Reply #5: Very good point [View All]

[karynnj]

In fact, "Kerry" beat Bush in Feb, March '04 when people were first seeing him before the intense smear campaign. (In fact in Jan, Feb, all serious Democratic candidates (except Dean) beat Bush. Oddly, DU to the contrary, Dean may have been the only candidate that Bush would not have needed a smear campaign to beat. The real story was that the first info on each candidate was the view the candidates wanted to portray. The "generic Democrat" is usually even more positive.

More focus on either Edwards or Clark, might have eliminated their advantage over Bush. For Edwards, the problem is he could be portrayed as inexperienced (his youthful good looks actually could have hurt if there was anything at all that caused an inexperience theme to resonate.) The fact that his credentials were at least equal tp Bush in 2000 is irrelevant, because Bush had been President. Clark in his brief campaign was a tantalyzing white knight, until he simply made too many mistakes (saying he was "pro-abortion, appearing with Michael Moore, the tape praising Bush from early 2001 and the relevation that he had until a recent moment been a Republican. The flip flop theme would be easy for Clark.) So, it might have been the only one they needed a really tough negative campaign against was Kerry.

In retrospect, Gepheart and Graham may have been Kerry's more capable opponents. Kerry towered over the other and not just because he is so tall. It also shows the infatuation with charisma in picking candidates.