Reply #26: and there was no justification that could be found to do otherwise

[karynnj]

There is STILL no proof that Kerry won that could have been taken to court. Kerry's 12 hour wait was the slowest other than Gore's in modern times. The other thing was that had anything been found before early January that proved Kerry won, he could have rescinded the concession as Gore did late election night in 2000.

Dean conceded because he absolutely had no chance to win - had he stayed in, it wouldn't have mattered any more than Kuchinich staying in. He was nowhere near as close as HRC - in fact, he wasn't even second. Here is a link to the 2004 primaries - Dean dropped out after the February 17 th Wisconsin primary, which was one identified by Dean people as one where he could do well. In fact, he got 18%, while Edwards got 34% and Kerry won with 40. At that point, Dean had no money and no real chance of winning. Dean ended up winning only 114 pledged delegates. http://www.rhodescook.com/primary.analysis.html

It was good that Dean did concede as he did and was then a good surrogate. It's always got to be tough to concede - even when it is not close as it was for Gephardt and Dean in 2004 and Edwards in 2004 and 2008. It is likely harder when it was so close that they thought they had it and when they had reason to believe that they would have won a fair election - as was the case for both Gore and Kerry. HRC is between the two cases - though really in the first category.