Kerry Wins Caucus

[MDM4AU 338]

NBC 13 in Bamaham reports:

Kerry wins Iowa caucus, followed closely by Sen. Edwards with Dean a distant third.

NBC 13

[Donutboy 0]

NBC 13 in Bamaham reports:

Kerry wins Iowa caucus, followed closely by Sen. Edwards with Dean a distant third.

NBC 13

Surprise! Surprise! Where was Gephardt? He needed at least a close second in this border state to remain a viable candidate. Could he be the next to drop out? If his fortunes don't pick up in New Hampshire, look for his candidacy to end.

[MDM4AU 338]

Honest Question, DB:

What does Gephardt do now?

[Donutboy 0]

Honest Question, DB:

What does Gephardt do now?

I think he redoubles his efforts in New Hampshire and if he doesn't do well there, he withdraws. I don't think Gephardt has a future in presidential politics. He's dirtied himself in the halls of Congress. Off the top of your head, can you name the last president who sat in Congress before their run for the presidency?

Bush - Governor of Texas

Clinton - Governor of Arkansas

Bush - Ambassador somewhere, then Vice President

Reagan - Governor of California

Carter - Governor of Georgia

Ford - never elected to the presidency

Nixon - VP under Eisenhower

Johnson - I think he was the last.... but even he was VP for a popular president first.

[Tiger Al 0]

Gephardt will drop out tomorrow in St. Louis.

One contender who almost certainly will not be making that trip to New Hampshire to next week's first primary is Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), who was headed for a fourth-place finish. Earlier in the day, glum-sounding aides were signaling that he would not linger long in the race with anything short of a lightning-strike victory.

Gephardt had called Iowa a must-win state for him -- he carried the state in his first presidential bid in 1988. There were no indications that such lightning was about to strike, suggesting the imminent end to a political career that has loomed large on the Washington stage for nearly a quarter-century. The Gephardt campaign said that the Missouri Democrat would return home to St. Louis on Monday night.

Wow, Dean finishing third is about as shocking and disappointing as Auburn's season was.

[Donutboy 0]

Gephardt will drop out tomorrow in St. Louis.

One contender who almost certainly will not be making that trip to New Hampshire to next week's first primary is Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), who was headed for a fourth-place finish. Earlier in the day, glum-sounding aides were signaling that he would not linger long in the race with anything short of a lightning-strike victory.

Gephardt had called Iowa a must-win state for him -- he carried the state in his first presidential bid in 1988. There were no indications that such lightning was about to strike, suggesting the imminent end to a political career that has loomed large on the Washington stage for nearly a quarter-century. The Gephardt campaign said that the Missouri Democrat would return home to St. Louis on Monday night.

Wow, Dean finishing third is about as shocking and disappointing as Auburn's season was.

I guess the Republicans will now start smearing Kerry. Oh I forgot. They're already saying he looks "too French!"

[MDM4AU 338]

What are your opinions on Edwards? Seems many (in America) were counting him out.

[Tiger Al 0]

Dean, Kerry, Clark or Edwards would be fine to me. I've read that Edwards was campaigning for vice-president but if he can gain and keep momentum then he may be able to make a serious run.

Dean may or may not be in trouble, depending on how he can rebound in NH and the primaries on Feb. 3rd. If he stumbles in third place there, it could be Kerry/Edwards in 2004.

[Tigermike 3,711]

This article might answer some of your questions.

Kerry roars back to win Iowa caucuses

Edwards strong second;

Dean trails badly;

Gephardt to drop out

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts won the Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses Monday night, completing an improbable charge in the final days of the first important test of the campaign season.

Kerry and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina appeared to break away from the rest of the field, running far ahead of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri. Gephardt will drop out of the race Tuesday, aides told NBC News.

Kerry was drawing support by 38 percent of caucus-goers with 98 percent of the state’s 1,993 precincts reporting. Edwards was running a strong second at 32 percent.

Appearing before ecstatic supporters after an introduction by his Massachusetts colleague, Edward Kennedy, Kerry thanked Iowans for making him “the comeback Kerry.”

“Now you send me on to New Hampshire ... and I make you this pledge: I have just begun to fight,” he said, adding that he had a message for President Bush: “We’re coming, you’re going, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

  Related data

Latest caucus results

Dean had been considered the front-runner in recent weeks, but he was well behind at 18 percent. Aides told NBC News that he called Kerry to offer his congratulations about 10 p.m. ET.

“I think Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards did a great job,” Dean said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” “We came in third. I would have liked to have come in first, but we didn't.

“... Actually, it looks better than it should,” he told “Hardball” host Chris Matthews. “Had you told me a year ago that I was going to finish third in Iowa, I would have been delighted, because the top three in Iowa is the ticket out, so we're going to go on in New Hampshire, and we’re going to win, period.”

Later, punching the air in a gesture of triumph and waving a U.S. flag he picked up from the audience, Dean reassured his supporters that the third-place showing was only a bump in the road.

“We will not quit!” Dean shouted repeatedly, his voice raw and cracking from days of nonstop campaigning. "We will not quit, now or forever. We want our country back for ordinary Americans."

No more for Gephardt?

For Gephardt, who won this contest in 1988, Iowa was probably the end of the line. He trailed badly, with only 11 percent.

“Well, this did not come out the way we wanted,” Gephardt told chanting supporters in Des Moines. Campaign aides told NBC News that he would withdraw at a news conference Tuesday afternoon, and Gephardt signaled his intentions by acknowledging that “my campaign to fight for working people may be ending tonight, but our fight will never end.”

“Life will go on because this campaign was never about me. It was about all of us,” said Gephardt, who promised to support the eventual nominee “in any way that I can.”

Dean said in an interview on CNBC: “I give my condolences to Dick Gephardt. He’s a good friend. I worked with him in ’88 — this I know is a tough one for him.”

Kerry, meanwhile, praised Gephardt as “a special public servant ... who has served his country with great distinction.”

Edwards scores big

The big surprise was the strong performance by Edwards, who, even though he saw a spike in support in the final tracking surveys, said he had not expected to do so well.

Edwards’ campaign manager, Nick Baldick, echoed the sentiment, telling MSNBC-TV: “Now we have the wind at our backs. We have New Hampshire, and we'll meet you in Columbia [s.C.] on February 3rd.”

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio had been expected to make a significant showing at a few of the caucuses, but he ended up with less than 1 percent support.

Kerry reels in Dean

Kerry’s victory in percentage terms will not necessarily translate exactly into delegates at the state Democratic convention next summer, which will apportion Iowa’s 45 delegates to the national convention. The actual results were to be compiled precinct by precinct.

Still, his victory was sweeping, according to a survey by NBC News and other news agencies as voters entered the caucus sites. He ran first among men and women and among all income and education levels, and he swept almost all age categories.

Just weeks ago, before the Iowa race turned testy and tumultuous, Dean was the undisputed front-runner. But tracking surveys in the last week showed Kerry gaining swiftly, and by Monday he held a slim lead in the MSNBC/Reuters/Zogby tracking poll, with 25 percent to Dean’s 22 percent.

As Gephardt continued to slide in the final days, he opened a harsh attack on Dean, and that may have contributed to the unexpectedly weak showing by each.

“We were just getting hammered,” Dean’s campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said on “Hardball.” “We lost control of our message.”

In the last week of the campaign, “John Edwards and John Kerry started sounding a hell of a lot more like Howard Dean,” Trippi complained. And “Dick Gephardt, in a fight for his life, just pummeled us.”

The caucus system rewarded candidates who picked up support late. Once they arrived at the caucus sites, voters broke up into groups, their numbers counted and then recounted as some candidates did not get enough votes to go forward.

That made turning out supporters critical, and weeks of touting proposals and criticizing rivals in appearances across this farm state focused on getting people to precinct meetings from public buildings to private homes.

The entrance survey showed that fully 41 percent of voters made up their minds in the last three days. More than half, 55 percent, had never taken part in the caucuses previously.

Iowa Secretary of State Chester J. Culver had predicted that turnout could top the record of 125,000 set in 1988, but the Democratic Party estimated turnout Monday night at 110,000. Still, Democrats ran out of registration forms at Precinct 21 in Iowa City.

Two other major contenders — Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark — skipped the caucuses to seek support for  New Hampshire on Jan. 27.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ID/3999491/

[CarolinaTiger 0]

DB: don't you think the dems have been smearing themselves moreso than the pubs smearing?

not to say they won't, but i haven't seen near as much mud being slung by the pubs as i have the dems amongst themselves.

ps: i like that word...'amongst'....

ct

fear the 'ed(wards)'

[Donutboy 0]

DB:  don't you think the dems have been smearing themselves moreso than the pubs smearing?

not to say they won't, but i haven't seen near as much mud being slung by the pubs as i have the dems amongst themselves.

ps: i like that word...'amongst'....

ct

fear the 'ed(wards)'

In the political spotlight, yeah. The Dems have done most of the smearing. However, the work continues on the Republican side smearing the Dems, such as many of the articles that have been posted on here about Dean. Those get more notice than what's said on the stump. People just aren't into the election yet and what's being said in Iowa doesn't play as well in the rest of America.

Also, to answer another post..... Don't count out Clark. He didn't enter the Iowa caucuses because of his late entry into the race. However, polls showed him running a close second in New Hampshire to Dean, though that will probably change with Kerry's upset in Iowa, and polls show him as the new leader in Arizona, another early primary state.