We made the mistake of the millennium & can never repeat it again.

[mtnsnake]

We tried running a candidate who'd look like a better wartime president, when we should've simply just run a candidate who'd make a better PRESIDENT, period. The war should’ve been an issue, not THE issue. Had we gotten into office, we could’ve then made it THE issue.

Because of who we ran, and the theme we chose, the ONLY thing people were thinking about was the war. They totally forgot about everything else....the economy, the jobs, the environment...everything. The Democrats chose a war hero to beat a war coward and that's when it all backfired with all the lies and innuendo. Had we run on an overall theme of who'd make the more competent president, not just the better WAR president, we would've mopped the floor with Bush.

When you're running against the most pathetic president in history, you cannot chose a theme that turns it into a one-issue campaign in his favor. We shot ourselves in the foot right from the get go. What a monumental blunder to pick a theme like that.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. kerry was a great presidential candidate

and aside from Kucinich the most liberal one of them.

[NoSheep]

2. I agree. I really liked Kerry. Who would have been better?

[mtnsnake]

5. In retrospect, possibly anyone. Clark comes to mind first.

I think Dean was the best candidate but the war thing might've hurt him, too. Clark sounded like he was the candidate who was concentrating on all of Bush's weaknesses of his first term.

[mtnsnake]

3. Doesn't matter. The campaign's trheme was a war theme

and that's what sunk us.

[pocoloco]

7. "kelly is gonna win by a landslide"

[La Lioness Priyanka]

8. who is kelly?

[NoSheep]

4. I just remembered! We won! It can't get any better than that!

When elections can be stolen, as I believe this one was, what are you gonna do?

[mtnsnake]

6. Do me a favor and go hijack someone else's thread today

If you wanna discuss vote fraud, there are plenty of vote fraud threads. If you wanna help fix whatever else ails us, then be my guest.

[NoSheep]

11. No offense intended. n/t

[mtnsnake]

13. No problem

I know your intentions are good ones. Also, I wasn't trying to trivialize the important issue of vote fraud. Just trying to stay on topic :)

[bobweaver]

9. The Republicans are masters at distorting reality for their purpose

Here we had the reality of two candidates:

Kerry, the decorated Vietnam war hero, vs.:
Bush, the guy who never set foot in any war and even went AWOL

Somehow, the Republicans managed to distort it into these images:

Kerry, the traitor (testified against the Vietnam war) and flip-flopper (can't make up his mind on Iraq), vs.:
Bush the commander-in-chief, "landing" on the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, in a flight jacket suit, and "decisive, uwavering leader" in the "war on terror."

It's obvious the Republicans have mastered the art of distorting reality and truth into the images that serve their agenda, in this case getting Bush re-elected instead of someone who was clearly far more qualified for the job.

How did they accomplish this? There are lessons for the Democrats in this, for example: Image is far more important than reality in electoral politics. The Republicans have known this for decades, yet the Democrats seem to still not have even learned this.

[mtnsnake]

10. This is what happens when you make it a 1-theme, war-theme campaign

and we were unprepared for what happened. It should have been a multi-issue campaign, not a one-issue horror show.

[tngledwebb]

14. They control MSM. For years. The question is

How?

[mogster]

18. Well put! n/t

[tngledwebb]

12. Interesting. Or take a look at this from another angle:

MSM gave Bush a big push, trashed Kerry the same way they trashed Dean, Gore and Clinton. Why?
If you don't agree, read the Daily Howler.

Also Bush's 'wars' are the biggest and bloodiest foreign policy disasters since Vietnam, and despite MSM covering up the full extent of the horror, most Americans had a pretty strong aversion to continuing down the same path.

[Bonobo]

15. The mistake was not really coming out against the war. eom

[Bridget Burke]

16. The mistake of the millenium was letting the 2000 election stand.

I was not out there personally marching in the streets so I'm partly to blame. As I sat watching the inauguration, the whore press crowing about "peaceful transfer of power" made me want to puke. So I switched to C-SPAN. They didn't show many protesters, but the grim reality they presented without comment was quite different from any inauguration I'd ever seen.

Between the continuing whoredom of the media & the Republicans' influence on voting technology, I wonder how we'll ever get any Democrat elected again. Even if we ran Jesus Christ himself.

Will you accuse me of thread hijacking just because I don't agree with you?

[mtnsnake]

20. That may have been a monstrous mistake, too.

Maybe we needed to have the same passion as what happened in Ukraine, I really don't know. Did we in 2000? I don't think so.

And no, I wouldn't accuse you of thread hijacking. How could I when you brought up a very good point that by not protesting passionately enough in the streets after the 2000 election, THAT may have been the mistake of the millennium in your eyes. I can't say you're not right.

[TheDonkey]

21. Very true, Gore won the pop and should not have backed down

we should have sought for election reforms quickly rather then let the rethugs sneak in with a plan for computerized voting.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. This Was The First Presidential Election After 9-11

No matter what we said or done national security was going to be a primary issue....

[tngledwebb]

26. Of course.

And anyone not brainwashed by MSM would know who has the worst record in our history on national security issues, not just by letting terrorists attack on 9/11, but by every illegal, wrong , bloody and destabilizing move since that day. That so many Dems gave BushCo carte blanche shows the full extent of this possibly terminal cancer.

[mike_c]

19. dems should have run a clear antiwar candidate and a clear...

...antiwar platform, including planks that exposed the bankruptcy of the more general "war on terror" scam. They might still have lost, but they would have brought those truths into public debate rather than participating in pulling the wool of Americans' eyes. The democratic party squandered an opportunity to work for the betterment of America, choosing instead to endorse the foundations of the fascist right.

[mtnsnake]

22. I agree with everything you're saying, although I'm not sure about

limiting our candidate soley to "anti-war", because then again it becomes a one-issue campaign, so it has to reach further than just anti-war. Had we run a campaign based on ALL the things we believe in, we could've mopped up, but we got suckered into running it on a one-issue war theme. Kerry's advisors even had him trying to look like the war monger at times. "I'm going to seek out those terrorists and KILL them".

War theme, war theme, war theme. Man did we get suckered.

[mike_c]

23. oh, I agree....

I just meant that on that one issue dems chose to endorse the right rather than take a stand for a better position.

[patricia92243]

24. As usual, we let the Republicans set the agenda - instead of setting our

OWN agenda and sticking to it.

[mtnsnake]

25. Absolutely, and that's part of what put them in the driver's seat

It's almost like Rove and the repukes KNEW who'd we be nominating, and they were fully prepared to sucker us into making it a single issue campaign, the only issue that could get the pathetic chimp elected. We just weren't prepared in advance for any of what happened.

[ShaneGR]

27. The bottom line is that it's extremely hard to unseat a wartime Pres

And Kerry's campaign, even though they did have some missteps, did a very good job of mobalizing voters and trying to coutner an avalanche of negative campaigning from the right. In the end, they garnered over 54 million votes, higher than any Democrat in history and over 10 million more votes than Bill Clinton ever dreamed of getting.

What I don't get is that the progressive wing of the party was largely responsible for the grassroots mobilization, and should be proud of themselves. But instead of keeping their heads high and looking forward to 06 and 08, they seem intent on tearing down the party itself for no reason at all except to spite.