Reply #37: He was no McGovern, and he was no Dole [View All]

[LittleClarkie]

He wasn't Mondale, or Dukakis. He looked like a winner. He felt like a winner. He wasn't even another Gore. Several people said it was Clinton-esque toward the end there. Even Bush looked worried.

That's why I can't believe it was Kerry's fault. Just when we feared he was Gore-ing himself, he made changes to the campaign and buoyed back up. It seems easier to believe voter suppression, if not outright fraud than to believe we could have been so wrong about the feeling we had at the end. We were so damn sure! The Closer had arrived!

It wasn't a Clinton campaign, but then Kerry doesn't have that immediate charisma that Clinton has. You have to really give him a good look before you realize he's a good man. It's hard to get people to do that. They're looking for sound bites. He wasn't a sound bites kind of guy.

What do you do when you have all those generals, economists, scientist and even conservative newspapers backing you, and no one will take notice?

I'd put his campaign at a level just below Clinton's, but better than most I've seen the Democrats stage in a while. I think that any of the candidates would have been eaten alive by the Rove machine. I don't think most would have held up as well as he did.

The man needs to trust his gut more than his staff next time. His gut told him to go after the Swift vets. He should have listened.