Would Kerry have won Ohio easily if they had nominated Kucinich for VP?

[bobweaver]

[mattclearing]

1. Doubt it.

Probably not worth the trouble it would cause to have a borderline radical a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

[Constitution]

32. Most certainly. Dennis was re-elected by more than 70%.

Half the Republicans in his district vote for him in every election.

[ISUGRADIA]

58. Uh, try 60% not 70% The Dems in his own CD did not even

vote in a majority for him for president. He got 9% in the Ohio primary. Not exactly strong among the Dem base there compared to Edwards or Kerry.

[MsConduct]

2. Good question....Kucinich was my first choice for Prez. Dean was...

my second choice, Kerry was my last.

[Albert Einstein]

35. Kucinich was my first choice and he would have guaranteed Ohio.

He had a larger percentage of Republicans in his district than there were Republicans in the state of Ohio and he got a landslide. He might have helped Kerry get that landslide if he were his VP nominee.

[MsConduct]

42. Thanks for the info. Too bad Kerry didn't take that into consideration,

huh? Oh well, too late now. LOL

[serryjw]

3. DK would never have taken it......

he is absolutely against corporate donations and would have never played the game the way JK does.

[JI7]

4. will Kucinich run for Senate ?

[cyclezealot]

11. Hope not.

Rural Ohio is a lost cause. Until the working class understands right wing values is a cover up for economic sell outs- such places are a waste of progressives time..
Dennis stay on as Progressive Chair leader...He need team up with the likes of Bernie Sanders and Cynthia McKinney..There he can make a difference.

[MercutioATC]

5. Nope. Kucinich is not that popular outside of Cleveland.

..and Kerry won Cleveland.

There are plenty of us IN Cleveland who think Kucinich is a little strange...

[cyclezealot]

8. He is strange only in his wealth of information is overwhealming.

I have sat with DK and ate at his table...He is a regular Howard Zinn and an encyclopedia of information about history, current events..The man does his homework..
If he is strange because he will not bend to corporate bribes, dedication to the working people, a vegetarian.So be it..The man can site facts without notes for hours about nuclear weapons, economics, poetry , music, plays, literature..
He is brillant..if it is strange to be brillant and knowledgable, I am proud of strange..
He had his listeners standing on their chairs with enthusism..He is strange only to those that can't understand those with principals and dedication to causes...
Radical . That is redicilious..His profound love of his coutry is obvious to all who listen..
How he can know of our jaded actions in Central America, Afghanistan, Iran and be so patriotic beats me.
It is a disappointment when progressives buy into the radical bit..Radical, doubt most of us know what that means.
.Radical...'proceeding to the root.'.That is Dennis' definition. To think we are affected by Reaganisms slanderings...We use the word radical to block out real argument..When we are too lazy to explore the root causes of our social problems.

[MercutioATC]

9. Don't get me wrong...I agree that he's very knowledgeable

and very intelligent.

He's also very strange.


Remember the "Waaaaaaaaaarrr" sound bite from the primary debates? That's really him. He has some great ideas, but I don't think the general populace is ready for some of them, and he tends to sound like a complete wonk (or worse) at times.

I like Dennis, but I don't think he can garner enough support to be a real contender.

[cyclezealot]

12. He used the waaar comment at our rally in Los Angeles .

I thought it effective..Showed the passion we need feel about the neo cons plans for war without end...Dennis, hit the nail on the head...Caused lots of us to applaud..

[MercutioATC]

14. I'm really not trying to be disrespectful.

I DO think he's an intelligent man and I think his heart's in the right place.

I just think he has issues resonating with most people.

[ohioan]

29. Fully agree

[NNadir]

54. I have no doubt that you find Kucinich intelligent. I don't.

Any person who, as Kucinich did, introduced HR2977, (which he then disavowed on the grounds that he didn't know what was in it), is not playing with a full deck.

I would have voted for Kucinich over Bush on the grounds that the foci of their insanities are different but I doubt the outcome for the United States would have been qualitatively different; a path for total and irreversible collapse. As it happens, our country is doomed, but I suppose the only difference between doom by Kucinich and doom by Bush is that doom by Kucinich would have had a certain whacky and whimsical quality to it.

With Bush there will only be horror.

In point of fact, our nutcase, Kucinich, only got 2% of our vote, whereas their nutcase...well...'nuff said.

[yardwork]

49. As a native Ohioan I agree with that assessment

Kucinich would not have played well at all in Ohio outside Cleveland. He wouldn't have played well anywhere in the U.S. except the deep blue communities.

I say that as a person who agrees with most everything Kucinich says. I think he's great and I'd love to have him in the White House.

Realistically, in this environment, I think that Edwards was a very good choice for Kerry. I think that Edwards blunted the WH's attacks on Kerry as a "far-out liberal." Unfortunately, the swift boat liars and the flip flop meme and the other lies sank Kerry in many communities.

Kerry needed to fight those lies harder and sooner.

Even so, remember that Kerry probably won the election! We didn't do badly - we're up against a corrupt machine. That's our biggest problem.

[flordehinojos]

6. Kerry could have had the POPe or Jesus Himself as a running mate. Short of

a miracle from heaven to stop the Diebold machines from stealing the elections....no one other than Bush was slated to win the elections.

[skippythwndrdog]

28. BTW, no Diebold machines in Ohio.

The SOS's office did not approve them.

[genius]

37. The problem was the tabulating machines

Not the BBVs

[skippythwndrdog]

48. Tell me about these. n/t

[ChiciB1]

39. TRUTH HAS JUST BEEN

SPOKEN. The fix was in and also here in Florida. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that fixing a few machines in a certain amount of states would give Bush more popular votes so he could say he got "his mandate!" B.S.

We'll NEVER know to what extent we were corrupted. I think it was fiddled with all over the country. I live in Florida and having a brother as Gov. for both elections didn't hurt any either. One of my big gripes about Jeb was that even when given the chance to do right, he still appointed ANOTHER Republican Supervisor of Elections. If he really wanted to show that he was fair minded he could have TRIED to appoint someone else. Frankly, I almost think Florida should have been RECUSED this time around. The deck was stacked and we all got duped again.

Somehow, we're going to have to get a complete overhaul of the system, because it just keeps getting worse!

[CatWoman]

7. No one seems to get it

if we ran Jesus Christ, he still would have lost.

The election was fucking stolen.

PERIOD.

[zann725]

13. Thank you! Took the words right out of my blog!

n/t

[merh]

34. If we had run Dale Earnhardt , they would have stolen it

Or Ghandi, or Martin Luther King, Jr., or Elvis, or the big dawg or Moses

WE STILL WOULD HAVE LOST BECAUSE THEY STOLEN THE ELECTION!

[jsw_81]

10. No

Kucinich is a far-left radical who is extremely unpopular outside of Cleveland. Had he been on the ticket we probably would have lost Ohio by twenty points rather than two.

[LittleClarkie]

15. He didn't have enough name recognition to be :extremely unpopular

To the Repubs around here, he was just the one who looked like a Christmas elf. The field was so full of candidates, when people got to Kucinich, they had trouble remembering his name even.

[WO4US]

16. The vote was rigged -- impossible for Kerry to win EVER . . .

even if his running mate was Jesus Christ incarnate! If the evoting or vote counting source code was written, for example, to say IF votes for Candidate D are greater than votes for Candidate R (as in "rong"), give 51% of total votes to Candidate R. Makes it ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE for Candidate D (as in "Damn! I was robbed!")to EVER win more votes.

[radfringe]

17. wouldn't matter

(welcome aboard WO4US)

you said it! So Kerry picks Kucinich and wins Ohio -- but loses another state and we are right back to the same place

I know there is emphasis placed on VP selection and what a VP candidate can do to "bring in" a particular state -- but VP candidates are not the major reason for voting for president

The only time a VP candidate would have a MAJOR effect is if that person is embroiled in a scandal or comes off as totally incompetent - and this would have a NEGATIVE effect

Although in recent years the "job" and influence of a VP has been expanded -- the main purpose of having a VP is for the line of succession. If succession were a HUGE concern then we would also be considering "selections/elections" from the House Speaker on down the line to "Chief Lavatory Inspector of the 4th floor"

The problem is NOT should Kerry have picked so'n'so -- the problem is in the election process and having a credible election

as someone once said "...it's easier to steal a close election that a landslide..."

[imenja]

18. no

Bush would have won in a landslide.

[Cuban_Liberal]

19. No.

Kucinich didn't even carry his own Congressional district in the primaries, and he's lost both of the statewide races he's run in the past.

[Killarney]

20. Um, no.

[WI_DEM]

21. Probably not. DK came in fourth in his states primary

It isn't a rap against DK but a congressman doesn't have a lot of pull statewide, which is why DK should try for the Senate or Governor.

[cyclezealot]

22. Why dump on DK..

Almost every Democrat has done poorly in Ohio..You are looking for a miracle worker...
Sherrod Brown..Now a US Rep...Very impressive guy...Did poorly..The list is long of similiar candidates.. Political almanacs say Ohio south of Columbus is 'Copperhead ' country..Should a Democrat carry such areas, might not be worth a damn...
Democrat sell us out on trade, won't get my vote...Example , Sen. Bayh of nearby Indiana...Have to win w/o my help...Americans: wonder about their mental abilities...Ohio, Indiana..States which have had blue collar job hemmorage..
Dennis...You are our hero..Dennis Kucinich . Selling out is not in your vocublary...

[WI_DEM]

31. out of all the posts against DK here you think mine was dumping on DK?

I thought I was pretty mild.

[Zorra]

23. Old DU Thread which shows what DK has done and tried to do for us.

Started by Tinoire:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=10913

Democrats that trash DK are like voters that vote against their own interests

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. Too Bad John Glenn Wasn't Twenty Years Younger... (nt)

[yardwork]

50. John Glenn lost in the primaries twenty years ago

[DemocratSinceBirth]

52. He Didn't Lose Ohio

We are talking about Ohio....

[yardwork]

57. I know, but what's the point of carrying OH if you lose the national?

Anyway, it doesn't matter who we ran this time. The fix was in. Kerry was an excellent candidate, and Edwards was an excellent running-mate, and we had an excellent primary with lots of good candidates, including Kucinich, who raised a lot of important points.

I refuse to get into bashing one another. The Democrats are a wonderful party and I believe that a majority of Americans agreed, just as they did in 2000.

The problem is the vote-fixing. Huge problem.

[Padraig18]

25. No. n/t

[Sean Reynolds]

26. Did Kerry win North Carolina with Edwards as his VP?

[ohioan]

30. Excellent point

And Edwards had won a statewide race in his state. Kucinich resonates with a small group of Democrats, but he would have been a major drag on the ticket. He's a good man, but he is very strange.

[cyclezealot]

41. The basis of this strange comment.

I have stood with this man at his rallies...Sat at the same table; talked about generalities to him....Strange is just redicilious.
Progressives should learn to take imagery fed by the Likes of Fox news commentators with a grain of salt...
His life's experiences is legend...Real working class experiences.Exactly what we need over some fat cat prep boy been spoon fed all his life..Those who belong to skull and crossbones should be the one's whose lives are examined for strangeness..
Veganism...What we have a network of Clear Channel exec's from Texas pandering to the meat lobby with their boycotts of Vegans..Kucinich's diet looks like it has done wonders for his appearance at someone in his fifties his mental comprehension is about as broad as anyone in the entire government.
I am not a vegan,but I commend those who are...
Kucinich being strange...Just unfounded media fed misinformation.
But then, someone who adheres to principal over accepting bribe money from fat cats..Yeah, that is unique. Thank god, we have some principaled people in this land.

[ohioan]

44. My observation is not based on "unfounded media fed misinformation"

I have known Dennis well and worked closely with him for a number of years. I have a well-founded opinion, based on considerably more than having stood with him at rallies or sitting at a table and talking generalitis with him a few times.

As I've said, he's a good man. But he is strange - and not because of adherence to principles. He's just odd. And I am not alone in this opinion. Obviously, you hold a different opinion. So be it.

[cyclezealot]

62. Watching his mannerisms, speeches.

Only way he is odd is that his intellect and grasp of issues is way and above the comprehension of most listeners..Can't dumb down issues to sound bites..Thank god not all have the talent...Guess, Dubya is the master of that talent. Wow is us..
Since listening to his speeches gives me no clue to your charge, specifics would be in order.

[cdp]

36. Did Kerry even make a dent in NC

compared to 2000?

[Ms_Mary]

45. Look here

I don't know about the comparison to 2000 yet, but if you click on the Kerry strength tab, the state turns nicely blue. You can see where he got the most support.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/NC/P/00/map.html

[cdp]

46. Kerry did NOT make a dent in NC

North Carolina Election Results
2000 Bush 56%, Gore 43%
2004 Bush 56%, Kerry 44%

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/results/index.epolls.html
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/NC/P/00/index.html

Historically, the VP candidate's home state isn't won nearly as much as the Presidential candidate's home state. Check out http://www.PresidentElect.org or my thread about it
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=108x118028

[yardwork]

51. Yes, Kerry did fairly well in NC this time even with the vote problems

Nobody has talked about this, but NC had serious muck-ups with vote tallies in this past election. One county is now going to have a revote for Agriculture because almost 4,000 votes disappeared off an electronic machine, and the statewide race is closer than the lost votes.

btw, Agriculture is a hugely important and influential position in NC.

It's entirely possible that there were more votes for Kerry in NC that went down the rat hole. I think it is possible that Erskine Bowles might have actually won senator. We'll never know.

The fix is in. This is our biggest problem! Not our candidates.

The fix is in.

[Radical Activist]

27. Not easily

It would have been a fight but it would have helped. Turnout probably would have been higher in Cleveland. There were people outside Kucinich's district that voted for him in the primary because he's from Ohio. It would have helped.

[merh]

33. No bobweaver, he would not

they still would have stolen the votes!
But Kerry is taking a stand!
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041213/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_recount&cid=536&ncid=536

[Sub Zero]

38. Yes

It would have brought out progressives in droves. Probably would have given the ticket an additional 500,000 votes in ohio by its self. (I'm SURE there at LEAST that many progressives in the state)

[yardwork]

53. If there are 500,000 people in OH who didn't vote for Kerry

but would have voted for Kerry if Kucinich were on the ticket, then all I can say is god help them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. Its the machines stupid eom

[fujiyama]

43. No

Kerry would likely have lost it by an even larger margin.

[dansolo]

47. The polls wouldn't have had him close

The people that Kerry was desperately trying to appeal to would have been scared away by Kucinich. This isn't a knock on Kucinich, but on Kerry's strategy. Kucinich may have gained him a few Democratic voters who were disgusted enough with Kerry to not vote or to vote for someone else, but he would have lost a lot of the "swing" voters, that Kucinich would not have appealed to.

[ldf]

55. but kerry did win ohio

and until you prove to me that he didn't, that's what i'm believing.

[LiberalAndProud]

56. Bush won because he started a war.

The "Don't change horses" meme is real for many people. I don't think there is a candidate who would have done better than Kerry did.

Many many people feel that Bush has done and is doing a good job. They believe it because he says it's so. So it's so.

Having only joined the DU community in November, I know that discenting voices are not heard off the net. That is the fact of the matter.

I find myself wondering what I don't know because I depended on MSM and Rush to get me the news. I'm sure that I have been blissfully unaware of the truth for the last 4 years. I briefly considered going back to that world, because it is less painful there.

[ShaneGR]

59. No, Kucinich really isn't very popular outside Cleveland

And a lot of people in Cleveland (Particularly the east side) don't like him because of his days as mayor (Which weren't very successful).

[KerryReallyWon]

60. Dennis Kucinich could have delivered Ohio, but they rig that too!

[Old Mouse]

61. NO! NO! NO!

The race was never about the electability of the candidates. Not one of the Democratic contenders was more "noble" or had a better "message" than another. hey were all good people who opened their lives and families to a level of scrutiny and derision that would give most of us a nervous breakdown.

The Republican propaganda machine ripped the Democratic candidate's public persona to shreds, and even set us against each other. You could have run the love child of Mother Teresa and Captain America and the result would have been the same.

We have to stop this senseless fighting from within. All of this egotistic supposition and passing blame takes energy and support from the important work of loosening the Republican hold over the media.