What if this is a Repeat of the 2004 Primary Season?

[Moe Joe MoFo]

Let us cast our minds back sixteen years, to late November of 2003. Every pundit on the tube knew that Howard Dean was gonna be our nominee the following year. I couldn't find even one political analyst who broke with the consensus opinion.

Then, of course, the actual VOTING began, and the original front-runner, John Kerry, whom pretty much all the experts had written off as Dean's reputed popularity soared, kicked the Vermont Governor's ass!

What if there's a sequel this cycle? What if Joe Biden shocks the hell out of Elizabeth Warren in Iowa and New Hampshire? The former Veep has continued his gaffe-prone ways, though said ways have been exaggerated by the "We Want a Horse Race" media. And I am seriously disappointed in his anachronistic stance on marijuana.

But if he's the nominee, I'll not only vote for him, but I'll pound the pavement, knock on doors and annoy the shit out of people with my phone calls. (I don't care if they're pissed as long as they turn out capital-D on Election Day) BECAUSE DONALD JOHN TRUMP MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE FOR THE REPUBLIC TO SURVIVE! I MEAN THAT LITERALLY! VOTE LIKE YOUR COUNTRY DEPENDS ON IT, BECAUSE IT DOES!

I hope that everyone hear is determined for vote for and aggressively advocate for Joe Biden, or Elizabeth Warren, or Pete Buttigieg, or whomever the party ends up nominating. We cannot afford purity, resentment, or opting out, because Freedom Itself is under threat!

[Sherman A1]

1. I will vote for the nominee

Whoever that happens to be.

[stopdiggin]

2. it's all about expectations

and (IMO) Biden is insulated from a perceived failure in both IA and NH by expectations. He's inoculated from anything less than a 4th or 5th place finish. And will roll on in to SC still as the perceived front runner. After that .. things start to change a little bit.

I think the person that might have a real IA problem is Warren. Expectations for her are probably higher .. and a slump, or "perceived" slump .. much more damaging.

[crazytown]

3. Warren wins, IA, NH

- best ground game, sweeps the nomination? I'll take it

[ritapria]

4. The pundits have said for the last 3 months

that Elizabeth had the best ground game in Iowa ….In the last 7 -10 days , they now claim Pete has , by far, the best ground game in Iowa ….. I don't believe they have a clue what is going on in Iowa ...They're just looking at the polls - like the rest of us

[crazytown]

8. The ground game (7 weeks ago)

[Downtown Hound]

5. Trump doesn't have the "tough on terrorism" label that W. had attached to him

By 2004 W was still riding high on his so-called amazing response to 9-11. That is, was, and always will be bullshit of course, but back then enough Americans were still duped by it that he was able to squeeze victory out of it. Iraq had become a boondoggle and Americans were starting to question Bush because of the WMD lies, but it didn't happen fast enough for it to make a difference. If that election had happened just one year later, Bush would have been toast.

Trump has never had the support of the American people behind him like Bush did for awhile. For awhile, Bush was polling above 90%. Trump has always relied on a base that, while large, is not a majority. And that base is smaller than it was in 2016, because a lot of old, white people have died off and lots of younger people of color are now of voting age.

I'm not going to say it's impossible for Trump to win again. But it's not looking good for him at all.

[StevieM]

6. In 2004 people thought that Dean would win because of how well he was polling in IA and NH.

Nationally there was no Democrat who was doing that well in the polls. You had 5 candidates who were polling between 10 and 15 percent: Howard Dean, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Richard Gephardt and John Edwards. Then Wes Clark entered the race and there were 6 candidates in the mix.

People figured that if Dean won IA and NH that he would break away and become the front-runner, kind of like Jimmy Carter in 1976. And if he had held on and won Iowa that is probably what would have happened. But then he lost Iowa, was further damaged by the Dean Scream, and Kerry took his momentum and marched through New Hampshire.

Something a little bit similar happened in 2008 on the Republican side. Mitt Romney was ahead in IA and NH and people figured that once he won in those places he would emerge as the front-runner. But then Huckabee emerged in Iowa and McCain re-emerged in New Hampshire (with help from Joe Lieberman). That derailed Romney's campaign.

This time we had a clear early front-runner in Biden. We had two clear runners-up in Warren and Sanders, who especially showed strength in IA and NH. It is somewhat similar to 2008 with Clinton/Obama/Edwards. The difference is that Biden's lead slipped in the first 9 months of 2019, whereas Clinton built up her lead in the first 9 months of 2007 (although the media quickly erased that early success she enjoyed from the history books). Also, Obama and Edwards were mostly challenging her in Iowa, whereas Biden is vulnerable in both states. And Biden appears to have a firewall in South Carolina that Clinton did not have, or at least he has strength there which exceeds the strength that HRC was projecting in New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina.

Finally, we have Mayor Pete, who is showing tremendous strength in both states, while lagging nationally, kind of like the way that Howard Dean did in 2004 and Mitt Romney did in 2008.

The key for Mayor Buttigieg, assuming he wins IA and NH, is to break through with African-American voters. If he can do that then he would likely win the nomination. If not, then it will be difficult. Clinton and Sanders both lost their first campaigns for president because they lost the black vote overwhelmingly. Buttigieg will need to avoid that fate if he wants to claim the nomination.

[karynnj]

13. Agree with much of what you said, but HRC did have a firewall in 2008 - the 23 state contest on

Super Tuesday. Most of the big states were ones where the Clinton had long term support. The idea - even after Obama won Iowa, was that the schedule would preclude anyone going to all of the states in the short time between earlier states and that day. No one could match HRC in name recognition and it was thought that that day was essentially when she would become the de facto nominee.

Several things worked to get Obama to remain almost equal as the delegates were counted - some factors were errors by the Clinton team, some exceptional work and luck for the Obama team. His outstanding speech after winning Iowa helped him, Bill Clinton's obnoxious comments about the time of the South Carolina hurt HRC, the endorsements of Kerry followed by Ted (and Caroline) Kennedy gave Obama positive coverage and helped many who liked Obama, but thought he was too inexperienced. These things help hold down HRC's margins in big states she won (which impacted the nuumber of delegates she got) and Obama ran up his delegate count in some caucus states pretty much ignored by the Clinton team.

One sign that this was their firewall was that they had put few resources in the next wave of contests in the next two weeks. Obama had put a lot of effort in those states. That is when it was cllear to the Obama team that he was on target to win. (Interestingly, this is when HRC surrogates first spoke of superdelegates and the "popular vote" - which does not really exist in the primaries. )

[StevieM]

14. I see we are due for another one of our historical debates.

First, I reject the claim that Kerry or Kennedy's endorsements played any role in the outcome of the race. Kerry endorsed him before New Hampshire, which he then lost, even though he had a huge surge of momentum coming out of Iowa. Kennedy's endorsement was described by the media as a big deal at the time, but I don't think the voters cared. Hillary destroyed Obama in the Massachusetts primary. And I never saw any evidence that if affected anybody's vote. In fact, I think it helped to eliminate the notion that she was the establishment candidate just because her husband was once president. Sadly, that argument, unfair though it was, carried a lot more weight in 2016. In 2008 the media just claimed that it did.

Second, Obama had enormous name recognition at the start of the race. More by the end of 2007. And an unbelievable amount after he won Iowa. Hillary's name ID wasn't usually beneficial to her, it was something that was used to dismiss her as Bill Clinton's wife running for president. She didn't start the race with too big of a lead, but then she went out in the first 9 months of 2007 and built one up. The media subsequently erased that from the history books, but that is what happened.

I agree that Bill's comments on the day of the South Carolina primary hurt her. I guess he had the racial dynamics on his mind, since from the moment they arrived in South Carolina the media wouldn't shut up about it. We heard all sorts of crazy explanations as to why it was fair to say that they injected race into the campaign. After Bill made that comment, about how Rev. Jackson also won South Carolina, we never heard another word about all the other terrible things they were supposedly doing. The media was like "never mind, we like this one better."

I think there was widespread expectation that one of the candidates would pull away on Super Tuesday, like they usually had in the past. Regardless, I don't know if that counts as making it your firewall. A firewall state, as that term is usually used, refers to an early pre-Super Tuesday contest, that you hope to win in order to dispel any suggestion that your campaign is collapsing. It is supposed to stop the hemorrhaging, if you are in big trouble. For example, South Carolina was supposed to be HRC's firewall in 2016, if she had lost Iowa.

Furthermore, HRC knew she might lose Iowa. But she never could have imagined the way the media would savage her in those 5 days between Iowa and New Hampshire. And she certainly could not have imagined that the culinary union in Nevada would immediately endorse Obama after he won Iowa. So it wasn't originally--or ever--the case that she was going to follow Rudy Giuliani's late state strategy (which, by the way, was born of necessity in his case, after he started collapsing in the early states). Her planned firewall states were New Hampshire and Nevada, and that is exactly what they were. They kept her alive, and a finalist, heading into Super Tuesday. Hillary never got credit for her extraordinary campaigns in those states.

Now as for the issue of SDs and the popular vote, before we begin I should point out that there wasn't any real history in the Democratic primaries of super close races. The people started choosing in 1972 and since that point there had always been a decisive winner. So this was new territory. But it is absolutely incorrect to suggest that until 2008 SDs were seen as honored guests to the convention, who were not expected to play a role in choosing the nominee. They may not have been fully democratic, but neither are the caucuses. Most importantly, around the time that the super delegates were added, we were also introduced PR voting. If you eliminate the PR voting, and go back to the rules before we had PR and SDs, Hillary would have won the nomination.

Hillary's supporters made several arguments to the future convention delegates, ranging from the popular vote (which you could also say doesn't really exist in the GE) to looking at the map of the primaries through the prism of the electoral college, and seeing who would win that way. If every SD had voted for the candidate who won their state, HRC would have gotten the nomination. That was not an unreasonable way to approach how the SDs should vote, and, in fact, Bernie said it in 2016 (before he just outright argued they should pick him). The argument that if you get one more PD than your opponent then you are automatically the presumptive nominee was a brand new argument that Obama introduced in 2008. The argument carried the day, and that's fine, but it is hardly the same thing as HRC behaving badly and scheming to claim the nomination by introducing crazy new standards.

I think the weirdest part was when Obama was getting ready to declare victory after the Oregon primary and he even included John Edwards' PDs, some of whom had indicated they would vote for him at the convention, as part of his PD mandate to claim victory. To his credit he back off on that plan.

BTW, I think Kerry and Clinton both made the same big mistake: they should have picked Tom Vilsack to be their running mate. I think he would have been much better than Edwards or Kaine.

I see you are currently planning to support Mayor Pete. I am leaning in that direction myself.

[karynnj]

15. Kerry endorsed him after NH before SC.

Obama did get momentum out of Iowa, but HRC was about 20 points ahead in NH before Iowa. She ended up winning by 2 percent after some polls had put Obama ahead. In fact, that 2 percent might have been because HRC had a fantastic GOTV in NH run by now Senator Shaheen's husband.

The endorsements did help in MA. Before the endorsements, it was possible that HRC would get all the delegates if both Edwards and Obama got less than 15 percent. In the actual election, Obama did much better than that and although HRC won easily, the difference in the number of delegates was far lower than anyone expected. The same was true in states like CA, NY, and NJ.

The endorsements, especially the Kennedy one made a big difference. Oddly, one reason the effect was do big was that they led Bill Clinton to make some ill advised comments.

Many analyses in 2007 called the 23 mostly HRC friendly states day a firewall and given the number of potential delegates that makes more sense than the claim that winning SC is a firewall. No one ever has said as goes SC, so goes the nation.

[StevieM]

16. My mistake on when Kerry's endorsement came.

I was thinking about how Kerry endorsed him and then she won Nevada.

I disagree about the impact of the Kennedy endorsement. Once Obama won Iowa the whole race was reset, especially after the media savaged her. And I cannot imagine that she was ever going to run away with the Super Tuesday states to the point that she won over 70 percent of the vote, especially if Edwards had stayed in and she had two opponents. Besides, the exit polling clearly contradicted the claim that Edwards and Obama voters around the country mostly saw the other guy as their second choice.

HRC absolutely did not have a 20 point lead in NH before her loss in Iowa. Most December poll had her up by a few points, and a few of them even had Obama in the lead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statewide_opinion_polling_for_the_January_2008_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#New_Hampshire

Her poll numbers collapsed in late 2007, and she ultimately lost the race, for the same reason she lost in 2016: made up pseudo-scandals. Like when a junior staffer in Iowa asked someone at a townhall to pose a question to her and the local media treated it like it was Watergate.

[Mr.Bill]

7. Big difference between now and 2004

is California finally decided to not wait until June to have their primary. This time around, it may very well be over after the California primary, instead of that primary being little more than an afterthought like before.

[The Valley Below]

9. For what its worth, I was convinced that John Kerry would be the nominee in 2004

No surprise there.

[madville]

10. Joe's make or break moment is going to be

His witness testimony before the Senate in the impeachment trial. My feeling is that they are going to schedule everything for right when the primaries start to cause maximum chaos.

[question everything]

11. Before Facebook, before Twitter an the rest of "Social Media"

We now have information and misinformation and dubious ads..

We really cannot compare campaigns from these periods

[Dopers_Greed]

12. I would be completely happy with any of the "frontrunners"

All of the candidates I would complain about are polling in the low single digits.