Reply #3: The Dems have tried. [View All]

[Julien Sorel]

Bush being AWOL, Cheney and Halliburton, pointing out Bush's inconsistencies and so on. These attempts haven't really caught on for a few reasons. First, Bush is the incumbent, so people feel they "know" him. He went through the 2000 campaign, and was vetted there. He's been in office four years. Kerry was a relative unknown, which meant there was an opportunity for the Republicans to try to define him.

Second, the Democrats lack a counter to the "echo chamber," the conservative network of cable TV/hate radio that amplifies right wing spin. I stopped watching TV about 12 years ago, and recently began reading transcripts of some of these cable shows. They are simply hideous and overt in their bias, and that comes across loud and clear even without the benefit of vocal tone, inflection, and body language. Democrats lack a counter to the echo chamber, and the "mainstream media" often lack the brains and character to resist joining in on the spin party.

Finally, and this is something unique to this year, I hope, the anger of a segment of Democrats made it difficult on all the candidates. During the primaries, the activists demanded someone who would vomit a split pea soup of rage at Bush, and anyone who didn't was labeled a "pink tu tu Democrat," an "appeaser" and all sorts of nonsense. If you notice Bush's campaign, it's all been about trying to define Kerry's character, to create a negative image of him with the media (as they did so successfully with Gore), whereas the Democratic activists simply wanted to yell at Bush. It was puerile and counterproductive, as trying to frame your opponent takes patience and maneuvering and at least the trappings of tact, but it's kind of hard to scream at someone and be patient and deft at the same time. But the activists wanted their red meat, and to hell with the consequences to the actual job of winning the election. Kerry is still suffering for some of the things he had to do to shut up some of those shit throwing monkeys.


When the Democrats can keep the foolish sectors of the base in check, when the Democrats are able to go about the task of defining the character of their opponent, you might see things turn out a little differently next time around. The media are still a huge problem, and I'm not sure how to deal with that, but a segment of the base of the party has become a problem, rather than the source of power it should be, and those people need to be on board for a thoughtful attempt at running a character smearing campaign to work.