The senate losses show why it wouldn't matter who the nominee was

[fujiyama]

I've seen a lot of posts saying "Dean could have won". Maybe, but I find it highly unlikely. Clark, Edwards, and Gep may have, but there's little reason to believe that any of them could have won either.

If we take a look at several states that were considered possble battlegrounds early on - AR, WV, MO, and LA, we see we lost them all by HUGE margins. MO was within single digits, but the other two were lost with double digits.

As for OH, we came very close because so much time and effort was placed there. As for Florida, I'm still amazed Bush won it by 5 points. I'm not as surprised he won the state, but by that big a margin.

Anyways, we had senate races in several of the states. In Florida we had a good candidate in Castor. She lost. The margin was closer than Bush/Kerry but she lost nevertheless. We also lost seats in NC, SC, and LA.

I see no reason to believe ANY candidate would have faced a chance in these states. The only state where Kerry and democrats did significantly than Gore was in CO, where we won a senate seat.

Dean's major problem would have been similar to Kerry's, and that would have been his religosity. Dean is, to his credit, a secular person. Kerry, as a religious Catholic, still lost the Catholic vote, which is a major swing group. As much as I liked Dean, I see no reason to believe he could have done a better job with this group or any other.

We have to face it. The electoral map is closing on us. We should have seen the problem earlier on that it would be very difficult to win. Bush had an advantage in several ways, not counting the money, the BS lies, etc. The electoral map adjustement simply favored him. The states where he won in '00 were worth more. Likewise, many of those states also had huge fundamentalist populations. These evangelicals came out in droves especially in border states like MO and WV. What we were going after was defending all of the states Gore won, plus going after two states Bush won in '00. In that way, it should come as no surprise that two of the closest states Gore won, Kerry lost. NM was not really much of a win in '00 and neither was IA. We were defending much more territory. That too, FL had elected Jeb by a huge margin '02 so we shouldn't be so surprised.

Democrats are losing their way, not only in the south, but in the border states like WV and MO. The south I believe is pretty much lost. They have been taken over by fundamentalism. Dean had his strengths - he was clear and direct, but to many of the states they didn't care. All they would have known was that he signed a bill allowing gays to have civil unions. Would it matter to these people that civil unions aren't marriage? No, because as we saw it didn't matter if the republican candidates running were nut cases - three clear examples are Coburn, DeMint, and Bunning. Granted, these three states were never in play, but still it doesn't explain why we lost Florida as well.

Dean also would have faced the problem with his own wealthy background. He would have been accused of being an elite from a tiny, "hippie state".

As for '08, I have no idea as to how to proceede. I'm hoping for someone like Clark or Warner. Hopefully that may work.

[Justice]

1. Alaska and Oklahoma were particularly tough Senate losses

Because we had very strong candidates, and I thought the republican candidate in each state was not very strong.

[fujiyama]

2. Very true

and it shows that many states wouldn't elect a democrat regardless.

We lost because of one state - Ohio. It's frustrating becaus it was so close. I think people have to realize that this election was going to be nearly impossible regardless of who the candidate was.

[arewenotdemo]

3. If only Clark had hailed from Ohio.

I do think he could win in 2008, though, and Dean would not hurt as the VP choice.

[Robert Oak]

4. more evidence the insane Repub from Kentucky won for Senate n/t

[Awsi Dooger]

5. THis year we had a chance to steal it via the electoral college

DUers are not emphasizing enough how amazing it was to come within one state while losing nationally by 3.5 million votes and 48-51%. If we just had more depth, like a perfect VP choice from Ohio or Florida, it could have been one of the great strategic coups of all time.

It's remarkable we held so many senate seats in deep red states. That will naturally decline, just like so many of our house seats in red counties turned to the GOP in the '90s. What we need to do is reclaim some of the senate seats on our turf, Maine for example.

I agree, our electoral map is shrinking. Ohio figures to be MUCH more difficult, if the state economy is more in line with the nation's economy. We lost there even with just 41% assessing the state economy as good or excellent.

We lost because of white women. Period. I still think an ideal candidate could have prevailed, a likeable southern governor if we had one. Heck, if Kerry had just spent more time with positive commercials, showing his daughters with him, pictures of them while growing up, it might have been enough, at least to win Ohio. I know that sounds silly, but all the Bush bashing was wasted energy. It's what DUers wanted but it's not what swing voters were impressed by. Opinions of Bush were locked since the prison picture story faded in May.

A Republican friend of mine scolded me Monday afteroon for wagering on Kerry. He is hardly a blind partisan, anything but. "Come on, you know that's a stupid bet. Your politics and your hatred of Bush are going to cost you bigtime tomorrow night. The polls and the trends don't mean anything. Like you said all year, Kerry is just good enough to get you beat. Susie housewife is not voting for John Kerry and that's the election."