How exactly did John Kerry win the nomination?

[Phony Moderate]

Just a couple of weeks before the primary elections began he was in single digits nationally and well behind in Iowa and New Hampshire. He's not overly exciting or charismatic and ideologically he's rather bland too. So why did Democrats suddenly turn to him?

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Just a couple of weeks before the primary elections began he was in single digits nationally and well behind in Iowa and New Hampshire. He's not overly exciting or charismatic and ideologically he's rather bland too. So why did Democrats suddenly turn to him?

Seen as the electable alternative to the liberal Howard Dean. 

And then Howard screamed at a rally?  Hoo boy. 

[old timey villain]

The insiders in the party also felt like he was the best candidate to counter Bush's advantage on security and national defense, seeing as he won 3 purple hearts. Of course, we know how that turned out.

[Liberalrocks]

All I really seem to remember from this primary was the:

"Dean scream"

[Bacon King]

Dean and Gephardt were neck and neck in Iowa but then they went heavily negative against each other, and voters turned off from both campaigns voted for Kerry (and to a lesser extent, Edwards) who were largely below the radar before the caucus, kinda like Santorum with Iowa this year. Then, Dean screamed and Kerry beat him in New Hampshire; he took that momentum all the way to the nomination.

[The Mikado]

Just a couple of weeks before the primary elections began he was in single digits nationally and well behind in Iowa and New Hampshire. He's not overly exciting or charismatic and ideologically he's rather bland too. So why did Democrats suddenly turn to him?

Seen as the electable alternative to the liberal Howard Dean. 

And then Howard screamed at a rally?  Hoo boy. 

The amount of confusing cause and effect in this legend is really stunning.  Dean's support had already begun declining sharply by the time of the speech in question, which was his third place finish in the Iowa Caucus that everyone thought he was going to win, losing to Kerry, who wasn't even on the radar in Iowa.  The cause of Kerry's national victory can be attributed more to Dean and Gephardt getting into a negative campaign war that destroyed both their images in Iowa (3rd and 4th place when they were expected to be 1st and 2nd) and an incredibly effective stealth campaign by Kerry in the state.  Losing Iowa by 20 points is what prompted Dean's defiant speech in the first place.

[AndrewTX]

Yeah.. I don't quite understand why a lot of people here are thinking that the Dean Scream had anything to do with Kerry winning. Of course, this was over 8 years ago, and most of the people here thinking it had something to do with it were probably 6. Senior Mikado is pretty much spot on tough, I always saw it more as Kerry was able to gain momentum by letting Dean and Gephardt fight it out and tear each other down.

[old timey villain]

Yeah.. I don't quite understand why a lot of people here are thinking that the Dean Scream had anything to do with Kerry winning. Of course, this was over 8 years ago, and most of the people here thinking it had something to do with it were probably 6. Senior Mikado is pretty much spot on tough, I always saw it more as Kerry was able to gain momentum by letting Dean and Gephardt fight it out and tear each other down.

I agree with this. Dean was already on the decline. It was also notable, however, as one of the first viral moments in politics. This was around the time that streaming videos online became very accessible to most people and I remember the clip being circulated around a lot over the internet, which magnified the gaffe.

[Simfan34]

Was Gephardt really a contender in 2004?

[retromike22]

I feel like the 2004 Democratic primaries ended too quickly.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Dean scream. But when Hussein was captured numbers were going down anyways. As patriotic feeling came over Americans.

[The Mikado]

I feel like the 2004 Democratic primaries ended too quickly.

They ended early by design.  2004 was really the year of frontloading, with the Democrats hoping that they could get a nominee out as soon as possible.

[Eraserhead]

MSM was strongly behind Kerry from the start and once Dean started stumbling a bit, they pounced on him in a HUGE way over complete nonsense like his "scream".

That was essentially all she wrote. John Edwards and Wes Clark turned out to not have much appeal outside of a few hillbilly states, so they ended up becoming non-factors.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The so called media didn't like Howard Dean, and so took him down in some of the worst case of media bias in US history. Ironically a lot of his supporters in the room where his "scream" was couldn't actually hear him.

The media had a vendetta against Dean after he made some comment that big media needed to be broken up. They proved Dean's point.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Just a couple of weeks before the primary elections began he was in single digits nationally and well behind in Iowa and New Hampshire. He's not overly exciting or charismatic and ideologically he's rather bland too. So why did Democrats suddenly turn to him?

Seen as the electable alternative to the liberal Howard Dean. 

And then Howard screamed at a rally?  Hoo boy. 

The most ironic part is that when we compare Dean's record as Governor with Kerry's record as Senator, then Dean is a moderate one.

[dudeabides]

Well, a few factors;
1. The populist wing of the party was divided between John Edwards and Dick Gephardt
2. While Wesley Clark was clearly the most electable candidate and the only one who could beat George W. Bush, he began his campaign far too late and lacked some policy specifics in the beginning.
3. While Howard Dean had the support of the grassroots, he was not seen as someone who could win a general election.

John Kerry basically won the nomination by not being Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, John Edwards, or Dick Gephardt. He also had establishment backing and began his campaign early on. If Wesley Clark had began his campaign earlier, he may have been the nominee as he had similar views to Howard Dean on foreign policy, but was far more electable than John Kerry.