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If I don't win the nomination, where do you think those million and a half people, half a million on the Internet, where do you think they're going to go?" he said during a meeting with reporters. "I don't know where they're going to go. They're certainly not going to vote for a conventional Washington politician."
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Dean repeatedly has said he would endorse the eventual Democratic nominee and urge his supporters to do the same. But he said there are limits to the practical impact of his endorsement.
"That's not transferable. That's why endorsements are great but they don't guarantee anything," Dean said.
But, joking aside, yellow flag against Dean. The "electability" issue should be off the table, mostly. "I can beat George Bush" is fine. "The other guys can't" is not. This article over-spins what Dean was saying, but I'd prefer something more along the lines of "If I don't get the nomination I'll do anything and everything in my power to put whatever resources I've marshalled behind the candidate who will go head to head against Bush. I plan to devote 2004 for that purpose full time no matter who the nominee is." instead of "I'm worried my fans will take their balls and go home."
...one more comment. There are two things here - one reasonable one not. The idea that Dean supporters, on masse, would stay home on election day in November '04 is either completely false or completely disturbing. In any case, I don't believe it and I'm pretty annoyed that Dean would suggest it. The more I think about it the more annoyed I am. The issue of endorsement transferability is more mild - the obvious point is that the Dean grass roots Campaign Machine isn't necessarily transferable.
The undeniable statement is that any one of these candidate may be more or less likely to inspire any particular voter to go out and vote for them. But, the candidates should at every step encourage their hard core supporters - the ones who are even paying any attention to this nonsense in December '03 - to vote, donate to, and volunteer time to support whoever the nominee is. Any rhetoric which deliberately or not undercuts this idea should be off the table. And, any hard core supporter who wouldn't at least notionally embrace that idea should go to the mirror and start chanting "FOUR MORE YEARS!" for an evening.
In my silly little world, 10 candidates (yes, you too Bob Graham), spend 2004 campaigning, for the winner, with equal fervor as the candidate himself (sorry Ambassador Braun). Yes, I know that's not really going to happen, but the idea of that shouldn't be so ridiculous.