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In reply to the discussion: No more Kerry's... [View all]sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)for Bush's war were the least popular among Democrats. That was such a huge issue that Gephardt and Edwards decided to apologize for their votes in order to get any support at all. Throughout 2003 Dean was the front runner and when Clark entered the race he generated a lot of enthusiasm also.
Interesting also that Dean's money all came from ordinary people so despite being the front runner, Kerry who no one was paying much attention to in 2003, at least not ordinary people, had over 7 million dollars for his campaign, most of it obviously coming from wealthy donors. But we were not aware of the role such donations play in our political system back then. If we had been we would have known that despite his popularity, Dean never had a chance of being allowed to win.
Edwards, also a traditional candidate, unlike Dean and Clark, managed to have several million dollars for his campaign also. Dean did surprise everyone by raising several million from his online campaign making him a definite threat to the traditional candidates Kerry and Edwards who were obviously favored by the power brokers.
In the end, Dean was basically pushed out of the race. And it came down to the more 'acceptable' candidates, by DC standards, Kerry and Edwards and even Lieberman who was at the bottom of the list as far as popularity goes, yet he was provided with millions of dollars also. The wealthy place their bets on candidates they know THEY can trust.
We know now that money talks in politics. Kerry, Edwards and even the unpopular among the people, Lieberman had the wealthy donors to provide them with money.
Dean and Clark relied on the people for their money. They were the people's choice. And the people do not get to make that kind of choice as the money provided for Kerry and Edwards demonstrate. If all of them had to earn that money as Dean did, Dean would most likely have been the nominee. Clark maybe would have been his VP, although Clark himself did not want that position.
ETA, I also worked for a top Dem Fund Raiser and got to see close up what the people with money were doing and who they wanted as their candidate, and it wasn't Clark or Dean or Kucinich or any of the others who were the people's choice.