Arianna Huffington: "Kerry was not bold enough to win"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/huffington/2004/11/08/caution/

Nov. 8, 2004 | The reason it's so important to make this crystal clear -- even as Kerry's concession speech is still ringing in our ears -- is that to the victors go not only the spoils but the explanations. And the Republicans are framing their victory as the triumph of conservative moral values and the wedge cultural issues they exploited throughout the campaign.

But it wasn't gay marriage that did the Democrats in; it was the fatal decision to make the pursuit of undecided voters the overarching strategy of the Kerry campaign.

This meant that at every turn the campaign chose caution over boldness so as not to offend the undecideds who, as a group, long to be soothed and reassured rather than challenged and inspired.

This timid, spineless, walking-on-eggshells strategy -- with no central theme or moral vision -- played right into the hands of the Bush-Cheney team's portrayal of Kerry as an unprincipled, equivocating flip-flopper who, in a time of war and national unease, stood for nothing other than his desire to become president.

[tjdee]

1. Didn't she lose a governor election last year?

How nice of her to armchair quarterback on this one.

[SemperEadem]

16. no, she withdrew from the race

[Ducks In A Row]

2. She can eat shit. She's part of the MSM lockdown on the fraud story

so ignore her.

[andyhappy]

9. what is MSM?

[emulatorloo]

12. Main Stream Media n/t

[nolabels]

19. Does that mean it's okay to rail against the Corporate Mass Media

I once considered myself kind of nut for railing against the abomination.

I now feel like it was a failure, I didn't bag on them enough :shrug:

Everything I could find out pointed me to them being the main problem. In retrospect I now find I was mostly only seeing the half of it.

[Democat]

3. A Democrat who plays it safe instead of reaching out to his own base?

That's quite a shock!

[Mizmoon]

4. I have never liked Arianna

I cannot for the life of me understand why Salon publishes her lame excuses for "insights".

edited to add: I remember a column of hers in which she claimed that the biggest issue of the election was going to be (drumroll please) murcury in salmon and tuna.

Riiiiiiight, Adrianna.

[auburngrad82]

5. Hell, if being "bald enough" is the requirement I could do it

Oh, "bold."

Nevermind.

[NAO]

24. Does Anyone Have a video of the CA Gubernatorial Debates w/Huff vs/ Arnold

That had to be a delight to hear. Arnold and Arianna in the battle of the dueling accents. Could they understand each other? Could others understand them? It must have sounded funny.

[BearFlagDemocrat]

6. She's right

I don't agree that that's why we lost -- I think voter fraud had something to do with that -- but I think that's why we didn't lose big enough to overcome the fraud. Characterizing Kerry as a "flip flopper" was something that the Dems never could overcome.

[Killarney]

7. Arianna Huffington: Monday Morning Quarterback Extrordanaire

[THUNDER HANDS]

8. what she needs to understand is that Kerry is too honest to be bold

Boldness would have been laughed off, because there's no way Kerry could have done anything bold in his presidency. The House and Senate are controlled by the opposite party. The war in Iraq was a mess that doesn't have a workable exit strategy. The national debt would forbid him from starting any bold new social programs.

What was there left to do?

Just try to fix a huge mess. That may not be bold, but it was honest. And Kerry respected the intelligence of the American people too much to tell them things they wanted to hear that he knew he couldn't deliver.

The most bold aspect of Kerry's presidency would have been his veto pen. It would have been the most used pen in history and probably given Kerry carpel tunnel from having to use it so much.

[Ninga]

10. OK Gang, answer these questions honestly

1. Did Bush stray from the conservative message?
2. Did Bush campaign to his base?
3. Did Bush move to the center?



1. Did Kerry stray from the liberal messsage?
2. Did Kerry campaign to his base?
3. Did Kerry move to the center?
4. Did Kerry fight back?
5. Did Kerry fight fire with fire (dirty)?
6. Did Kerry spit in the eye of the SBVT????
7. Did Kerry say "knowing what I know I would have still
voted for the war?"

[MoJoWorkin]

11. you are right on with those soul-searching questions

[mazzarro]

15. You nailed it right there!

We need to get a handle on what went bad for our side. The fact that there are evidence of fraud is something we all agree on. We also want to encourage our side to pursue and do something about this apparent fraud. However, we also need to look at issues that affect how our side runs campaigns. And this is necessary if we want to do better in the future. It is clear that the DLC's policy of tailoring campaigns towards undecideds and independents without much regard to the democratic base, leaves the base open and ripe for picking with any kind of appeal - ie 'moral value'. We needed to solidify and protect our base - which we did not. We should also attempt to fight for votes in all areas of the country and not cede some areas to the reThugs from the start. I feel strongly that we have to get rid of DLC's strangle hold on how we run our campaigns.

[mondo joe]

17. The PERFECT set of questions. Especially #7.

Especially #7.

[AndyTiedye]

20. answers

1. Did Bush stray from the conservative message? Yes
2. Did Bush campaign to his base? Yes
3. Did Bush move to the center? Yes
Flip-flopping is OK if Republicans do it.

1. Did Kerry stray from the liberal messsage? Yes
2. Did Kerry campaign to his base? Yes. That seems to be what people are criticizing him for a lot lately.
3. Did Kerry move to the center? OF COURSE
4. Did Kerry fight back? Yes, but we were hopelessly outgunned by the media echo chamber
5. Did Kerry fight fire with fire (dirty)? Of Course Not. Only Republicans Can Get Away With that!
6. Did Kerry spit in the eye of the SBVT???? Yes, but nobody noticed.
7. Did Kerry say "knowing what I know I would have still voted for the war?" Please don't remind me!

[AndyTiedye]

13. She's Right about the "Undecided" Voters

They were the ones who know Bushler was screwing them,
but whose church forbade them from voting for Kerry,
or who had drunk too much Faux kool-aid and believed all the lies.

[sleipnir]

14. She's absolutely right.

Kerry lost because he was more interested in appeasement of the undecided voter than firing up our Party and demanding change.

[sendero]

18. And why did he do that?

Because he expected the ABB sentiment to turn out the Dems. Frankly, I thought it would also. But I guess it didn't.

Oh well.....

[AndyTiedye]

21. I Have Never Seen Our Party So Fired-Up

I agree that the undecided voters were a lost cause (and said so many times),
but how could he have gotten the party any more fired-up than we were?

[Piperay]

22. She's correct

you can't win if you aren't willing to lose, Kerry was to cautious to afraid to take bold chances.

Howard Dean was bold.

[NAO]

23. Kerry's 'lack of boldness' was Media Construct - AH should have read Kerry

I read Arianna Huffington's "Fanatics and Fools" right when it came out in early 2004. I was absolutely impressed by it and really hoped the Democratic nominee would take up her ideas.

Then this summer I read John Kerry's "A Call to Service" and I had to check the copyright page to make sure Kerry had not plagiarized Huffington. Nope, it was the other way around. I don't doubt Arianna's sincerity, because if I did I would think she just shamelessly plagiarized Kerry.

Many of the 'bold proposals' and even the structure of the arguments for those proposals were made by Kerry in his book in 2003, long before Huffington wrote her book.

As to how bold Kerry was in the execution of his very bold ideas, that remains debatable. Some of his alleged 'lack of boldness' was a deliberate hack-job by the media. Out of an hour long speech, they would find the most lifeless, convoluted, wishy-washy sounding quote and play THAT and ONLY THAT. Or worse, they would play a clip of a rare moment when Bush sounded good, and then just 'rehash' what Kerry said.

This had the effect of keeping people unfamiliar with Kerry, his style and his message - all they knew was media hacks saying "Kerry said this". This style of media coverage also was responsible for most people saying they 'did not know who Kerry was' and they 'did not know what he stood for'.

The first time most people got an honest look at Kerry was the debates. Arianna should go back and watch that first debate again and realize how much Kerry's 'lack of boldness' was a media construction.

[NAO]

25. Arianna is DEAD WRONG. JFK himself could not have beat the Evangelicals

I do like Arianna, but this 'not bold enough' crap was a cheap shot - the worst kind of post-election quarterbacking and blame-assigning backstabbing. It also shows that she lacks adequate insight into the entirety of the situation.

Kerry could have been a lump of clay and won by a landslide - if it were not for millions of brainwashed Evangelical Christians. John F. Kennedy himself would have lost to that pathetic toad, given the circumstances in the electorate in November 2004.

It had nothing to do with boldness or the issues or how the campaign was run. Bush had a terrible record, was on the wrong side of the real issues that should matter (jobs, economy, health care, education, literacy) and his only attractive points were the religious issues. (his tax policy benefited only a tiny few and that was established by a GAO report).

People nned to think about and realize what REALLY happened in this election - the largest most unified progressive coalition in history was defeated by a moronic failure of a candidate with the most dismal record in 70 years.

The ONLY way to understand how this happened is to take a closer look at the religious right. Talk about platforms, or candidates and their charisma, or about campaign tactics completely misses the point. These people would have voted for Bush NO MATTER WHO RAN, REGARDLESS OF WHAT THEY RAN ON.

Unless we had ran a born-again Christian who was rabidly anti-abortion and anti-gay WE WERE GOING TO LOSE. And if we had ran an anti-abortion, anti-gay candidate, we would have STILL garnered the support of Planned Parenthood and the rainbows. After all, we ran a saber rattling, pro-war candidate, and we still got the support of the anti-war movement including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Dennis Kucinich! Think about that, and tell me our loss had ANYTHING to do with who we ran or our stand on the issues.

*****

Understanding the Religious Right

Conquering by Stealth and Deception
How the Dominionists Are Succeeding in Their Quest for National Control and World Power By Katherine Yurica
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheSwiftAdvanceOfaPlannedCoup.htm

The Despoiling of America
How George W. Bush became the head of the new American Dominionist Church/State By Katherine Yurica
http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm