The cry that ended a career 
funniest goddamn thing I’ve seen in politics to date.
Dean had lost primary after primary before the “I have a scream” speech. He had already lost, despite being a “frontrunner” and media darling, because people weren’t voting for him. Note that this is what torpedoed all of Romney’s primary challengers in 2012–people didn’t vote for them.
It’s very easy for the media to invent stories of momentum and insurgency and possibility, but candidates have to win elections. During the presidential primaries if you don’t collect delegates then you’re hosed. Kerry was cleaning Dean’s clock by huge margins. That’s what finished Dean, not his campaign rally speech.
Look. Once again. It’s. Too. Soon. We cannot meaningfully discuss the 2016 presidential primaries or election until after the 2014 midterms, the results of which will shape the political environment for the next e-cycle. And even that would be too soon. How about a moratorium on all discussions of 2016 presidential politics until after, say, November 2015?
Now if only we could get the candidates to agree to that. 
Actually, Lemur, the scream came after Iowa.
Actually, before anybody made a point of it, I wouldn’t have thought a blamed thing about the Dean Scream. (And, I didn’t particularly like him, because all of his sycophants were so obnoxious.) Even after his scream was pointed out, I thought it was just something to make a joke of, not as a reason to discount him. On the contrary, I would think it would put him in the ‘regular guy’ category. What did confuse me, however, was that it coincided with his death knell.
Just another attempt to distract us from the Republican idiocy that shut down the government…