Iowa Caucus History: The Rise and Fall of Howard Dean in 2004

By the fall of 2003, Vermont Governor Howard Dean had captured the support of many in the Democratic Party. With a late push and major reinvestment in his Iowa campaign, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry was able to win the 2004 Iowa Caucuses in a close race. Dean's surprising third place finish, and the media's coverage of his Iowa concession speech, was the beginning of the end for his campaign.

Trippi: This whole thing, Iowa, all of it is about a gauntlet and can you survive it? That's why it is like the greatest experience you ever had and if you survive it you just say, please don't let me do that again.

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Howard Dean: I don't want to divided anymore by race. I don't want to be divided anymore by gender. I don't want to be divided anymore by sexual orientation. Let's win in New Hampshire. Let's win in Iowa.

By the fall of 2003, Vermont Governor Howard Dean had captured the liberal heart and soul of the Democratic Party and his campaign manager, Joe Trippi, had vanquished one of their primary competitors, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

Trippi: Our whole plan, like Reagan with the Soviets, you spin them until they go broke trying to catch you. Well, it had worked. That had been our strategy with Kerry.

Henderson: This is a song, just a different verse, that we saw in 1999. Al Gore had a horrible summer. John Kerry had a horrible summer in 2003. He was sort of wandering around in the wilderness, hadn't found his voice as a candidate.

Trippi: We had John Kerry beat, totally beat. We knew we had finished him off. And then he did something that I've never seen anybody do and he went home, pulled out of Iowa, thought about it for a couple of weeks, and then wrote himself a $7 million check and said, nope, I'm going back and all in Iowa, played all his chips in Iowa.

Bob Shrum: John Kerry was determined to win. We had a plausible path to victory, the one I outlined, which is to position him as the one candidate who had the best chance to beat Bush, who was the most credible president. But we had to have the resources to do it. And we couldn't raise the money at this point because he was so far down in the polls. So he took a mortgage out on his half of the house on Beacon Hill.

J. Ann Selzer: John Kerry's numbers were where they were and seemed like they couldn't be moved. It was like, I think I remember saying he was frozen in place.

With his poll numbers on ice, Kerry loosened up his stump speech, and brought the liberal lion of the U.S. Senate, Ted Kennedy, to rally the troops. Campaign advisor Bob Shrum watched as Dean and Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt went to battle on the air waves.

Shrum: It's whether you engage in a negative war on television, which they really don't like, and which Gephardt and Dean did and they both hurt each other. Or whether you're in a debate and you can have a legitimate difference of opinion or you can ask a tough question, as long as that tough question seems fair. I was all for Kerry looking at him in that debate in early January and saying --

John Kerry: When you were asked by the conquered monitor about Osama bin Laden, you said we couldn't prejudge his guilt for September 11th. What in the world were you thinking?

Dean: I'll tell you exactly what I was thinking, Senator, I understand that Osama bin Laden has essentially claimed responsibility for these unbelievable terrorist acts, and as an American I want to see Osama bin Laden get what he deserves, which is the death penalty.

Shrum: There's no answer to that question. It doesn't matter how technical and legalistic you are, voters sit out there and say, oh we can't send that guy into the general election.

On caucus night, the Kerry campaign axiom of date Dean, marry Kerry, would come to fruition.

Shrum: One of the Dean people, a friend of mine, told me that he went to a big caucus in Des Moines, they had all the ones they needed to win the caucuses, he saw all their ones, many of their ones arrive and as soon as they arrived they walked over and joined Kerry and to a lesser extent Edwards.

Dean's meteoric rise came crashing down at the worst possible time. His staff hoped to salvage the third place finish and limp into New Hampshire. 

Trippi: The thing that we told Howard was when you walk out on that stage and you give your speech tonight, you've got to remember one thing, as much as this is going to be hard for you to sort of picture, at that moment millions and millions and millions of Americans will be seeing you for the first time. Don't play to the crowd. Just do your thing.

Tom Harkin: Iowa historically punches three tickets out of this state and we are on that ticket.

Trippi: We pull up in this big bus that we were in and he gets off the bus and the first guy he sees is Tom Harkin. And he says to Tom Harkin, so what do you think I should say? And Tom Harkin says, you know what, just go up there, pull off your jacket, throw it over to me and let her rip. And I wasn't even thinking anything about it.

Shrum: We're feeling pretty good, in fact feeling really, really, really good. I was sitting with Senator Kerry in the suite and then Dean comes on and we are transfixed as we watch him. 

Dean: If you had told us one year ago that we were going to come in third in Iowa, we would have given anything for that. And you know something, you know something, not only are we going to New Hampshire, Tom Harkin, we're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico and we're going to California and Texas and New York and we're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan and then we're going to Washington, D.C. to take back the White House!

Shrum: And there were people in the room that will say that in the room it didn't come across that way. But it doesn't matter. What matters is how it comes across on television because that's where millions of people are seeing it. 

Yepsen: That had nothing to do with his performance in Iowa. It did help put a nail in the coffin, but the coffin had already been built.

Kerry: Thank you, Iowa, for making me the comeback Kerry.