Was Howard Dean the victim, and John Kerry the beneficiary, of the phenomenon of psychological framing as explained in this product pricing example?
In a political context the framing would go like this: Through his early lead and absurd amounts of press coverage of Deans "acerbic" rhetoric, Dean has established a boundary of the reasonable that makes Kerry's Bush bashing seem like solid middle ground? If that is the case then Dean should be commended for moving the middle ground off the usual "We all cut taxes and we all support the troops, believe in god and stay silent on abortien" middle ground driven by the christian right in another fine exercise of psychological framing.

[UPDATE] - I think this was Kevin Werbach's point also.