Dean Ends Campaign for Presidency (washingtonpost.com)

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean ended his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination today. It became clear as the race went forward that Dean's campaign never found a way to recover from his poor showing in Iowa. Much was made of the negative shots that went back and forth between Dean and Richard Gephardt in that caucus. However, I think there's a more obvious answer for him finishing third there.

There were a large amount of undecided voters going into Iowa. Dean was the frontrunner for months leading up to then, but once undecided voters started making up their minds, they started supporting John Kerry and John Edwards in larger numbers than other candidates. Dean did get many young people involved who had never participated in politics before. However, once you get someone interested in politics, they're not required to be loyal to you when they go into the voting booth.

While I was not a supporter of Dean, he contributed in a positive way to the debate. Also, his method of fundraising (raising small donations from a huge group of donors) was an important step now that the party can no longer rely on large corporate and union contributions. The Democratic Party and this race for president has been improved by Dean contributing to it.