edwards led to a disappointing third-place defeat for Dean in the 2004 Iowa Democratic caucuses, representing the first votes cast in primary season. Dean had been a strong contender for weeks in advance in that state, battling with Dick Gephardt for first place in the polls. To the surprise of the Dean and Gephardt campaigns, Dean finished third in Iowa behind Kerry and John Edwards, with Gephardt finishing fourth. Since Dean had spent months leading Iowa tracking polls, his third-place finish was widely considered a sign that the campaign was losing momentum. Experts attributed Dean's fall in Iowa to a number of factors, including a disorganized ground operation, a bitter fight with Dick Gephardt's campaign, and negative media attention culminating in an unearthed years-old television clip of Dean severely criticizing the caucus process that was widely broadcast in Iowa shortly before the caucus was held.

Dean, who had been suffering with a severe bout of the flu for several days, attended a post-caucus rally for his volunteers at the Val-Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, Iowa and delivered his concession speech, aimed at cheering up those in attendance. Dean was shouting over the cheers of his enthusiastic audience, but the crowd noise was being filtered out by his Unidirectional Microphone, leaving only his full-throated exhortations audible to the television viewers. To those at home, he seemed to raise his voice out of sheer emotion. Additionally, Dean began his speech with a flushed-red face, clenching his teeth as he rolled up his sleeves.[5]

According to a Newsday Editorial written by Verne Gay, some members of the television audience criticized the speech as loud, peculiar, and unpresidential.[6] In particular, this quote from the speech was aired repeatedly in the days following the caucus:

Not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we're going to California and Texas and New York … And we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan, and then we're going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House! YeaAHah!!!

Senator Harkin was on stage with Dean, holding his suit jacket. This final "yeaAHah!!!", which assumed an unusually high tone due to the cracking of his hoarse voice, has become known in American political jargon as the "Dean Scream".[citation needed]

Dean conceded that the speech did not project the best image, jokingly referring to it as a "crazy, red-faced rant" on the Late Show with David Letterman. In an interview later that week with Diane Sawyer, he said he was "a little sheepish ... but I'm not apologetic".[7] Sawyer and many others in the national broadcast news media later expressed some regret about overplaying the story.[5] In fact, CNN issued a public apology and admitted in a statement that they indeed may have "overplayed" the incident. The incessant replaying of the "Dean Scream" by the press became a debate on the topic of whether Dean was the victim of media bias. The scream scene was shown an estimated 633 times by cable and broadcast news networks in just four days following the incident, a number that does not include talk shows and local news broadcasts.[8] However, those who were in the actual audience that day insist that they were not aware of the infamous "scream" until they returned to their hotel rooms and saw it on TV.[5] Dean said after the general election in 2004 that his microphone only picked up his voice and did not also capture the loud cheering he received from the audience as a result of the speech. On January 27, 2004 Dean again suffered a defeat, finishing second to Kerry in the New Hampshire primary. As late as one week before the first votes were cast in Iowa's caucuses, Dean had enjoyed a 30% lead in New Hampshire opinion polls; accordingly, this loss represented another major setback to his campaign.

Iowa and New Hampshire were only the first in a string of losses for the Dean campaign, culminating in a third place showing in the Wisconsin primary on February 17, 2004. Two days before the Wisconsin primary, campaign advisor Steve Grossman "announced" through an article written by The New York Times Dean campaign correspondent Jodi Wilgoren that he would offer his services to any of the other major candidates "should Dean not win in Wisconsin". This "scoop" further undermined Dean's campaign. Grossman later issued a public apology. The next day, Dean announced that his candidacy had "come to an end", though he continued to urge people to vote for him, so that Dean delegates would be selected for the convention and could influence the party platform. He later won the Vermont primaries on Super Tuesday, March 2, 2004. This latter victory, a surprise even to Dean, was due in part to the lack of a serious anti-Kerry candidate in Vermont (John Edwards had declined to put his name on the state's ballot, expecting Dean to win in a landslide), and in part to a television ad produced, funded, and aired in Vermont by grassroots Dean supporters.

[edit] Impact

While his presidential bid ultimately ended in failure, Dean's supporters[who?] felt it was not a lost cause. His campaign served to frame the White House race by tapping in to voters' concerns about the war in Iraq, energizing Democrats, and sharpening criticism of incumbent George W. Bush. At present, many political pundits[who?] affirm that Dean's contribution was "cathartic" for the party.[citation needed] Dean's lone Pennsylvania delegate, State Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia, said Dean's decision, ultimately emulated by Kerry, to forgo primary federal matching funds and exceed the matching fund spending limits "marked the day the Democratic Party became a serious contender for national power in 2004."[citation needed]

On October 11, 2007 it was reported that Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney were in early talks about making a "political thriller" based on Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign, tentatively titled Farragut North after a Washington Metro station.[9]

[edit] Campaign timeline

See also U.S. Democratic Party presidential nomination, 2004, U.S. presidential election, 2004 timeline.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Wired 13.08: The Candidate: Howard Dean
  2. ^ Berman, Ari. "The Dean Legacy", The Nation, February 28, 2008. Retrieved on 2008-03-03. 
  3. ^ Politics 1, "Howard Dean Profile", page archived in 2004. Retrieved November 27, 2006
  4. ^ Diary Entry: Meeting Doctor Dean. HBO (March 10, 2003). Retrieved on November 27, 2006.
  5. ^ a b c Salzman, Eric. "Dean's Scream: Not What It Seemed", CBS News, January 26, 2004. Retrieved on November 27, 2006. 
  6. ^ Verne Gay, Seattle Times, "Dean's theatrics draw mixed reviews", January 21, 2004. Retrieved November 27, 2006
  7. ^ Sawyer, Diane (January 22, 2004). The Doctors’ Words; Transcript: Howard Dean and Judy Dean Speak to ABCNEWS’ Primetime. ABC News. Retrieved on September 10, 2004. (available on archive.org as of January 27, 2007.)
  8. ^ Loyola Phoenix, "The scream that left us blind", 2/11/04. Retrieved November 27, 2006
  9. ^ DiCaprio, Clooney to star in movie about Howard Dean | News | Guardian Unlimited Film
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United States presidential election candidates, 2004
Democratic Party
Straw polls · Primary polls · General polls · Debates · Primaries · Results · Delegates · Convention
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Katherine Bateman  · Carol Moseley Braun  · Harry Braun  · Willie Carter  · Jeanne Chebib  · Wesley Clark (campaign) · Randy Crow · Howard Dean (campaign) · Gerry Dokka · John Edwards (campaign) · John A. Estrada · Richard Gephardt (campaign) · Mildred Glover · Bob Graham (campaign) · Vincent Hamm · John Kerry (campaign) · Caroline Killeen · Dennis Kucinich (campaign) · Lyndon LaRouche · Randy Lee · Joe Lieberman (campaign) · Robert Linnell · Bill McGaughey · Edward O'Donnell · Fern Penna · Al Sharpton · Vermin Supreme · Leonard Talbow · Florence Walker · Lucian Wojciechowski
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Blake Ashby  · Dick Bosa  · John Buchanan  · George W. Bush (campaign) · Michael Callis  · George Gostigian · Robert Haines · Mark Harnes · Mildred Howard · Tom Laughlin · Cornelius O'Connor · John Rigazio · Jim Taylor · Bill Wyatt
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