Anyone consider that Dean may have lost Iowa due to Caucus rules?

[peabody71]

Hear me out.
Iowa caucus rules are not very Democratic.
Any given precinct only got delegates in direct proportion to the amount of voters who voted in the last major election.
My view is that in the rural, older, more conservative areas of the state, people vote more consistently. They are also not core Dean supporters but they got a higher proportion of delegate votes due to the higher turnout in the last election.
Which means that in the more urban, more liberal, more Dean leaning areas the delegates he received did not reflect his actual support.

Does that make sense to anyone?
Plus with the media anointing him as the front runner, the appearance that he did poorly was a one two punch. Not a fair picture of actual Dean support by any stretch of the imagination.
It just figures that the media hyped the Caucus the way they did. It worked perfectly to potentially destroy Deans chances.

[On the Road]

1. Yes, But ...

weren't the reported results:

Kerry 38%
Edwards 32%
Dean 18%

the proportion of actual caucus-goers? That's not too different from the proportion of the actual delegates that I saw somewhere else this morning.

If your numbers show something different, by all means share them. I was interested in how caucus-goers converted into delegates. But just eyeballing them in passing, it seemed to me pretty close.

[peabody71]

9. Well, a friend of mine is from Iowa city...

and he said that the showing at his precinct was up 300% from the last election. That is 200% that was not tabulated into the total for that precinct due to its poor showing in the last election.
Dean lost a ton of support becuase of that.

[dave29]

17. Dean won in Iowa City

My parents caucused there :)

[emulatorloo]

23. I don't follow

there were low turnouts in all precincts the previous caucuses because it was Gore Bradley. How do you get that people who showed up this year weren't tabulated based on low turnout last time?!?!

In my caucus, in Johnson County, Edwards benefited most on the second round from people who originally stood for Gep and DK. A few went to Dean a few went to Kerry, but mostly those groups held steady. Everybody was counted though. . .

[Nicholas_J]

2. Nope

A lot of exit polls from Iowa show lots of last week, last day voters switching from Dean to other candidates, either Edwards or Kerry.

Much of the exit polling relates that much of Dean's anger has infected the 3500 orange hatted supporters he sent to Iowa to compensate for dropping poll numbers and that theses people provided anger allright. They angered, and irritate so many Iowan that they decided to switch to other candidates. Dean was even warned of this in the hours before the caucuses by the media in Iowa, which listed one of the four things Dean needed to do to do well in Iowa was to keep his supporters from angering or annoying Iowan when they were trying to get them to support Dean.

Dean had it sewn up until he let his most avid supporters loose in Iowa. They were a little too enthusiastic for most Iowa voters, even the new young ones.

His conession speech sort of made those who switched more certain they had made the correct decision in doing so, as his speech is nmow the target of Iowa political satirists and cartoonists.

[HFishbine]

4. "Much of the exit polling relates (blather)..."

Really? Exit polling asked if people were annoyed by Dean supporters? Gotta link?

[displacedtexan]

15. I watched this on CNN...

I watched actual Iowa voters explaining that Dean's supporters were to intense for them.

[peabody71]

11. Exit Polling? A media driven sampling.

Did anyone from Iowa see anyone or talk to anyone doing so called Exit Polling?
Consider that exit polling is just another form of media 'polling'.
Cannot and should not be trusted.

I asked the same question after the California recall election and no one saw or talked to anyone doing any sort of 'exit polling'.
http://www.votescam.com has a fantastic interview with the head of the old Voter News Service where he basically admits that 'exit polling' is not what it seems.

[arcos]

3. No, the problem was Gephardt...

Gephardt got 10% less than what polls showed.

These 10% of voters went for either Kerry or Edwards.

And there was 6-8% undecided... who went for Kerry or Edwards too.

Dean got the same percentage polls were predicting, but Kerry and Edwards got a 10-12% boost each.

Had Gephardt not imploded, Dean could have been a very close 3rd or even 2nd.

[HFishbine]

6. What about Clark supporters

I haven't heard this discussed.

Although Clark was in the low single digits in polls, I think that reflected the fact that he wasn't a viable candidate. I don't think that meant, however, that only 2% of the people in Iowa want Clark.

I suspect that Clark leaners went to Edwards as a second choice.

[The Democrats Cometh]

10. Yes, but

Gephardt was NOT the problem.

We watched the whole process. Kucinich and Edwards made an agreement for whomever is not viable to throw support to the other. That didn't happen. The precinct on C-SPAN showed Kucinichers just refusing to budge.

Yes, Gephardt's people could have run from him to Dean, but I saw Dean people literally begging them. They, like some of the Kucinichers, just wouldn't back Dean no matter what! Some went to Kerry and a couple to Edwards.

The Iowa blame game isn't productive. Iowa is an aberration; move on to New Hampshire which is the first real primary, please.

[CWebster]

14. yes, but it makes for very bad press. nt

[sangha]

5. I dont think so

I'm not sure why you distinguish between urban and rural seniors. I'm also not too keen on your assertion that urban, liberal, areas are Dean-leaning. They seemed to lean for Kerry and Edwards.

[rsdsharp]

7. I don't think so

What you suggest might have had a slight impact, but for the most part, Dean simply didn't get the lions's share of caucus goers to stand up for him. Look at the county-by-county map of caucus results. Dean lost in most of the urban, liberal, areas. He lost Polk, Johnson and Story counties. Polk is where Des Moines is located. U of I is in Johnson county and ISU is in Story.

This wasn't a matter of him winning the areas with fewer delegates. This was a matter of Kerry and Edwards beating him. In my own caucus, Dean was third. He got the support of 27 of 140 caucus goers. Edwards got 66, and Kerry got 47. That translated to 4 Edwards delegates with 3 for Kerry and 1 for Dean.

[boxster]

8. Nope, doesn't explain a 20% loss. Nor does it explain why he lost college

towns.

[TLM]

12. Dean held his core support.... but Gephardt fell on his sword...

And sent his supporters to Kerry and Edwards.

Nothing Dean could really do about that.

[sangha]

13. Kerry beat Dean by 20 points

All of Gep's supporters put together still don't account for that 20%

[boxster]

21. Again, that doesn't explain a 20% loss and it doesn't explain why

Dean lost all of the college towns.

Not to mention that Gephardt got 11% anyway. Based on your theory, since Kerry won by 20% and Edwards beat Dean by 14%, I guess that Gephardt was supposed to get 45%.

[emulatorloo]

25. People alienated by Gep and Dean fight went to Edwards

seemed to go to Edwards as a *first* choice at my caucus. . .no deliberate sword falling. But the speeches on Edwards behalf were on how positive/not negative his campaign was.

There were only 4 gep supporters at my caucus. You are right, they did not go to Dean for second choice. But I don't buy the "Gep sword falling" theory. . .he wanted to win.

On Edit; made nonsensical subject head make sense

[AP]

16. The caucus I saw, he had more at the end than at the beginning.

They had to run around and get supporters.

If it had been a straight-up blind election, he would have had FEWERS votes.

[TexasSissy]

18. Well, shoots. That's like saying Gore lost because of election rules.

The rules are the rules. That's what makes the process, and you run your campaign to focus on the election rules.

Dean lost IA primarily because of Dean. And he sure as shootin' knows that and is in the process of changing his ways so that it doesn't happen again. As he should.

[peabody71]

20. yes but my point was that the perception of a devistating Dean loss..

wasn't nearly as valid as people and especially the media have made it. But man it has been a disaster for Dean. I feel it was by design.

[emulatorloo]

24. There was no design.

People who supported candidates other than Dean really supported their candidates.

Dean supporters supported their candidate. Dean picked up second choice supporters, but not as much as Edwards.

Dean supporters who didn't come to the caucus weren't counted.

People who came to the caucus and stood up for Dean were counted.

[redqueen]

19. I would keep that in mind, yes

The exit polls should have been more reliable than the regular and vastly more common 'hit or miss' polls, but lately I distrust every damn thing I don't implicitly understand the methodology behind.

Also the weather may have been a factor for some.

I'm not jumping to any conclusions anytime soon. I think way more Americans are distrustful of the media this time around (check out liberal book sales for a hint of that), so that might not be so much of a factor as last time. And it's early yet. Way early.

[Waistdeep]

22. In my caucus

Edited for spelling.

Dean had lots more supporters initially than anyone but Kerry. Initially, Edwards wasn't even viable, nor was Clark, Kucinich or Gephardt.

At the end, after most of the Gephardt supporters and most independents went to Kerry, and most of the Kucinich supporters went to Edwards, the final delegate tally was: Kerry 4, Dean 2, Edwards 2. So, even though Dean supporters far outnumbered Edwards supporters by at least 2:1 at the beginning of the evening and Edwards had less than 15% of the vote, Dean and Edwards each ended up with 25% of the delegates. Kerry had nowhere near 50% support at the beginning of the evening, but ended up with half the delegates.

As the obviously labor-oriented Gephardt group was trying to figure out what to do, a Kerry organizer was right there, saying "Kerry has a great record on labor.... Gephardt had a 90% report card ..... but Kerry has an 80% report card ...... Come join the Kerry group". Most of the Gephardt group did then go to Kerry. I didn't see effective lobbying by any other group to get the Gephardt crowd.

I think some of what happened was a bandwagon effect --- Kerry was somewhat ahead, leading many non-viable & independent voters to pick the obvious winner, making his lead even larger.

[John_H]

26. Dean Supporter excuses: Caucus rules, Newsweek covers, BBV

Freeper caucuses, kucinich deals, and on and on and on and on all throughout this forum.

Why do so many people write thousands of words when the obvious reason Dean lost in Iowa and dropped more than 20 points in NH takes a short declarative sentence:

Voters know that Dean cannot win in November.