Did Over-Saturation Hurt Dean in IA?

[rucky]

The calls, the canvassers, the ads. Dean had the people, Dean had the money, Dean had the message. But even too much of a good thing can simply be too much. Isn't there a saturation point? Isn't there a point where voters say "enough already"? It becomes a turn-off. Annoying. Like that Taco Bell chihuaua.

Maybe having the biggest war chest doesn't always translate into a win? Ask Michael Huffington, who outspent Grey Davis by a mile in 1998 & lost big.

Maybe there is a point where your big media ad bucks start to work against you? This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Call it built-in campaign finance reform. Maybe Bush will learn the same lesson - the hard way?

[Kahuna]

1. I believe the tape of him dissing the caucus system..

and his bad behavior to the bush supporter did him in in IA.

[candy331]

3. Well about this time you can take your pick

as what happened unless you want to embrace the real reason and that is he was never intent to be the winner. Things got out of hand and and he went too far and had to be reeled back in and any thing would have done it including sucking his teeth in public.

[w4rma]

2. Osama ads and negative big media press

...
US political commentators have speculated that Mr Kerry has enjoyed the support of the media community in an effort to head off the challenge of Howard Dean, who has fallen back in the race despite being the frontrunner before the primaries began. Mr Dean made statements last year about wanting to break up media conglomerates.
...
http://media.guardian.co.uk/city/story/0,7497,1144464,00.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=302493

[displacedtexan]

4. Observation from a Kerry supporter

Just my opinion, but having firefighters, local Dem supporters, and veterans manning phones, doing knock-n-drops, hosting events, and helping people get to the polling places did the trick.

And this was not a spur of the moment occurrence, either. This "top-down" campaign was firmly in place last fall (while the media was declaring the JK campaign effort dead in the water).

When caucus day rolled around, each individual person in the organization knew exactly what his/her job was. There was no confusion, and no desperation.

[Mass_Liberal]

5. I honestly don't know

there ya have it.