How could John Kerry run a better campaign in 04?
- Thread starter nathan2
- Start date
Admit that he actually was fore using force against Iraq because he did in fact vote for it instead of trying to twist himself into the shape of a pretzel while claiming that he did vote for but didn't really mean it.
He could have taken the whole issue off the table by simply saying, "Yes I voted for, yes I thought it was the right thing to do at the time but obviously the Bush Administration has hosed it up. In fact, by and large I agree with President Bush's strategy but his tactics are horrible so put me in the White House and I'll keep the same basic strategy but I'll do a better job of executing it." Or something like that.
I don't know how that plays with the anti-war base that Howard Dean whipped up though. In fact, I've long believed that Dean probably cost Kerry the election.
BTW, have Joe Lieberman as his running mate, not Edwards.
He could have taken the whole issue off the table by simply saying, "Yes I voted for, yes I thought it was the right thing to do at the time but obviously the Bush Administration has hosed it up. In fact, by and large I agree with President Bush's strategy but his tactics are horrible so put me in the White House and I'll keep the same basic strategy but I'll do a better job of executing it." Or something like that.
I don't know how that plays with the anti-war base that Howard Dean whipped up though. In fact, I've long believed that Dean probably cost Kerry the election.
BTW, have Joe Lieberman as his running mate, not Edwards.
usertron2020
Donor
Too recent, this should be in Chat
Google the following:
"Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"
"Republican Sound Machine"
"Fox News"
"Outfoxxed video"
"Roger Ailes"
"Karl Rove"
"SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR POLITICAL WHORING!"
"Civics 101 + US Senate + Voting Procedure"
"Usama bin Laden Political Bounce"
"In the tank + Corporate Ownership of Media"
"Power of the Incumbency"
The odds were stacked against Kerry from the get-go. The very fact that the so-called "effete liburall media" would not call out Bush for the swift boat whores and republican racism directed at his Portuguese/Mozambique wife is proof enough of that. Bush lied us into a war in Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and the media obsessed only on a question of parliamentary procedure (1) involving one single act in Kerry's long Senate tenure.
1) In which YES, it actually is necessary at times to vote for one preliminary action on the Senate floor and then vote against its final formatted state.
Remember that in both 2008 AND 2012 you had the same Clown Car members at Fixed News pouring over electoral maps of Ohio trying to conjure up some kind of "winning poll" for McCain & Romney. In both instances, it was Karl Rove who was left surrounded by his fellow republican operatives (reporters!?
), who had the unpleasant task of telling him that yes, finally, the GOP candidate had been mathematically eliminated in the Electoral College, while he never conceded anything (until security arrived, I assume).
How does Kerry do better? AISI, considering what he was up against, he did pretty damn good as it was. I frankly blame the American People for re-electing a man who lied (2) us into a war.
2) Nonexistent "yellow cake" + no Iraqi nuclear program + "aluminum tubes" + chemical facilities that turned out to be irrigation ditches + "mobile biowarfare vehicles" that turned out to be milk trucks..."
And we re-elected him. Though it did come down to a margin of 15,000 votes in SW Ohio, a region outside of Cincinnati itself that would be perfectly happy politically to be residing in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Google the following:
"Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"
"Republican Sound Machine"
"Fox News"
"Outfoxxed video"
"Roger Ailes"
"Karl Rove"
"SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR POLITICAL WHORING!"
"Civics 101 + US Senate + Voting Procedure"
"Usama bin Laden Political Bounce"
"In the tank + Corporate Ownership of Media"
"Power of the Incumbency"
The odds were stacked against Kerry from the get-go. The very fact that the so-called "effete liburall media" would not call out Bush for the swift boat whores and republican racism directed at his Portuguese/Mozambique wife is proof enough of that. Bush lied us into a war in Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and the media obsessed only on a question of parliamentary procedure (1) involving one single act in Kerry's long Senate tenure.
1) In which YES, it actually is necessary at times to vote for one preliminary action on the Senate floor and then vote against its final formatted state.
Remember that in both 2008 AND 2012 you had the same Clown Car members at Fixed News pouring over electoral maps of Ohio trying to conjure up some kind of "winning poll" for McCain & Romney. In both instances, it was Karl Rove who was left surrounded by his fellow republican operatives (reporters!?
), who had the unpleasant task of telling him that yes, finally, the GOP candidate had been mathematically eliminated in the Electoral College, while he never conceded anything (until security arrived, I assume).How does Kerry do better? AISI, considering what he was up against, he did pretty damn good as it was. I frankly blame the American People for re-electing a man who lied (2) us into a war.
2) Nonexistent "yellow cake" + no Iraqi nuclear program + "aluminum tubes" + chemical facilities that turned out to be irrigation ditches + "mobile biowarfare vehicles" that turned out to be milk trucks..."
And we re-elected him.
Though it did come down to a margin of 15,000 votes in SW Ohio, a region outside of Cincinnati itself that would be perfectly happy politically to be residing in the Oklahoma Panhandle.I agree with this. I also think he could've handled the whole Iraq war vote better to. Instead of "I was for it before I was against it", he could've said something along the lines of "I voted for it at the time because I believed what the administration was telling the American people about the Weapons of Mass destruction. I now know that there were no weapons in Iraq and if elected President, I will do what is necessary to stabilize Iraq and bring this war to an end."
I also remember Kerry's answer to everything in the debates was "I can do it better" or "I have a plan." He could've been more specific about what he was going to do as President, and while Edwards didn't seem like a bad VP pick at the time, he wasn't exceptional either, nor did he make North Carolina competitive. Kerry should've picked Dick Gephardt (I think Kerry himself regretted not picking him.)
I always felt that Obama vs. Romney in 2012 was disturbingly similar to Bush vs. Kerry in 2004 (even though Obama's victory in '12 was greater than Bush's in '04
), and I even felt that way in 2012.
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Kerry was more Dukakis than Kennedy. He needed passion, and needed to really tackle things. Instead, he had the same dispassionate Massachusetts disposition than undermined Dukakis. He took smears and attacks and did nothing. He allowed himself to become the joke and the stereotype of the long winded flip-flopper. Granted, the Bush campaign was sleazy. Rove was a disciple of Atwater, who was one of the most legitimately evil people there ever was. But he didn't even come in the ball-park of confronting all those Right Wing conspiracies and slanders. But in the long run, the problem was that there were no good Democratic candidates besides Kerry for 2004. All the candidates were the runners up from some alternate universe where Gore or Hillary Clinton decided to run. They didn't decide to run, so you were stuck with the secondary roster.
Kerry was just shockingly bad. But it is in his nature to do exactly what he did, and run exactly how he did. Bush was a vulnerable candidate in 2004. The tide of public opinion was starting to popularly turn against the administration and its policies. And people who disliked Bush in 2004 really, really hated him -- they weren't on the fence. And you can't defeat him? But that is the way Kerry was. There was hope he was just slacking and would fight in the last quarter, and win the election. he didn't.
Kerry was just shockingly bad. But it is in his nature to do exactly what he did, and run exactly how he did. Bush was a vulnerable candidate in 2004. The tide of public opinion was starting to popularly turn against the administration and its policies. And people who disliked Bush in 2004 really, really hated him -- they weren't on the fence. And you can't defeat him? But that is the way Kerry was. There was hope he was just slacking and would fight in the last quarter, and win the election. he didn't.
usertron2020
Donor
Well said. The Republicans haven't run a campaign even remotely clean since Dole in 1996, and even then Dole was reluctantly dragged in to the Clinton Wars via the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy [size=-4]tm[/size]
I agree with everything you say about Kerry. Consider:
Bush's polls were in single digits among Democrats, the low 20's (and dropping) among Independents, and STILL in the 70s among Republicans. You could say that Shrub DID do a very good job. As a man elected by one vote (Sandra Day O'Connor), he saw it as his duty to be President of the Republican States of America, and he ruled (1) accordingly. There was no title he had that he took more seriously than "Party Leader".
1) "Ruled" probably isn't the right word. With Karl Rove his campaign manager serving as his Chief-of-Staff, and granted unprecedented power in his Administration, Rove was a regular in the Situation Room. He was espousing the political and electoral ramifications of national security issues and the decisions over them. To SecState Colin Powell's fury.
But Powell was outnumbered and overruled by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, who ran an administration that was running in re-election mode 24/7 right up to Election Day 2006. Which is why, after that black day (for Bush), with a Congress in the hands of the Al Qaeda Democrats
, and no more electoral worlds to conquer, he basically went home to Crawford, Texas. Splitting his time between barbecuing and his painting, while "running the country" by phone.nathan2
Kicked
Yea, thing about his war hero image was that he was also against the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War after hearing about WMDs.
Correct me if Kerry did this, but...........
What if broke precedent and set up a shadow government, with a suggested CIA Director and Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, and Interior, tell people how this shadow administration would government differently from the Bush administration.
Let's say he also submits an alternative budget and drafts of international agreements and major legislation, and lets the shadow officials campaign for Kerry and his policies.
usertron2020
Donor
I see what you are saying, but the words "shadow government/shadow ministers/shadow cabinet" do not translate into the American lexicon. The USA has a republican system, not parliamentary. There IS no recognized Party Leader/Leader of the Opposition, as opposed to the President being Party Leader. Kerry would be seen as committing an unprecedented act of personal vainglory not seen since Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party. And Kerry of all people doing this is unimaginable.
This idea, if announced, would make Fixed News collectively orgasm with delight, and they'd run with it forever. Probably becomes as fixed in the American mindset as Fixed News' other works like "flip-flopper", "fascist-socialist", "islamo-fascist", RINO, and so on...
Well, the economy was okay in 2004 and Bush's approval rating in the CNN exit poll was 53%, so it wasn't a slam dunk.
I would say, besides avoiding the "I voted for it before I voted against it" line, coming out earlier against the war would help. In real life, Kerry mostly stressed competence, only explicitly saying the war was a mistake in mid-September of '04. It would have been better for him to have made this critique explicitly from the spring on, which would have allowed him to make a consistent charge against the war.
I would say, besides avoiding the "I voted for it before I voted against it" line, coming out earlier against the war would help. In real life, Kerry mostly stressed competence, only explicitly saying the war was a mistake in mid-September of '04. It would have been better for him to have made this critique explicitly from the spring on, which would have allowed him to make a consistent charge against the war.
Kingpoleon
Banned
Google the following:
"Vast Right Wing Conspiracy"
"Republican Sound Machine"
"Fox News"
"Outfoxxed video"
"Roger Ailes"
"Karl Rove"
"SWIFT BOAT VETERANS FOR POLITICAL WHORING!"
"Civics 101 + US Senate + Voting Procedure"
"Usama bin Laden Political Bounce"
"In the tank + Corporate Ownership of Media"
"Power of the Incumbency"
The odds were stacked against Kerry from the get-go. The very fact that the so-called "effete liburall media" would not call out Bush for the swift boat whores and republican racism directed at his Portuguese/Mozambique wife is proof enough of that. Bush lied us into a war in Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and the media obsessed only on a question of parliamentary procedure (1) involving one single act in Kerry's long Senate tenure.
1) In which YES, it actually is necessary at times to vote for one preliminary action on the Senate floor and then vote against its final formatted state.
Remember that in both 2008 AND 2012 you had the same Clown Car members at Fixed News pouring over electoral maps of Ohio trying to conjure up some kind of "winning poll" for McCain & Romney. In both instances, it was Karl Rove who was left surrounded by his fellow republican operatives (reporters!?
How does Kerry do better? AISI, considering what he was up against, he did pretty damn good as it was. I frankly blame the American People for re-electing a man who lied (2) us into a war.
2) Nonexistent "yellow cake" + no Iraqi nuclear program + "aluminum tubes" + chemical facilities that turned out to be irrigation ditches + "mobile biowarfare vehicles" that turned out to be milk trucks..."
And we re-elected him.
So, a vast right-wing conspiracy elected George W. Bush.
Um...
Kerry could/should've chosen a different running mate
but 2004 was a good cycle to lost anyway
but 2004 was a good cycle to lost anyway
usertron2020
Donor
Um, no. But W had the VRWC [size=-4]tm[/size] as a whole acting as his Ministry of Propaganda, with Fox at the center. Kerry had nothing like it, despite Fox's constant claims to the contrary.
It was the voters who re-elected Bush 2. Just like they did Richard (secret peace plan) Nixon. Not questioning for a heartbeat the legitimacy of the re-election of Ike and Reagan. But the only disputed post-ACW re-election campaign for a Democratic incumbent was 127 years ago in the Gilded Age, where the Democrat was robbed. The country was so pissed that they returned him to office 4 years later. I loved it when I read of Frances Folsom-Cleveland leaving the White House and telling the staff: "Don't change anything, we'll be back."
nathan2
Kicked
Okay, besides John Edwards and Howard Dean, who would you say would be better suited for vice presidency?
I would say Dick Gephardt. He could've swung Missouri and might've made the difference in Ohio. Bob Graham might've been able to swing Florida, although that might be a stretch considering W. did significantly better there in 2004 than he did in 2000. Either one of them would've been better than Edwards and while I do like Howard Dean, it would be too soon for him to be Kerry's running mate as the "Dean Scream" would've been fresh in people's minds.