By Bob Benenson

Which Democrat quit the 2004 presidential race right after the Iowa caucuses?

a) Howard Dean

b) Richard A. Gephardt

c) Joseph I. Lieberman

d) Wesley Clark

Answer: b) Gephardt, a longtime House Democratic leader who was in his 14th term representing a district in neighboring Missouri, had to do well in Iowa in order to be considered a serious contender for the 2004 nomination. He had won the Iowa caucuses in his initial presidential bid in 1988, though he was unable to sustain any momentum in a nominating contest that went to Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis.

But Gephardt’s longtime alliance with organized labor failed to produce the phalanx of union endorsements for which he had hoped, and his bland image turned out to be a hindrance. The Jan. 19 Iowa precinct caucuses netted him just 11 percent of the delegates for the ensuing county conventions, placing him fourth behind Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (37 percent), North Carolina Sen. John Edwards (33 percent) and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (17 percent). Gephardt, who did not seek re-election to the House that year, officially withdrew from the presidential race the next day and eventually endorsed Kerry, who went on to win the nomination but narrowly lost to President George W. Bush that November.

Dean’s campaign also imploded in Iowa, and in a more memorable fashion. His strongly stated opposition to the war in Iraq that Bush launched in March 2003 rapidly drew him an activist following that lifted him from virtual unknown to, briefly, the leader in national Democratic candidate preference polls. But the heated rhetoric Dean used on the campaign trail started to wear thin at the same time that Kerry, the early front-runner, overcame a plodding start and gained some momentum. Already politically wounded by his poor showing in Iowa, Dean irreparably damaged his campaign with a hyperkinetic pep talk to supporters on caucus night that he ended with an odd yelp that — after repeated replays on TV and the Web — became known as the “Dean scream.”

Nonetheless, Dean hung on to try to regain his footing in the next big event, the New Hampshire primary eight days later. And even after running well behind Kerry there, he stayed in the race until the Feb. 17 Wisconsin primary, in which he again finished a distant third behind Kerry and Edwards.

Lieberman had hoped Democrats would see him as the heir apparent to the 2004 nomination after he ran on the narrowly unsuccessful 2000 Democratic ticket headed by then-Vice President Al Gore. But Lieberman’s emergence as the most outspoken congressional Democratic supporter of Bush’s Iraq policies was a massive turnoff to Democratic activists. Lieberman chose not to even compete in the Iowa caucuses and received no county delegates, but he did not leave the race until after a poor showing in New Hampshire and in the Feb. 3 Delaware primary.

Clark, a retired general who had commanded NATO forces in the Balkan conflict of the late 1990s, had entered the race late, in September 2003, and did not compete in Iowa. He did briefly emerge as a competitive candidate after edging Edwards for third place in New Hampshire behind Kerry and Dean, but was out of the race by mid-February.