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Q1: Article II of the constitution is introduced by the vesting clause which states, “the executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States”. For advocates of presidential restraint, the vesting clause serves as an introductory statement for Article II with no real substa...

Q1: Article II of the constitution is introduced by the vesting clause which states, “the executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States”. For advocates of presidential restraint, the vesting clause serves as an introductory statement for Article II with no real substantive significance in itself. For advocates of presidential strength, the vesting clause is an undefined, non-enumerated reservoir of executive power beyond those specifically enumerated in Art II. Hence, the ambiguity of this clause has left it open to interpretation and has made available executive prerogative and salus populi as two extra-constitutional sources of authority. Two of the founding era’s most respected authorities, John Locke and William Balckstone, both agreed upon the point of having ample scope for presidential discretion. Lock discusses the tradition of executive prerogative as the presidential power to act according to their discretion for the public good without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against it. Hence, it was a spontaneous and uncontrolled power responsive to contingent circumstances affecting public welfare. Locke denied the authority of the legislature to limit the freedom of executive action. Balckstone also argued for independent executive prerogative as he wrote, “for it would be of most mischievous consequence to the public if the strength of the executive power were liable to be curtailed without its own express consent.” Salus populi is a doctrine which served to tap into another source of presidential executive power, arguing that when adherence to the law jeopardizes the public welfare, the former must concede to the latter. We can see salus populi at work when we examine the 8 year presidency of Thomas Jefferson. During the course of his presidency, Jefferson undertook several unilateral actions such as the Louisiana Purchase and the Chesapeake affair which seemed to have no explicit Constitutional authority and for which he was criticized. Once retired, Jefferson addressed these criticisms, citing the salus populi, as he argued that to lose the country to strict adherence to the law would be like “...absurdly sacrificing the end to the means”. The tradition of executive prerogative and the doctrine of salus populi as two extra-constitutional sources of authority are available sources for presidents to exercise legitimate unilateral actions. Q 2: The president's emergency powers refer to his ability to respond to great national crises/emergencies with immediate and vigorous executive action not otherwise allowed by a strict reading of the Constitution. Although the concepts of military necessity and unilateral executive action were previously articulated by Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln was the first to directly employ the doctrine of emergency powers. After taking office, Lincoln justified a host of executive actions based on the doctrine of emergency powers which were not otherwise justifiable by a strict reading of the Constitution. These included a blockade of southern ports, calling up the militia, army and navy expansion, use of Treasury funds to pay off troops, and suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Lincoln defended each of these actions on the basis of the emergency at hand and on constitutional obligations mandating affirmative action. Empirically, three key historical examples demonstrate how subsequent presidents have expanded upon Lincoln’s use of emergency powers. The first is President Grover Cleveland's decision to deploy federal troops to address the 1894 railway strike. Notably, Cleveland's decision was not backed by formal statutory authority or informal authorization from state and local authorities. The second example is Theodore Roosevelt's actions in the 1902 Pennsylvania-based anthracite-coal strike. Despite the absence of any clear legal or constitutional basis to justify his actions, Roosevelt took unilateral steps to personally arbitrate the dispute, and threatened to send in the army to seize and operate the mines until mediation was successful. The third example is Truman's decision to sign an executive order when the 1952 labor disputes in the steel industry threatened to paralyze the national economy. His order directed the secretary of Commerce to take control of nearly 90 steel mills the next day. Notably, Truman justified this order as being necessary to prevent the country from "going to hell." Q 3: Scholars identify two periods of republican experimentation with executive power in the first decade after independence. The first period was known as “radical” republicanism which characterized a virtuous republic as one requiring the dismantling of executive power. During this period, republicans identified the source of vulnerability to which the government is susceptible to corruption of power as the executive branch. To remedy this, they emphasized making the executive branch subordinate to the legislative branch. On the other hand, the following period of conservative republicanism characterized a virtuous republic as one requiring the strengthening of executive power. This period still emphasized the vulnerability to which the government is susceptible to corruption, but identified the source of this corruption as the legislature. The reasoning behind this was that the legislature was too close to the people and too prone to ratifying the baser inclinations of the people. Their remedy for this was to increase executive independence, discretion, and power relative to the legislature. The new American Presidency established in 1789 drew from both the radical and conservative republican strains in four key respects: executive structure, executive independence, executive power, and executive selection. In terms of executive structure, the choice to have a unitary executive structure was approved by both radicals and conservatives, although by very different logics. Conservative republicans believed a single executive would have greater capacity for quick, effective and vigorous action. Radical republicans believed that a single executive would actually function as a more effective check on executive power than would a plural executive because it would be easy to hold the unitary executive accountable. The four year presidential term of office came through a compromise between opposing preferences between short or long terms. Radical Republicans preferred short term lengths because they promoted responsiveness to electoral incentives. Conservative Republicans preferred a longer term length because it reduced the risk of politicization. The compromise between these two was 4 years which was more than what radicals wanted and less than what conservatives wanted. Like the unitary executive, the act of enumeration appealed to both radicals and conservatives for very different reasons. Radicals appreciated that enumeration was a check on executive power as it sets clear boundaries on legitimate executive action. Conservatives saw enumeration as promoting executive independence from the legislature. For example, radicals thought of the vesting clause as an introductory statement to Article II of the Constitution which granted the president no additional power. However, conservatives thought of the vesting clause asWhat a general grant of power beyond those listed in Article II. In terms of presidential selection, radicals wanted to grant the legislature the ability to select the president with no ability for reelection to keep presidents accountable. Conservatives objected to this as they thought that the possibility of re-election serves as an incentive to do a good job. The electoral college as the means of executive selection was mainly a victory for conservative republicans because it stripped the legislature of the right to select the president and removed restrictions on re-eligibility for presidency. Q4: Unlike the founders who believed that the president should be insulated from public opinion for the purpose of impartial judgement, Wilson favored allowing for public opinion to play a greater role in representative government. He proposed doing so through the use of interpretation, which is distinct from demagoguery. He understood "interpretation" to be the process of sifting through public opinions and to find core issues which reflect majority will. Wilson characterized the President as the interpreter of the public will with the power to translate the desires of the people into public policy through his rhetorical skills. According to Wilson, successful "interpretation" required two key skills. The first is the ability to understand the true majority sentiment underlying contradictory positions of factions and the often conflicting views of the masses. The second is the ability to then explain to the people what their true desire or the true majority sentiment actually is in a way that is both easily understandable and convincing. Wilson cites Daniel Webster as such an interpreter of the public will as he expressed that the leader-interpreter calls the nation into “full consciousness” of its unity and purpose. Wilson understood "demagoguery" to be a potentially dangerous form of popular leadership and used two criteria to distinguish a demagogue from a popular leader. The first criteria was the nature of the appeal and the second was the character of the leader. For Wilson, demagogues are those who appeal to popular passions or the whimsical sentiments of the people as opposed to leaders who appeal to the true majority sentiment. Demagogues are also motivated by a desire to increase their power rather than leaders who work for the permanent interest of the community. Wilson cites the British parliamentary as able to produce true leaders and few demagogues due to their long training in debate. The presidency is so well suited to these forms of leadership because the president has only themselves to deliberate with which allows concrete and clarified opinion on national issues. Congress could never present such unified confidence because there will always be differing opinions. Additionally, a president has easy access to the minds and hearts of their voters and supporters. They have unlimited access to the public eye and attention from the public. This serves as the perfect outlet to carry out both leader-interpreter and demagogue rhetoric. On the other hand, Congress is not charged with appealing to people at large as their only incentive is to appeal to individuals in their constituency. Q 5: According to Tulis, one key feature of the "old way" of exercising presidential leadership is a limited amount of direct public engagement. Presidents generally used written messages to communicate with Congress and rarely gave public addresses. Presidents generally communicated with congressional leaders and party elites through party channels rather than trying to rally the public behind certain legislative outcomes. For example, Washington’s tours were for the purpose of gathering information rather than appealing to the public at large. Additionally, the "old way" emphasized the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branch. For the "new way," public engagement was dramatically expanded. Presidents began using mass media to communicate their messages and policies directly to the people. Additionally, rather than maintaining private communication with Congress and continuing to use written messages, President's began to use their direct engagement with the people to try to rally public opinion behind their policy agendas as a way to pressure Congress into certain legislative decisions/outcomes. Additionally, rather than allowing the public agenda and public policy endeavors to remain a Congress-centric process, the "new way" emphasized the importance of presidential leadership in shaping the policy agenda. An example of this is Lyndon Johnson’s use of his powers of persuasion, a strategy known as the “Johnson Treatment”, to influence legislation. Empirically, Theodore Roosevelt's campaign for the Hepburn Act can be understood as an effective "middle way" to exercise presidential leadership because his actions combined elements of both the "old way" and the "new way". In his campaign for the Hepburn Act of 1906 Roosevelt adopted strategies of the "new way" by engaging directly with the public to make his case for the Hepburn Act, often using charismatic communication to appeal to and connect with the American voters. But, his approach to Congress adhered more closely to the "old way" in that rather than attempting to rally public opinion to pressure Congress into passing the Hepburn Act, Roosevelt went public in order to shift public support. In the quest to pass the Hepburn Act, President Roosevelt went out and explained to the public what the Hepburn Act was and why they should support it so that Congress people have the ability to support it without alienating their district and their voters. This still creates a president first approach, but one that enables congress people rather than pressuring/bullying them. Q 6: "Micro-targeting" refers to the practice of collecting and analyzing personal data for the purpose of creating highly personalized and specific messaging to be used in advertising, marketing and campaigns. Microtargeting identifies an individual's specific interests and preferences and generates targeted advertisements and messaging designed specifically to best capture their attention. The idea behind this is to target specific demographics within a state to try and expand your base into these very niche places where you can start pulling people to your vote. According to Lori Han Cox, micro-targeting is used to reach uncommitted or less partisan voters during a presidential campaign during the general election. Once a candidate receives their party's nomination, they generally have the support of the party and therefore turn their attention to targeting undecided voters in the swing states. For example, Republicans will micro-target Black and Latino men who traditionally vote for the Democratic candidate and possibly pull a few people from this demographic to support them. This has a very significant impact because the candidate would essentially gain a marginal vote of two as they are gaining one vote and taking one away from their opponent. The Obama campaign in 2012 engaged in significant "micro-targeting" of black unregistered voters. Obama already did well with the Black demographic and thus did not have to use resources to target them. His campaign team developed voter files which included voter participation in previous elections and responsiveness to previous contact from the Obama campaign. With these voter files, the campaign team was then able to create probability scores for how likely each voter was to actually get out and vote for Obama. Hence, Obama was able to specifically target black non voters in the South who had been disheartened and disinterested from politics, and targeted them by inspiring them to vote, campaigning himself as a representation of American exceptionalism. Obama managed to flip many states which no one anticipated because so many additional people showed up to vote who didn’t typically vote. Q 7: Countermajoritarian outcomes are possible when a majority of the 538 presidential electors casting votes in the electoral college have chosen a candidate other than the national popular vote victor. The countermajoritarian problem is possible because in our system of presidential election the number of votes is not nearly as important as the distribution of votes. The countermajoritarian problem starts when we aggregate individual state outcomes in order to get a national outcome. Contrary to some beliefs, the issue of countermajoritarian outcomes is not a problem with the electoral college, but rather an issue with the vote aggregation process. When we sum the popular votes and electoral votes of the different candidates nationally, the two can yield divergent winners due to the method by which electoral college votes are allocated between presidential candidates. Today, 48 states award electoral votes through a winner-takes-all system, i.e. whoever wins the popular vote in a state takes all of that state’s electoral votes. Another facet of the problem of countermajoritarian outcomes is the issue of surplus voters. For example, in a general election, if a candidate wins far more than 50% of the votes in that state, all of the votes counted after the 50% +1 mark are surplus. These votes still count toward the popular vote but they do not help the candidate in the electoral college as they have already won all of the delegates. This illustrates how the issue of countermajoritarian outcomes is not a matter of number but of distribution. We saw the countermajoritarian problem occur in the 2016 presidential election between Trump and Clinton. Here, Trump won the electoral vote, but Clinton won the popular vote. Hence, Trump won the presidency. This issue is not peculiar to Electoral College politics. The House of Representatives has the same issue as they also employ a winner takes all system. Similar to the electoral college, one party can rack up large surplus votes in a few districts while the other party has a wider distribution of votes across districts nationally allowing them to narrowly win a majority of seats, despite losing the overall popular vote. This happened in 2012, where the Democrats won the popular vote for the House, but the Republicans held the chamber due winning small victories in many house districts compared to large Democratic victories in a smaller number of safe urban districts. Q8: Prior to the McGovern-Fraser (MGF) reforms on the presidential nomination system, presidential primaries were something of an insider's game controlled by party leaders. Candidate activity was directed at getting the attention of party elites rather than ordinary voters. Party elites were so influential because they controlled who gets to be a convention delegate and how delegates voted on the convention floor. For example, the term “smoke filled room” was coined to describe the process by which party elites made the decision of who they would select as their party candidate in a secretive backroom setting where political decisions were made out of public view, often involving personal alliances, political favors, or strategic calculations. In the pre-reform nomination process, primaries still existed, but were something of a “beauty contest” as no official delegates were selected. Where delegates were selected, they were often not bound to support any candidate and mainly were used to give the party elites a sense of the people's preferences in a particular state. Most front-runners for a party’s nomination preferred to avoid primaries in order to retain the party elite’s favor which they already had. For example, Hubert Humphrey, a front runner for nomination in 1960, said “you have to be crazy to go into a primary”. The MGF reforms came about in 1968 at the Chicago Democratic Convention as a result of unrest regarding people's votes for a candidate who was not chosen by the party elites. People were outraged that their candidate was not chosen as the nominee, and as a direct result of this unrest, Democrats formed a commission to attempt to restore legitimacy to the presidential nomination process by injecting greater grassroots democracy. This would take formal control over the presidential nomination away from party leaders meeting at the national convention and give control to regular citizens voting in state primary elections.The reforms immediately increased the number of presidential primaries, increased the percentage of delegates selected in primaries, and increased the number of pledged delegates. All pledged delegates were now required to vote for their candidate at the national party convention. Now, candidates had to enter nearly all of the state primaries in order to win enough delegates for the nomination. The reforms also increased the importance of assembling their own campaigning organizations to compete for primary votes in every state instead of just working for the party elites. Fundraising had to be done early so that there was enough money to campaign effectively. This gave way to the invisible primary where the candidate with the most money and highest poll numbers becomes the frontrunner. It also contributed to frontloading. The MGF reforms were so significant because they fundamentally transformed the way presidential candidates are selected in the United States, shifting power from party elites to ordinary voters. Q 10: The formal or visible primary is where voters show up and vote for who they think should be the party nominee. The invisible primary is the sort of jockeying that happens between party elites as they try and pick which candidate they should back. The "invisible primary" refers to the period preceding the official start of the presidential primary season, during which candidates compete for support, endorsements, and fundraising in preparation for the primaries and caucuses. The term "invisible" reflects the behind-the-scenes nature of this phase, as much of the activity takes place within political parties, among party elites, donors, activists, and influential stakeholders, rather than in the public eye. Its outcomes can have a significant impact on the trajectory of the race and the ultimate selection of the party's nominee. The invisible primary plays a crucial role in shaping the outcome of the presidential nominating process by determining early front-runners, reflecting party establishment influence, shaping media coverage and voter perceptions, and setting the agenda for the primary campaign. The invisible primary helps establish frontrunners within each party's presidential field. Candidates who perform well in fundraising, garner significant endorsements, and generate positive media coverage during this period often emerge as frontrunners. The front-loaded nature of the modern nominating system increases the cost of elections, stretches the length of the campaign, compresses the decisive time frame, and amplifies any media momentum. Q11: The bandwagon effect in the presidential primary process is the phenomenon in which candidate victories in early primary elections cause voters in later states to join their side thereby giving them added candidate momentum to carry them to victory in later states. When a candidate wins an early primary election, they receive increased free national media coverage, greater national visibility, increased name recognition and more favorable media/public estimates of candidate viability. The bandwagon effect and candidate momentum specifically advantages the winners of early contests due to unequal flows of information about candidates in that voters in states that come later in the calendar simply have more information about candidate performance. Ideally, candidates hope to win early and capture enough momentum to carry them into the later states. Voter information processing helps to account for an underlying cause of the bandwagon effect. In primary elections, you do not have the kind of party identification which helps voters make decisions simply based on the kinds of policy perspectives you expect a democrat or a republican to have. When voters cannot rely on party identification, they are faced with a choice between undertaking a costly search for candidate information, consuming alternative sources of low-cost information, or remaining rationally ignorant. Because of the relatively low individual benefits for undertaking a search for candidate information, primaries tend to be low-information affairs in which voters choose candidates with limited substantive information. Hence, voters are likely to “bandwagon” to a candidate which is already seen as “winning” and which news media outlets are giving them information about. National media coverage of the early primary state is outsized (“horse-race coverage”). Significant numbers of primary voters make candidate choices based on media horse race reporting. This bias is also rooted in unequal flows of information about candidates. Voters in later voting states simply know more about the candidates who have been winning. Due to these effects, we see “frontloading” occur which refers to the fact that a large number of states have moved up the date of their primary to be closer to the start of the formal primary season. This allows the state to have more influence in the primary. We see media coverage frontloading in which a large proportion of primary election media coverage is concentrated to the earlier states simply because they are first on the calendar. Because of this, we see candidates frontload their organizational efforts and money toward the earlier states in order to gain momentum. These factors create a sort of feedback loop where states will want to move their primaries as early as they can creating a front loaded primary system in which a significant number of state contests are bunched up at the front of the nomination season. There are only 2 cases where a candidate has successfully mitigated a bandwagon effect. In 2016, Trump lost Iowa and New Hampshire in the primary race which would theoretically lead to him getting pushed out of the race and the winners of those states moving up. However, Trump SO, Trump takes an approach of discrediting the system by arguing that the system was “rigged” and supported the status quo. Joe Biden in 2020, made a big part of his campaign the idea that it is unethical that Iowa and New Hampshire serve such a significant role in picking who the Democratic presidential nominee will be because both of these states are predominantly white, wealthier, rural states. He suggests South Carolina instead because it is more representative of the Democratic party demographic. Sequential structure of gradual unfolding in the primary process is an important feature because it injects bias into the presidential nomination process, a bias that favors the winner of early contests. In fact, since 1976, every eventual party nominee but two, has won either Iowa or New Hampshire. Candidate performance in early states is typically a good predictor of candidate performance in later states. Q 12: For Doherty, "the permanent campaign" refers to the assumption that electoral concerns are central to the decisions made throughout a president's term in office and that the techniques and strategies of presidential campaigning are employed throughout the course of a president's term. The term can be used broadly to describe a president's efforts to gain public approval, frequent use of public opinion polling, and continued use of the president's campaign tactics while in office. Essentially, the "permanent campaign" refers to a consistent blurring of the distinction between governing and campaigning while a president is serving in office. Doherty points to the rise in presidential fundraising as the clearest indicator of the permanent campaign. President’s spend so much of their time in office seeking financial support that the line between governing and campaigning is significantly blurred. The reason presidents spend increasing amounts of their time raising money is largely because of the rising costs of campaigns and the campaign finance rules which dictate them. Because the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) was designed to incentivize reaching a broad base of small donors, and the $1000 contribution was not indexed to rise with inflation, the fixed contribution limits and raised spending caps created the need for presidents to spend more time raising money. Additionally, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002 which mandated that party activities be funded with hard money, further incentivized presidents to spend even more time as “fundraiser-in-chief" in order to reach more and more small donors. Doherty shows that fundraising has become a perpetual activity, with presidents attending more fundraising events than ever before.In terms of strategic travel, Relative populations and pivotal Electoral College statuses appear to drive considerations of where a president should travel. Since Carter, 80% of such fundraisers have taken place in states previously won by the president. Because all chief executives have avoided sparsely populated, noncompetitive states, the campaign season is increasingly placed at the forefront of their activity. There are two categories of people who this benefits. First, this benefits party elites because they get a lot of airtime and attention drawn to them without having to work for it. Additionally, this benefits people who have celebrity for other non political reasons. For example, Ronald Reagan came to power in politics not because he was a notable politician, but because he was a very popular movie star and because people recognized his name. The permanent campaign results in president’s being less focused on actual governing and more focused on politics/campaigning. A president spends less time on governance and more time on campaigning as long as the permanent campaign becomes more time and resource consuming. We can see this in the House and Senate as well where members who would like to run for president will say things to garner media attention for their campaigns. Q#13 Doherty's assertion that "the geography of presidential fundraising does not follow the incentives of the Electoral College" refers to the fact that the strategies employed for travel related to presidential fundraising do not align with the logic of the permanent campaign which would dictate that presidential travel be driven by electorally advantageous decision-making. Because fundraising accounts for roughly 40% of all strategic travel, the president's decisions surrounding the geographic locations of their fundraising events matters for understanding whether or not "strategic travel" aligns with the logic of the Electoral College incentives. The incentives of the Electoral College suggest that presidents would spend the most time travelling in swing states where they won or lost narrowly, however, Doherty's analysis shows that presidents spend the most time fundraising in states where they are already popular rather than in swing states. When raising money, presidents prioritize visits to cities with high concentrations of affluent donors. These locations, despite being safe Democratic strongholds, are critical for securing campaign funds.Because of the logistical factors associated with choosing a fundraising location, presidents must go to locations where there is enough financial support to merit the investment of their time and often go to a co-partisan's state when they are raising money for their fellow party members, whether or not this actually aligns with their electoral incentives. Empirically, 80% of presidential fundraising occurred in states that the president carried in the last election. On the other hand, when presidents pursue votes, they visit states which are generally competitive and consistent with the incentives of the electoral college. Candidates will focus on visiting big swing states to gain votes instead of small states which do not have enough electoral votes to matter. Republican and Democratic presidents differ in terms of states they neglect in the competition for votes. Republican presidents tend to focus their travel efforts on states where their party has a strong base of support, such as conservative-leaning states in the South and Midwest. They may neglect swing states with more moderate or diverse populations, as well as Democratic-leaning states where victory is less likely. In contrast, Democratic presidents prioritize swing states and battleground regions where they have a chance of winning or expanding their electoral coalition. They may neglect solidly Republican states where victory is unlikely and focus resources on states with a higher potential for electoral success. These differences reveal the priorities of presidential travel, which are shaped by strategic considerations and electoral calculus. Republican presidents prioritize energizing their base and maximizing support in states where their party has a strong presence, aiming to solidify their electoral coalition and ensure turnout among core supporters. Democratic presidents focus on expanding their electoral map and appealing to swing voters in battleground states. Q#14 In “The Presidency and the Nomination Process,” Lara M. Brown argues that crises of legitimacy and “candidate agency” are central variables propelling institutional change in the presidential nomination process. Explain with special attention to the congressional caucus system, the national party convention, and the modern presidential primary system. According to Brown, what are the some of the most salient candidate characteristics that mark the current system? Crises of legitimacy and "candidate agency" have played significant roles in shaping institutional changes in the presidential nomination process across different phases, including the congressional caucus system, the national party convention, and the modern presidential primary system. Essentially changes are brought upon when the system faced a crisis of legitimacy that was brought on by changing social and political norms. 1800 was the first year in which both political parties used congressional caucuses to select their presidential and vice presidential nominees. In this system, often referred to as "King Caucus," due to the closed and insular nature, congressional partisans met to vote by secret ballot for their party's nominees. Although the system was in use until 1824, there were no elections during this period in which factional strife did not plague the system's effectiveness. Because of these failures, the system had limited legitimacy. The next era of Presidential nominating systems was the National Convention era (1828-1968). Under this system the national parties would allocate the number of delegates among the several states. These delegates would then every four years go to the national convention to formally select the party's candidate for Presidency and Vice Presidency of the United States. In theory it was a bit more democratic than the caucus system because a larger number of people were involved in selecting the candidate. However the system was invariably dominated by the "party bosses" and was not an expression of the Democratic will. The 1968 election saw the national convention process come under much scrutiny for being undemocratic in an increasingly diverse and politically pluralist nation. As a result reforms were implemented that would transfer power away from the hands of party elites and more into the hands of the average voters. Primary elections which in the first half of the 20th century where mostly beauty contests became binding contests where delegates elected in were bound to vote for the candidate they were pledged to at the national convention (at least on the first ballot). As a result it was necessary for presidential candidates to actually compete in these primaries rather than relying on their allies to secure them the nomination at the convention. Candidates under the current system need to be able to campaign and fundraise in order to make through competitive primary elections. Candidates also need to have strong physical and mental endurance to make it through a years-long process. Some have come to argue that this system does not enhance the power of the President but actually may diminish it because they spend so much time campaigning and fundraising. Q 15: Four factors which help explain Howard Dean's rise to front-runner status in the period leading up to the 2004 presidential primary season include (1)his effective ability to raise money, (2) his revolutionary use of technology, (3) his strong grassroots and populist messaging, and (4) his high profile endorsements.’ Dean's ability to raise money through small online donations was evident in his third quarter financial reports which showed that he raised $15 million, nearly half of the money raised by the nine Democratic candidates in the third quarter. Half of Dean's $15 million in donations was from internet donations. This led the Dean campaign to raise so much money that he became the first democrat to forgo federal campaign matching funds. The Dean campaign did not only use the internet as a fundraising tool, but also as an avenue through which to build a grassroots online campaign focused on empowering people through communication, participation and mobilization. This became a tool for networking, volunteer recruitment, and community building. Blogs, forums, and email newsletters allowed Dean’s campaign to maintain direct communication with its base, keeping them engaged and informed. Additionally, Dean cultivated a powerful grassroots and populist brand to represent a rebellion against years of Clinton-era centrism. He famously said, “I’m here to represent the democratic wing of the democratic party”. Additionally, his anti-Iraq War stance made him popular as he was initially the only candidate willing to speak out on the war. His message of grassroots empowerment resonated with a significant number of young voters. Dean's campaign was further propelled forward by high profile endorsements from the two largest labor unions in the country, Al Gore, Bill Bradley, and Tom Harkin. These endorsements assured voters that Dean was a viable candidate with the backing of respected political leaders. The endorsements attracted more media coverage to Dean’s campaign, amplifying his position as the front-runner. Four factors which help account for Dean’s collapse are (1) his early success as a frontrunner which caused him to become a target by all others, (2) intense media scrutiny (3) his loss of Iowa and New Hampshire, and (4) the Dean Scream. Dean’s early success as a frontrunner placed an enormous target on his back for all the other candidates. His rivals recognized that to get to a nomination they must go through Dean. This created something of a “political firing squad” where all of his rivals are attacking him and launching negative media against him. Moreover, Dean’s success as a frontrunner put the spotlight on him, garnering intense media scrutiny. The press created three negative narratives of Dean. One, that he had a fiery, passionate, and short tempered personality. Two, that his temperament made him unfit to be a president. Three, that he was too inexperienced to be president especially in a post-9/11 period where national security is extremely contentious. For example, Dean expressed that the capture of Sadam Hussein didn’t make America any safer as it did not solve the problem of terrorism. This allowed critics to portray him as naive, inexperienced, incapable, or extreme, which undermined his momentum as a front-runner. The Iowa caucuses marked a pivotal moment in Dean's campaign. Despite earlier leads in polls, Dean finished third, behind John Kerry. This outcome was unexpected and dealt a significant blow to his campaign's momentum. During Dean's concession speech following his third-place finish in the Iowa Caucus he tried to rally voters in a passionate speech which became known as the “Dean Scream”. This was a political gaffe for which Dean was ridiculed heavily and gave the impression that he was unhinged and unpresidential. The incident became a turning point that confirmed existing media scrutiny of his temperament, and effectively ended his campaign.