Reply #25: Dean lost [View All]

for a couple of major reasons.

1. The outer base turned against him in the last week before Iowa because they were convinced he couldn't win. Dean didn't do anything to counter charges he wasn't electable.
2. After iowa there was not enough time to come back against Kerry, because of the setup of the primary season.

Here's some explanation:


1. The party base has two subdivisions, an "inner" and "outer" base. The inner base consists of democrats who are active in the party. They choose candidates early and rarely change. They base their decisions on their ideology and the ideas of the candidates. The "outer" base will vote in the primary, but does not pay attention until late in the season. They tend to change their minds frequently or wait until the last minute to choose. They base their decisions more on practical concerns: who looks good? who is "electable"? who can beat the opponent? Kerry and the DLC did an effective job of painting Dean as unelectable to Iowans, in the last weeks when the outer base was starting to really pay attention. Dean also did things that hurt him, such as the Gephardt attack ads, and never tried to assert his electability.


2. The primary season is set up to encourage a winner early. Primaries are so close together that people who lose early have a difficult time coming back in later states, because there is not enough time. Nothing impresses the outer base more than a candidate who just won a primary state. Therefore there is a domino effect that is hard to counter, especially if you only have a week between primaries. This is called "momentum".
Dean could not fight Kerry's momentum.