
Dean blamed his staff for setting it up to be a fight against another primary candidate, that being Dick Gephardt Mordecai stated a broken voter outreach system caused Dean volunteers to alienate potential supporters by contacting them too many times and CNN correspondent Kate Albright-Hanna attributed his decreased ratings to the "crazy" image of Dean and his supporters brought upon by the press and the campaigns of his opponents. ĭean's rankings in the polls started to decline in the three weeks before the Iowa caucus due to the poor operation of his campaign team. Dean was conscious of this and tried to moderate his tone, but often failed as he gave in to the excitement of his audience. However, the amount of press reportage on Dean left little room for the other Democratic candidates to be covered thus, the Washington establishment, other candidates' campaigns, and the mainstream media focused on his hot-headed public moments to show him as having too little sophistication for the presidential position. Iowa Campaign webmaster Adam Mordecai described all of the campaign staff feeling "invincible" initially.

Vermont governor Howard Dean's 2003–04 presidential campaign began as a huge success in its first several months, garnering popularity from the press and American citizens for his left-leaning populism and anti- Iraq War beliefs as of fall 2003, he was number one in almost every poll throughout the United States, including those in Iowa and New Hampshire. See also: 2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries Additionally, Christine Pelosi, Pacific Standard, and historian Robert Thompson both consider that Dean's probability of being nominated was already low due to a lack of party insider support, the Iowa loss, and the media's previous painting of Dean as too hot-tempered for the presidential position.Ģ004 presidential election and Iowa caucus

Some commentators have described the speech as a political gaffe that destroyed Dean's campaign however, Dean and his campaign staff have claimed that he would have lost anyway, due to poor campaign organization.

He listed states he would win to a raucous audience before screaming "Yeah!" Within four days, it was broadcast 633 times on national news networks and cable channels.įollowing the scream, Dean lost more primaries and suspended his campaign following his third-place result in Wisconsin. That night, the presidential candidate had just lost the Iowa caucus to John Kerry and wanted to reassure his supporters. The Dean scream, was a speech delivered by Vermont governor Howard Dean on Januat the Val-Air Ballroom in West Des Moines, Iowa. Speech by Howard Dean Dean delivering his "I Have a Scream" speech
