Howard Dean supporters in Lawrence were scratching their heads in stunned amazement Monday night as they watched the returns from the Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses.

“Maybe Dean isn’t finished, but I think this is a terrible blow,” said Rex Powell, a retired Lawrence elementary and high school teacher. “It shows Dean just didn’t resonate with these people.”

Others, however, weren’t as pessimistic.

Jeni Weinberg wasn’t ready to see the former Vermont governor throw in the towel and concede the rest of the race to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry or North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the two big winners in the caucuses.

“I’ll support whoever ends up winning, but this is far from over,” Weinberg said.

Lauren Sullivan, Lawrence for Dean coordinator, agreed. Sullivan said she wasn’t surprised Dean didn’t win the caucuses, but she said she expected at least second place.

“It’s amazingly upbeat here,” Sullivan said Monday night in a telephone interview from Dean’s headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa. “Clearly things have happened here and we need to learn from this.”

Both Sullivan and Weinberg said they thought the media’s influence played a key role in Dean’s third-place finish.

“As soon as he dropped a couple of percentage points (in polls) the media was talking about the Dean downfall,” Weinberg said.

Sullivan, Weinberg and Powell were among several Lawrence Dean supporters who spent time in Iowa stumping for their candidate. As the time for the caucuses grew near, Iowans appeared to be growing weary of being accosted by activists stumping for votes, they said.

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But most also were keeping their sense of humor about all the attention, supporters said.

“I think they are sick to death of not just the Dean people but all of us,” said Sullivan, who spent much of the past few days in Ames, Iowa.

“We were doing better making connections with people hanging out in coffee houses and talking to people who actually live and work there,” Sullivan said.

As many as 3,000 Dean supporters from throughout the country went to Iowa.

“I’m sure they were overwhelmed, but I think they also were flattered,” said Powell, who made two separate trips to Iowa.

“Usually you just start talking and they listen,” Powell said. Weinberg recalled visiting a man who had received multiple copies of mailed fliers from both Dean and Kerry. While she was there the man’s phone rang, and into the answering machine came a taped message from Sen. Edward Kennedy asking for a vote for Kerry.

“He said yes, it is a little bit of over the top, but he seemed to like getting the attention,” Weinberg said.

Republicans haven’t gone unheard in Iowa. Weinberg saw dozens of college-age supporters of President George W. Bush crash Saturday night’s Dean bash at Drake University, which featured rock singer Joan Jett and comedian Janeane Garafalo.

Weinberg was close to the stage with a video camera and taped some of the Republicans who came in with signs, banners and chanted Bush’s name. They grabbed signs from Dean supporters and one of them bumped Jett, Weinberg said.

“She said, ‘You can hit me, but don’t mess with my guitar,'” Weinberg said. “It was absolutely incredible.”

Dean supporters started singing the national anthem to drown out the Bush people, who were finally ushered out by security, Weinberg said.