If Edwards was the nominee in 2004 could he have won the general election?

[nickshepDEM]

If Edwards was the nominee in 2004 could he have won the general election?

WHY???

[LSparkle]

1. With Clark as VP, no problem.

[Maine-ah]

5. I think it should have been the other way around

Clark running as p and edwards as vp. might have had a better chance. Kerry was not my first pick.

[LSparkle]

8. You're right -- it would have been better the other way around

But I thought Edwards brought some good issues to the overall debate (economic inequality especially) and I loved the "two Americas" speech. With Clark and others on his team, I think he might have been able to overcome the security deficit -- and he didn't have 20 years of Senate votes for KKKarl and Co. to pick over.

[AP]

43. See the link in post 17 below.

Informed voters liked Edwards the most after considering all the candidates over a six week period beginning Jan 19, 2004.

If anyone besided Kerry should have been on the top of the ticket, it probably should have been Edwards.

[David Dunham]

2. Edwards was not a strong campaigner. Plus no security background.

Bush and Rove would have made mincemeat of Edwards.

[AP]

19. Then how do you explain this:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/march04-poll.html

????

[tjdee]

20. So how did he win NC in the first place?

The way people talk about Edwards here sometimes, I wonder if they think North Carolinians, particularly North Carolinian Democrats, are stupid.

Gore didn't win NC, but Edwards did. With no political experience whatsoever.

Plus, he won the SC primary.

[MAlibdem]

69. Two points:

1. Winning as a democratic senator is different than as the presidential nominee. If you identify as a republican, you can still vote democratic in a senate race and not emotionally feel a difference - it was more local, more about who was the better person than part of the party. Not so on a national level.

2. Senators don't need security and terrorism expertise as a prerequiste for running. it's nice, but more important are domestic concerns, which Edwards is definitely all over.

[Leilani]

87. True, & he ran against a really unpopular Senator.

Also, the fact that he started campaigning for Prez not too long after his term started, alienated a lot of North Carolinians. He wouldn't have been reelected.

[AP]

99. He ran against a senator who was beating him by 10 pts with a week to go

Faircloth's one weakness was that he decided to run an ad criticizing Edwards's career as a trial lawyer, which introduced people to Edwards, and people liked what they saw.

[AP]

100. There have probably been fewer presidents with security/terror expertise

than there have been senators.

Furthemore, there's no correlation between that kind of experience and how a president governs.

Clinton, Bush II, Reagan -- what terror expertise did they have? They had a clear system of values that people identified with being strong on those issues (or on more important issues). That's what counts to voters. They care about what they think you believe and not what they think you've done in the past.

[ClarkUSA]

102. In wartime, it makes a difference

People want a strong leader who makes them "feel safe"

[AP]

109. Not convinced that ever backing down from progressive values works

for Democrats.

You still have to convince people that we're safer when the middle class is strong, and that we're weak if we're asking the middle class to give up their health, wealth and opportunity if they'd don't want to die.

[MAlibdem]

130. not the point

you don't have to back down from progressive values to also have a clear cut strategy on terrorism

[AP]

132. If your clear cut strategy on terrorism, which you've moved to the top of

your list of priorities, isn't an articulation or invocation of clear progressive values which mean something to people, then you aren't going to win by running on your strategy on terrorism.

You're just going to feed the fear mentaility which always helps the candidate with the itchier trigger finger win.

[Clark2008]

117. Gore won in Tennessee as a senator and a congressman

And as a VP.
Too bad the rumor mill in our state was such that people here thought Gore was going to take away their guns or he'd have won his home state in 2000, too.

Comparing Gore winning NC is ridiculous. Edwards didn't bring home NC to Kerry in 2004, either.

[pauliedee]

54. Edwards ignored voters / hurt campain

Edwards was cordoned off from voters while eating with family in Arkansas...also bypassed town on bus although people were waiting....

Killed us!! @#$%^*(*&^%

[AP]

57. Where did this rumor start? This is the second time I've heard it at DU

this week and the first time I asked for a link and didn't get a response.

Edwards went to Ark once after he was picked as VP, and I couldn't find a single reference in the state forums or anywhere about this happening.

The only story about anyone passing a group of people was in MO when the train went through that town. EE made them go back later, and they got a ton of press and a bigger crowd than the one that had been waiting when the train didn't stop.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

60. There was a big to-do on Imus -- The train was supposed to

stop at his ranch for kids with cancer. They were all waiting and the train zoomed through. He may be disliked here, but he's got a huge audience. He supported Kerry (amid B** colleagues) but he always seemed to call attention to his faults.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

61. I love his character and committment to those in need -- but he

still struck me as lightweight during the debates. I personally never heard him come out of the standard script.

[AP]

64. Have you read this?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/march04-poll.html

You just might be out of step with the way a lot of informed voters felt after considering all the candidates.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

66. That is very interesting. Well, guess the election was ours for

the taking - if we had been more patient in our candidate selection. Once Dean got dethrowned by the press, Kerry was immediately heir apparent. Edwards had that warmth that could have pushed him over the top (enough to conteract the fraWd, hopefully). Someone said months ago that they agreed he looked a little weak on the depths of knowledge, but that he was relegated to the second banana position and would have been 100% different as the lead candidate. Perhaps he was strictly scripted and didn't want to go off message. This study proves it. It was done in early 2004. That was when he was his own man.

[AP]

63. That was in Missouri, it was the middle of the night, and Elizabeth E.

made them go back and they had a rally during the day that was much much bigger.

[Leilani]

80. No, that was in New Mexico

The train runs right by the Imus ranch, & he & the sick kids were waiting for the train, & it just cruised on by.

That's when Imus started getting negative. Imus was outraged, for the kids' sake.

[AP]

97. This is the only time I've ever heard that story. And I'm not sure if I'm

going to trust Imus's characterization of what happened, much less these posts on DU.

I actually read the newspaper articles about Missouri, so I know that was true.

[Leilani]

104. Just because you never heard it, doesn't make it untrue.

Imus talked about the train incessantly, & then bitched incessantly when they didn't stop. His camp is for seriously ill children, most cancer patients. He has given over most of his life to this camp, & he now broadcasts from New Mexico for a good part of the year.

It was a great disappointment at the time, & maybe you never heard about it, but nationally, millions of people did.

And I resent the fact that you are insinuating I posted about something that never happened.

[Leilani]

106. You want proof?

All over the internet, but I'm posting link to Kerry's blog.

http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/002427.html

And it tells how the little kids were there with their American flags & Kerry/Edwards signs, & when the train didn't slow down, the kids cried. Afterwards Kerry called to apologize & said it was a mistake.

Additionally, the Kerry blog put the kindest spin on its blog, which would be expected.

[AP]

110. So what does that have to do with Edwards?

The claim above was that Edwards did this in Ark and that it was evidence of what a bad candidate he was.

By the way, when you say it's all over the internet, do you mean it's on newsmax and a couple RW web sites?

[Leilani]

119. I was simply replying to you that it did indeed happen,when you denied it.

This goes back to post #60, & has nothing to do with Arkansas.

And it had to do with the Kerry/Edwards campaign, & whether it was effective or not. This referred to an incident that happened & was talked about continually by Imus, & he has a nationwide audience.

Nowhere did I mention Edwards or blame him; it was concerning the campaign.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

127. you are absolutely right - I followed the whole thing too.

[Leilani]

128. Thanks, Laura.

I followed the whole thing too.

I believe a lot of mistakes were made during the campaign. New Mexico was close...who knows...this incident could have made the difference?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

139. I agree completely. When I could have planned a better campaign

that's telling you something. Hope whoever runs next time does a complete reengineering to change the way demos campaign, show some guts, don't fall into their traps, and develop some broad sweeping themes about caring about people, the world and the planet.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

126. no its true -- I saw it - he had clips. Also Kerry called and apologized

and she's right -- that was when Imus started getting negative on him. Didn't understand why Kerry couldn't figure out a way to make it up and squeeze in a visit. He was in that part of the country and there were many many viewers and listeners.

[AP]

62. By the way, here's why the Dems lost Ark (it has nothing to do with...

...where Edwards had dinner or took the bus):

South Arkansas voters - often advantage-Democrats - have contributed to a 9-point lead for President Bush over rival Sen. John Kerry, according to a new independent poll. The Republican Bush leads Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts, 52 percent to 43 percent, according to the poll commissioned by the Arkansas News Bureau and Stephens Media Group. The poll shows Kerry losing by 17 points in southern Arkansas and even with Bush among women.

...


"Those numbers do not surprise me," said Mitchell Lowe, executive director of the Bush-Dick Cheney Arkansas campaign. Lowe said it's clear that both campaigns have Arkansas in Bush's win column, given Kerry's decision to withdraw planned television advertising and Bush's withdrawal of campaign staff.

...

Todd Shields, who chairs the political science department at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said Bush appears to have Arkansas sewed up, especially considering that the poll followed Bush's lackluster debate performance and worsening events in Iraq.

...

Shields attributed Bush's southern Arkansas support to a cultural disconnect with Kerry that doesn't exist with Bush.

"In terms of Yankee type presidents, this candidate is Michael Dukakis with one notch up," Shields said, comparing Kerry to the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee. "He's very aristocratic. He's very New England. He has very little in common with hunters and NASCAR fans."

As for Bush, Shields said, "you could see him just sitting down at a NASCAR race or going fishing or going hunting. And I think voters can relate to that."

...

Oakleaf, political scientists and the Bush-Dick Cheney campaign speculated that Kerry's "F" grade by the National Rifle Association played a role in the southern Arkansas results.

"There happen to be lot of sportsmen in South Arkansas," Lowe said, noting Kerry's NRA grade. "I think you do have a lot of Democrats there, but they're not the same kind of Democrat that John Kerry is."

{Ann Clemmer, a political science instructor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock} said voters in 2000 may have been more inclined to vote for then-Vice President Gore because of an allegiance to then-President Bill Clinton, who grew up in Hot Springs.

Voters in southern Arkansas in this election may simply find Bush more appealing than Kerry, she said.

"It's almost sad to say ... that we pay attention to image as much as we do," Clemmer said. "But I think Bush's image plays better in rural areas than I think Kerry's does."

...

Oakleaf said the speculation nationally is that women voters are more concerned about national security and believe Bush is better able to protect the country from terrorism.

In 2000, women nationally chose Gore by an 11 percentage-point margin, Clemmer said. However, in Arkansas women were split between Bush and Gore.

"If nationwide it's almost even between Kerry and Bush then that's a significant reversal of the gender gap," she said. "It's that security mom thing they're starting to talk about."

Janine Parry, associate professor of politics at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, pointed out that a gender gap remains evident in Arkansas, based on the 10-point difference shown in the poll.

...

Almost all respondents recognized Bush's and Kerry's names, but Bush's favorable rating outranked Kerry's, 55 percent to 48 percent. Kerry also had a higher unfavorable rating than Bush - 47 percent to 42 percent.

Other demographic results:

-Even among those who describe themselves as liberal, 23 percent said they would pick Bush over Kerry.

-Fifteen percent of Democrats and 69 percent of independents said they would pick Bush over Kerry.

...

-Bush did better among those with higher education levels. Fifty-seven percent of those with some college and 58 percent with a college degree support Bush. Fifty-six percent of voters with some high school and 51 percent of high school graduates support Kerry.

-Kerry does not win any age group category. The 18-35 age group supports Bush 58 percent to 36 percent; the 35-44 age group supports Bush 60 percent to 32 percent; ages 45-54 are for Bush 50 percent to 47 percent; and Kerry and Bush tie at 48 percent among voters ages 55-64 and 65-plus.

-Fifty-eight percent of white collar workers support Bush, and 54 percent of blue collar workers support Bush.

...


http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2004/10/10/News/299686.html

[dhinojosa]

111. He wasn't instructed not to outshine Kerry.

That's all.

[Arkana]

3. No, I really don't think so

Instead of the Smear Boat Liars for Rove, we'd have had the Tort Reform Lawyers for Rove.

[Radical Activist]

14. Edwards was much better about defending against that

Some of his best moments were explaining what he did as a trial lawyer. In the process he revealed the dirty little secret that tort "reform" and the entire Republican agenda are designed to benefit corporations and millionaires. Democrats don't talk about that enough.

[AP]

22. He won his '98 senate race BECAUSE they talked about his trial work!

He was behind 10 pts in the poll with about a week to go. Faircloth ran a "nail-in-the-coffin" he's a trial lawyer commercial.

That got Edwards's former clients out to talk about what he did for them, and Edwards shot up something like 12 points in the last week.

If Republicans want to talk about his work as an attorney, all I have to say is, "please, I beg you to do that."

[nickshepDEM]

42. Good point. I didnt know that.

[AP]

47. When you think about it, it makes sense.

He wasn't a lobbyist or a corporate trial lawyer (as most lawyer politicians are). He worked for the people. He looked after the interests of regular people.

He was such a good lawyer that his clients were all people with extremely good claims that very negligent defendants didn't want to settle.

Talking about his work as a lawyer was an opportunity to talk about progressive values that everyone, regardless of their party affiliation, could appreciate.

The negative implication of being a lawyer whets peoples' appetites to discuss the issue, but the minute you look into it, Edwards starts to look great.

[WI_DEM]

4. Who knows for sure

But I do think the popular vote would have been closer. With Edwards I think a number of southern states would have been closer, not necessarily wins, but closer. And who knows? he might have done better in Southern Ohio--enough to have won that state.

But you know this question will ultimately be overwhelmingly "no" because supporters of other candidates for '08 will say say "no" because if they said "yes" it would add credibility to an '08 nomination for Edwards.

[nickshepDEM]

11. I have been the biggest Edwards fan,but for some reaon...

I am really starting to warm up to him. He is a very inspirational speaker and I love his econmic-populism. He is gradually moving up my list for 2008. The only thing that bothers me is his lack of experience. One term in the senate isnt very impressive. Plus, by 2008 he will have been out of the job for 4 years.

[sacxtra]

6. NOBODY CAN WIN

Unless you know what a PN junction is.

Muahahahahahaha!


NOBODY CAN BE VERIFIED!

[nickshepDEM]

7. Conspiracy theories aside. Could he have won?

[sacxtra]

15. NOT A CONSPIRACY "THEORY" IT'S PHYSICS, A "PN" JUNCTION

Look closer. there you go...

I get to VOTE on THIS EXACT SYSTEM (See Flowchart below) ON MARCH 8TH 2005 TO REPLACE MATSUI!

See the light coming in through the gaping crack in democracy?

Granted, it may be stupid to rig The "Special" 5th Congressional distric's Matsui election.

BUT EITHER WAY YOU WILL NEVER KNOW. BECAUSE THE FACT IS YOU CAN NOT VERIFY IT!

[Radical Activist]

58. Ok, but once we fix that voting system

We'll STILL need to find a good candidate. We need to do both! Being so negative that we do nothing doesn't help. People on DU already know about voting problems.

[Blue_In_AK]

9. No democrat could have "won" in 2004...

The rigging was too pervasive.

[independentchristian]

49. Maybe so, but Edwards would have made it...

...a lot more difficult to steal.

Look at the PBS study, and you'll see that it was dead on with Bush and Kerry, tied at 47 to 47. That's the way it was for most of the campaign, tied.

It had Edwards 48 to 37 over Bush, and that's the way it would have been as well. Had Edwards had that spread in the polls, it would have been much more obvious once the GOP stole it.

[Blue_In_AK]

67. Well, I'm not going to argue that Edwards

wouldn't have made an attractive candidate. I like(d) him very much. I also had no problems, to speak of, with Dean or Clark, and I love John Kerry. All I'm saying is that I think ** and his minions would have done, and did do, whatever necessary to ensure that ** wouldn't have to give up the White House, including lying, fear-mongering, dirty campaigning, and when that didn't seem to be enough, rigging the election through multiple means. These people will stop at nothing to get their way.

[TexasLawyer]

135. I agree

I didn't see a category for that in the poll.

[Radical Activist]

10. Yes

Edwards had a populist message and more appeal to the working class values voters that Bush stole away. Edwards would have presented a clear alternative vision besides not being Bush, which is something Kerry never did effectively. Edwards knows what he stands for and people would have seen that. He's also a great campaigner. If James Carville thinks Edwards is the bust stump speaker he has ever seen, including Clinton, then you have to give the man some credit.

[nickshepDEM]

12. I agree. The man can speak.

[independentchristian]

55. The typical comeback from nonbelievers would be...

...but Kerry won those voters in the primaries.

Yeah, and in a lot of the primaries, Edwards won more of the votes from veterans than Kerry did. How do you explain that?

Fact of the matter is this. Edwards had more universal appeal than anyone else that ran last time around. Kerry had the same thing that Hillary will have the next time. The media telling everyone in the primaries to vote for him and every Democratic governor out there following the party line and endorsing him during the primaries. Granholm had the audacity to be sitting in front of a computer on the evening news at the online voting site with the camera on her screen as she clicked on John Kerry, as if to say, "My constituents, follow suit."

It pissed me off, and I still can't stand her because of it.

For Edwards to last as long as he did while staying within the public financing system, as Kerry was getting endorsement after endorsement, and fat, lazy commentators like Chris Matthews telling viewers after Iowa that it was already over, is a testament to just how good Edwards was.

[tjdee]

13. Yes he could have, and easily too.

That was the main reason I supported him.

He presented a photo negative (or positive!) of Bush:

--He actually IS Southern. (Instead of a fake cowboy from Connecticut.)

--He worked for what he has. (Bush's daddy = $$$$$)

--He got accepted into law school. (Bush was rejected.)

--He excelled in his own business. (Unlike Bush, who started company with his daddy's friends and ran them into the ground)

--He doesn't have beady little eyes and looks happier and younger, even though they are about the same age. (this is important in the age of television)

And that's before getting into matters of policy.

Standing next to Edwards, Bush would have looked like the fraud he is without either of them opening their mouths.

[Clark2008]

118. But his accent STILL sounds fake to this Southerner...

Sorry, but I'm from about 200 miles from where he's from. I also LIVED in Anderson, outside of Seneca, for a brief period in my life.
And, while there are some people there with very thick accents, Edwards was more "dramatised" than most.

I won't argue the rest of your points because MOST people with any modicum of success have done better than Bush! :) Bush would be homeless and dying of the sauce had it not been for his rich family.

[saltpoint]

16. John and Elizabeth Edwards may have connected --

-- in a way and at a level where John and Teresa Heinz Kerry did not.

I've followed Kerry since the early 70s and remain a staunch fan, but I think he and Teresa frighten the red voters. Skittish bunch, those red voters. They don't like no New England libruls and they don't like no smarty-pants intelleshuls and no uppity librul womenfolk neither.

The list of things I love about Sen. Kerry and his wife is the same list of things red voters probably dislike them for.

John and Elizabeth Edwards are very new Southern modern-times thinkers but they have this personal energy that just connects with people.

[AP]

17. Stanford/UTex/PBS Deliberative Poll suggest Edwards would have had +11%

advantage (48:37 vs Bush) compared to Kerry's 47:47 tie with Bush.

The Deliberative Poll is a polling method where people give opinions based on discussion, exposure to a wide range of information, and after being able to ask experts questions.

As a predictive tool, it's based on the idea that the farther out you are from an election, the more likely you are basing your decision on incomplete information, but the closer you get, you might have a different opinon based on deeper reflection and better, more varied information.

The Deliberative Poll showed that a random selection of voters (Dems and Repubs) after considering detailed information about all the canidates, liked Edwards a great deal.

It predicted a Bush-Kerry tie, which was essentially accurate. Bush won by 50.75 to 48.29.

So, how do you think Edwards would have performed vs Bush? People liked him more than Kerry, so I think he would have held a big chunk of that 11% advanatage over Bush as undecideds picked their candidate.

In contrast to conventional polls and the primaries to date, where Kerry has maintained a wide lead over Edwards, our participants came to like Edwards as well or better. After deliberating, on a "feeling thermometer" (scored from 0 to 100) they rated Kerry at just over 55 degrees and Edwards at just over 56. On another set of questions asking how well the traits “sincere,” “intelligent” and “thinks like I do” describe each candidate (a scale also scored from 0 to 100), Edwards was perceived significantly more positively than Kerry, averaging 66 versus 61.

Edwards' strength vis-à-vis Kerry appears to stem from a greater appeal to Republicans and Independents. Post-deliberation, our Republican participants rated Kerry's traits at about 43 (somewhat to the negative side of the neutral point of 50) but Edwards' at 57, a statistically significant difference. Our Independent participants rated Kerry at 61 but Edwards at 66, a close to statistically significant difference. (Our Democratic participants rated the two about the same.) Among both Republicans and independents, these ratings are significantly more positive among the participants than in the control group for Edwards but not Kerry, indicating that deliberation increased Edwards' advantage.


Furthermore, in a hypothetical November matchup against President Bush, Edwards fared significantly better than Kerry. While Kerry and Bush were tied at 47%, roughly a quarter of the participants favoring Bush in that matchup said they would be undecided or would prefer Edwards if the choice were instead between Bush and Edwards. In all, 48% said they would vote for Edwards and only 37% for Bush, if Edwards were the Democratic nominee. The contrast with the control group, which showed a similar but significantly weaker pattern, was highly significant statistically (26% of Bush supporters defected in the experimental group while only 12% defected in the control group). These results suggest a strong appeal of Edwards among Independents and Republicans.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/march04-poll.html

[StephanieMarie]

18. Nobody would have won

because the election was rigged and the votes stolen for the chimp.

[peacetalksforall]

21. The poll question cannot stand alone. I think it has to be prefaced -

i.e., HAD Repubs not arranged a theft of votes, would Edwards have won the general election?

Possibly (middle poll rank), because of the pathos of having served your country in Vietnam, Kerry's service was turned into a crime by the thieves. Serving in the military during Vietnam should not have been baggage anyone should have to carry whether or not they protested after the service.

Edwards did not have that baggage and there appeared to be little that they could hang him for as they did Kerry. Edwards is more plain spoken.

On wife support...they were equal. The wives were magnificent, but they had more to twist tie with Teresa H-K.

[Is It Fascism Yet]

23. Yep, anybody could have won. Kerry won. My dog would have beat Shrub

Except that Shrub cheated, again, and only Diebold counted, and Diebold can't count. Anybody would have had more votes than Shrub in both 2000 and 2004 if anybody who could actually count had counted.

[MoonRiver]

24. I don't know if he would have just lost or lost in a landslide.

So I voted it would be the same. The voting machines are designed to get Repukes selected, but maybe the thugs don't want their chicanery to look too obvious, so they try to match up the results with pre-election polling. Bottom line is that until we fix this problem we won't win regardless of who we run.

[Warpy]

25. He was a relative neophyte to the Senate

with no history as a governor. The attacks would have been merciless.

He was also facing a corrupt election process.

I don't think Jesus Christ could have won in 2000.

[Spirochete]

26. Not unless

George Soros bought Diebold. Anyone would have been cheated by the voting machines. If Bill Clinton would have been able to run again, he would have lost too, as surreal as that would seem.

[forgethell]

27. Southerners

couldn't stand him.

[AP]

28. Exit polls in FL, LA, GA primaries: 50% wanted him picked for VP.

He was beating Landreau in LA, and Nelson and Graham in FL by huge margins (30-40 pts).

How could southerners not like him but want him to be VP more than they wanted their own recently elected senators????

[WI_DEM]

31. Plus he won South Carolina primary

and was very close in Georgia and nearly came out on top in Oklahoma--as I recall it was a photo finish practically there.

[AP]

33. SC was biggest MOV for a race Kerry didn't win.

Edwards got about 33% more votes than Kerry.

In GA, Edwards was tight with Kerry all day, and even looked like he might win.

Utimately Kerry won by only 5.4% of the vote (293K to 259k).

[forgethell]

107. You're talking about

the primaries, right?? the Democratic primaries??? 'Nuff said.

[AP]

115. Republicans liked him too:

Edwards' strength vis-à-vis Kerry appears to stem from a greater appeal to Republicans and Independents. Post-deliberation, our Republican participants rated Kerry's traits at about 43 (somewhat to the negative side of the neutral point of 50) but Edwards' at 57, a statistically significant difference. Our Independent participants rated Kerry at 61 but Edwards at 66, a close to statistically significant difference. (Our Democratic participants rated the two about the same.) Among both Republicans and independents, these ratings are significantly more positive among the participants than in the control group for Edwards but not Kerry, indicating that deliberation increased Edwards' advantage.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/march04-poll.html

[forgethell]

129. He couldn't have

won the general election. We didn't have a candidate that could have won the general election. IMO, of course.

[tjdee]

36. They really liked Kerry!

That's how come he won southern states in the general election, right?

[forgethell]

108. Evidently not.

But it's not a question of they had to like either Kerry or Edwards, but not both. They didn't have to like either of them, and didn't.

[AmBlue]

29. I campaigned for John Edwards...

in the last three months leading up to Super Tuesday and then for JK/JE almost every day up through and including 11/2. I knocked on many doors and had lots of people, Repugs included, tell me if it were Edwards at the top of the ticket they would have voted for Edwards. Kerry didn't come across as sincere to regular folks out there. Edwards made that connection, EASILY, if people had a chance to hear him. I personally think Rove was most concerned about Bush going up against Edwards because, not only does Edwards appeal to middle America (because he truly cares), he's smart and polished and has the best stump speech in this country. They made sure Edwards didn't get much media coverage back in Iowa and New Hampshire. His stunning and unexpected second place in the Iowa caucus was completely obliterated by The Dean Scream. I remember being very frustrated by that. What a great two-fer that was for Rove! That scream was Dean's and Edwards' undoing.

[AP]

37. That's how I saw it too.

I hear a lot of people saying that Edwards got great media, and that's why he was on the ticket at all.

From my perspective, he did great in IA, and then nothing in the press for a weak about anything but Dean's scream followed.

Edwards might have had a chance to win the whole thing if the media had been more interested in taking a look at the guy who went from 4% in the national polls to almost winning Iowa.

Furthermore, you look at the deliberative poll (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/polls.html) and you see that Edwards had a lot of raw material there to become the favorite had the press simply reported on him and told people what his positions were on the issues. If they really wanted him to win, why were a Stanford and UT professor able to make him the favorite simply by giving people the facts and answering the questions, yet the MSM with total information control couldn't do it? Because they obviously weren't trying to make him the favorite, and because they were probably motivated by the fact that Edwards stacked up against Bush 48:37 (whereas as Kerry only tied Bush).

[Siyahamba]

30. Experience

He received enough grief over being a one-term senator while campaigning for the vice presidency... it would have just been compounded were he seeking the top spot.

[cestpaspossible]

32. There should be a choice in between landslide and

same result as Kerry. Those are the two extremes of losing -- nailbitingly close or a landslide - but something in between is more common.

[dolstein]

34. No -- because he didn't opt out of the campaign finance system

I continue to believe that John Edwards was a much better candidate that Kerry -- he was more likable than Kerry, he had a clearer message, he had that Southern thing going, etc. But let's not kid ourselves. If Edwards he been the nominee, he'd have been flat broke by May. I don't see how he could have overcome such a financial disadvantage, even with the help of all the third party organizations.

[AP]

38. Opting out would have worked well with his message.

He might have got $1.50 in free message for every $1 he didn't get by taking the matching funds.

However, I'm not clear on this issue. Would he have opted out of federal money for the GE?

The Dems had no problem raising money this year, and I presume Edwards would have made a decision based on pretty good information, and that they would have made the right strategic decision either way.

[liberalpragmatist]

35. He COULD've Won - Would he is a different matter

Kerry COULD have won. This was a close race, a lot of our candidates could have won. A few different moments and the outcome would have been different even for Kerry. Likewise for Edwards.

If Edwards were the nominee, the dynamic would be different, it would have been a different campaign. He may have done better among rural voters and the South but he may have been hurt by the national security issue. We don't know and we never will know.

The thing is, I don't think this was, say, '88, where a better candidate would clearly have won. This was a race that was bound to be close b/c of the partisan division in this country and a number of different candidates could have made it competitive. They each came with their own strengths and liabilities.

So Edwards COULD potentially have won, just as Kerry COULD potentially have won. The issue is WOULD Edwards have won, and there is no certainty on that question.

[Vinca]

39. The vote was bought and paid for. Freakin' Mother Theresa

wouldn't have had a chance. I love John Edwards, but nothing would have been different if he'd been in the #1 spot.

[rniel]

40. I think yes

He's a very smart man. I don't think he would've made a lot of Kerry's mistakes.

I think the Presidency is like a beauty pageant in many ways and Edwards would hands down shine in that kind of show.

[seito]

41. The fix was in

It did not matter who was the nominee

[sandnsea]

44. No, he sees ghosts

Breck girl. Wife in charge of the campaign. Out of touch, slick elitist lawyer He would have been smeared too. He had no military, foreign policy or international experience. He would have done worse than Kerry.

[AP]

53. Why didn't these voters have that problem?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/march04-poll.html

[sandnsea]

71. Edwards wasn't Gored

He didn't get the full treatment so any poll is pretty well worthless.

[AP]

76. That is such an empty retort.

Anyway, he's not the president today, so on some level he did get Gored.

Between the results of this poll and the way he won his '98 race, I think you can assume the media did what they needed to do to make sure that he didn't become president.

Mediatenor.org had a study which showed that, of all the candidates, Edwards got the least coverage on where they stood on the issues (he actually didn't get much coverage during 2003 in an absolute sense either). The only coverage he got was on his personality.

The Informed Voter survey shows that when you talk about him on the issues, he becomes the favorite. So, he got gored by not being discussed in a way that would have made a difference in people's perceptions of him (ie, by not talking about where he stood on the issues).

Furthermore, EVERY DEM would have been Gored. But, which candidate do you want to run against that? Obviously the one who comes in first in an informed voter survey is going to be the one in the best position to survive being gored. Duh.

And this survey was meant to circumvent goring by having people think about and discuss the candidates rather than just be one-way receptacles for faulty information. Dismiss what the information tells you, but you'd be extremely unwise to do so. This is a moment when, even though the information doesn't conform to what you want to believe, it actually tells you something very valuable.

[sandnsea]

89. Let's count them

Dukakis, ANN RICHARDS, Gore, McCain, Cleland, Kerry. Not to mention that AL Supreme Court Judge and all the other lesser known candidates Rove and the right wing has smeared. Only Edwards would have beat them? Oh puhleeze.

Don't forget, Clinton wouldn't have won without Perot in the race either.

Edwards could not have won this year, no way, no how. He'd have a hell of a time in 2008 too, he just doesn't have the international experience and terrorism is not going to go away between now and then.

You know I like you and I like Edwards, so please let's not go there.

[AP]

92. Um, sandnsea, reread my post.

They're going to smear anyone. Why would that mean that you wouldn't wan't the candidate whom voters like the most after thinking about it?

And Clinton would have won against Bush head to head and against Perot head to head. They actually have exit polling on that, so it's way beyond speculation.

I'm not saying that Edwards would have won, but I am saying that this poll suggests what everyone should be able to intuit: Edwards STARTED with an 11% advantage over Bush. Even if the undecideds broke in the same % they broke for Kerry in this study, he would have won.

I know YOU think Edwards didn't have int'l experience and with terrorism -- but those were things that the voters in this study thought about. Just because you couldn't be convinced to think other things were more important doesn't mean that enough voters couldn't have been convinced.

Don't you see that to win, Democrats had to elevate a different set of priorities? And Edwards did better than Kerry against Bush among informed voters because he was such an incredible vehicle for delivering exactly the prioritization of values that Democrats needed.

Go back an look at what FDR did in his four elections. It's the exact same thing: hope over fear. Kerry said it, but he didn't make people feel it. Edwards made people feel that hope could triumph over fear.

[sandnsea]

121. I disagree

They polled the same among Democrats. I don't trust Republican results because they'll be negative just to try and discourage anything on the Dem candidate. Kerry won the self described moderate vote, 54-45. With the smearing done, I just don't see anybody else doing any better.

You think people came out to those rallies to see Edwards??? I could get the pictures and show you which ones people showed up at. I heard plenty of people say Edwards was nothing more than a charming salesman, scratch the surface and there was nothing underneath. Just a pretty boy.

It is not true that people didn't feel hope with Kerry, it's just flat bullshit.

I do not know why supporters of other candidates have to go down this path. It's just disgusting.

I told you I didn't want to go there, but I'm sick of this shit.

[AP]

124. Sandnsea, Kerry was great.

But we can't ignore things that are obvious. There are better candidates out there who have a better chance of winning than Kerry. Kerry was great, but too many voters outside the NE read him as being too patrician and out of step with their values, and see his biography as a liability (and I'm talking about the prep school, Yale, married to a billionairess part of his bio--which it makes it hard for people to relate to him). It wasn't a problem for me, but I'm not going to pretend that a lot of voters whose attitudes matter see the world the same way I do.

I don't have any reason to believe the Informed Voter poll didn't capture attitudes that were broadly held.

I don't doubt that Edwards could have pulled huge crowds had he been on the top of the ticket (and who do you think NC'ians were going out to see at the huge rallies in NC on the first and last days of the Kerry-Edwards campaign?).

Didn't Gore win 66% of Independents, by the way?

Really, I'm not knocking down Kerry. I'm just using him as reference point. He was great. But there are better candidates out there.

I'm not going to tell you not to be as personally attached as you want to be to Kerry. But I will ask you to realize that there's a way to talk about all this that doesn't require you to invoke the word "disgusting" in describing what I'm doing, because I assure you that there's nothing disgusting about wanting Democrats to win and wanting to be honest about what we could do better and wanting to be honest about what happened.

on edit: I just reread this subthread to see what set you off, and the only bullshit I see is your repetition of the RW mantras in your first post. It seems to me that everything else was pretty fair and your post is the only crazy one.

[sandnsea]

125. That was sarcasm

Not RW talking points. I doubt you didn't know that.

Gore was well known to the public, and didn't do significantly better than Kerry.

The problem isn't the candidates. It's the PARTY. And right wing media smear machines.

Did you hear Matthews today chastising AARP for not debating USANext??? Debate what? Whether gays have anything to do with social security? We know this happens, but for whatever bizarre reason, we keep blaming Democrats instead of the right wing and the media. Some dumbass Democrat will come along and suggest AARP have a shitfest with USANext too.

People can keep thinking one candidate can change it all if they want to I suppose. In the mean time, we've got 4 years of legislation to fight, an election in 2006, a media to expose, and a public to educate.

And people want to redo the 2003 primaries. :eyes: Like I said, I'm sick of it. It's a stupid waste of time and disruptive when we need to be focusing on this country.

[IndianaGreen]

45. Wake up guys! Elections are fixed in this country!

It doesn't matter who the Democrats nominate, the machines that count the votes will ensure that the rightwing candidate wins.

[Radical Activist]

48. Ok so lets sit around and do nothing

or not bother to pick a nominee in '08. The constant posts like this are too negative and defeating. Just because we have that problem doesn't mean that the rest of the world stops.

[IndianaGreen]

65. Teresa Heinz thinks that we need to address this problem NOW

Here is the link to the thread posted by blm:

COUNTING THE VOTES: Heinz Kerry is openly skeptical about results from November's election, particularly in sections of the country where optical scanners were used to record votes.

"Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

"We in the United States are not a banana republic," added Heinz Kerry. She argued that Democrats should insist on "accountability and transparency" in how votes are tabulated.

"I fear for '06," she said. "I don't trust it the way it is right now."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3232390

[AP]

73. I bet she ALSO cares about who the candidates are.

And I bet she doesn't tell people they shouldn't care unless the machines are fixed.

[dolstein]

50. They why do you bother trashing moderate Dems?

After all, if it doesn't matter WHO we nominate, why should you care one way or the other?

[AP]

52. Ha! Very Funny. Best post of the day.

[IndianaGreen]

59. Holy Joe is not a moderate

anymore than Zell Miller was a Democrat.

[AP]

51. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. I can care about both the

voting machines and who runs as a Democrat at the same time. It's not hard.

Why are so many Demcorats so challenged that they can't focus on more than one issue at a time?

[independentchristian]

46. Yes, Edwards was always the most appealing candidate for...

...General election voters.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/march04-poll.html

I'd guess that most of the people who voted no are Clark supporters, and I said, "most," so don't come telling me, "I'm wasn't a Clark supporter," because you alone do not override "most."

[politicasista]

56. We can put out all these hindsight polls we want..........

but as Momma T said, if we don't win in 2006, no one may have a change in 08. We have to fix the voting machines and take back the mainstream media period.

[MAlibdem]

68. In the end, it came down to Terrorism and Iraq

Those were Edwards' (and Kerry's to a lesser extent) weakest points. Kerry won domestic issues, but more people cared about terrorism and Iraq, and that's where Bush won it. People were still afraid, and Kerry didn't fight hard enough on terrorism and Iraq. Edwards couldn't have done half Kerry did on those issues, and would have had similar success on domestic issues.

However, in 2008, I think that Iraq and terrorism will reduce as major issues, and the sort of untouchability Bush has on those issues will not be transferred to the Republican candidate, allowing Edwards a chance to run and win.

[AP]

74. ...because Kerry didn't convince voters to care more about the bigger...

...picture, which has to do with the destruction of the middle class in the name of terror, fear and insecurity.

I think it's obvious that Edwards is a great vehicle for delivering the message to people that the bigger picture is a bigger priority. He could have convinced people to have a different priority.

[politicasista]

83. I agree about Edwards being the messenger

but the media never reported Kerry's message.

[AP]

90. When you're a great vehicle for a message, just pointing the camera at you

...is reporting your message.

Edwards became the son of the millworker. Pointing a camera at him invoked that mantra.

Kerry never really went beyond being the plutocrat NE liberal who liked to snowboard and windsurf and who had the billionaire wife.

The media may not have reported exactly what Kerry wanted them to say, but if he had been a fantastic candidate, they wouldn't have had to do that for him to win.

Remember, the media wanted to portray Clinton as the endomorph, cheating spouse. But somehow people still read him as the baby boomer (like them) who had the right priorities for america (it's the economy stupid).

Republicans thought they hit a homerun when Clinton went on national TV and had to confront rumors about cheating. Instead, voters saw a guy just like them and they LOVED it. Clinton didn't need the media to tell the people he was against the flat tax, believed that government should deficit spend in times of trouble, and wanted to make a big difference on race. He just needed to have them point their cameras at him and people knew that he felt their pain.

[MAlibdem]

131. No one is arguing for retreating from progressive values

And I think Edwards will certainly have a shot in '08, hell, i might work for him in NH. BUT he would not have won in '04.

[AP]

133. I don't know if he woudl have won...

...but I'm pretty sure he would have started from a firmer, higher platform, and would have had a bigger margin of error.

Read this:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/march04-poll.html

[Clarkie1]

70. His domestic policy was essentially the same as Kerry's.

His lack of experience, gravitas, and foreign policy/national security credentials would have destroyed him.

A one-term senator and trial lawyer versus the saviour of America post-9/11? (Don't flame me, I'm just telling you how Rove would have played him).

The Republicans wanted Edwards like a cat wants a mouse; Kerry was their second choice.

Clark was their worst fear.

[AP]

72. But he was a much better vehicle for the message.

Why didn't those things in your first sentence bother these voters:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/btp/march04-poll.html

And if the Republicans wanted him so badly, why were a couple professors able to convince a majority of voters that he was the best candidate, yet Rove, with total information control couldn't?

If Rove wanted Edwards to be the nominee so badly, he should have done what they did in this study: tell people the truth about all the candidates, have them read about their policies, let them talk to other people about the candidates, and have experts honestly answer their questions. They could have gotten Edwards easily if they had done that.

[Clarkie1]

75. Because that poll is bogus.

"after considering balanced briefings (hmmm...who decides what "balanced" is?) on national security and trade as well as the candidates' positions on these and other issues. They also posed questions to experts each week (what experts? who did they support?) about the issues and the candidate positions (and received answers online). In addition, they received a CD containing extensive material about the candidates (who decides what material?) in their own words, drawn from the candidate web sites and including videos of ads and candidate statements."

Real voters do not go thorough such sheenanigans. There is so much opportunity for bias and "pushing" in that poll, and even then Edwards doesn't get more than 48% versus Bush.

Get real. Your continued use of this poll to push Edwards is pathetic.

[AP]

77. Just because you don't want to believe what's in front of your eyes...

...doesn't make it a "shenanigan."

Why don't you read up on the methodology and the poll and not shut your mind to the truth.

At least, don't you think it's interesting that the poll pretty much predicted the election results?

[Clarkie1]

78. I believe scientific polls (and only then with a grain of salt)

Not this kind of B.S.

If you choose to believe, believe.

That's your perogative, not mine.

[AP]

81. LOLL (lots of labels & laughs!). This is a scientific poll.

Usually your posts are a little longer.

I'll assume that all the labels ("shenanigans" "B.S.") mean that you really don't have a good counter-argument.

I'll help you with your next reply: "Witches conducted this study! They should be burned!!"

[Clarkie1]

84. That's a pretty pathetic response, AP

Re-read post #75.

I have nothing more to say. I'll let all the Du'ers who read it draw their own conclusions.

[AP]

88. More labels. You need an argument before you can say that! (More laughs.)

What are DU'ers left with to draw their own conclusions? Your labels.

After reading throught the site twice you can't give one reasoned argument about why you think the poll is useless that goes beyond simply labelling it?

Yeah, I'm totally content to let DU'ers base their judgments on that.

[Clarkie1]

91. see post #75

I think you're the only one laughing.

[AP]

93. Call me when you have an argument.

This is unsual for you. Usually you have an argument.

[Clarkie1]

94. See post #75

And stop avoiding the argument.

[AP]

96. See my response. I guess I should thank you for at least having the sense

of shame to get rid of your original post and try to engage in a discussion.

My response to your new post is below.

[Clarkie1]

79. I have read the methodology.

Twice.

I wanted to be sure I was keeping an open mind about it.

[AP]

82. So what's your problem with it?

[Clarkie1]

85. post #75

And as I said, I'll let Du'ers draw their own conclusions from this point.

[AP]

86. More info about deliberative polling:

http://www.la.utexas.edu/research/delpol/

[AP]

95. Your questions are answered in the study.

So rather than ask who and what, why don't you dig a little deeper and tell me what was wrong with the information and the experts they used?

(For example, some of the information the participants got was all the position papers the candidates had on their websites--they actually made the voters consider what the candidates were saying about themselves. Imagine that!)

And what's your allegation anyway? The study was designed to do what?

No shit voters don't do all this. The point is that the study was trying to determine whom voters liked when they had all the information. And what does that tell you? It tells you who the best raw material is. It tells you who can be made into the best candidate once you get as much information as possible in front of the voters. That's all any Democrat can ask of a candidate. Just give me the best raw material.

If you look at any of the supporters groups here at DU, this is what everyone says about their candidates: "if only people knew the truth." Well, here we have a study that tells you if you're right.

The only thing that's pathetic here is that you have to go to such lengths to dismiss somethign of such obvious value just because it doesn't conform to what you want to believe.

[Clarkie1]

144. It only shows how opinion is malleable

It is the particulars of the participant sample that will mold opinion one way or another, and I don't believe for a moment it necessarily follows they are representative of how the entire voting populace would react in their "deliberations."

Think of a jury, for example. Think of two hypothetical jurys deliberating on the same case, made up of different individuals. Do you not see how it is very possible that each jury could come to a completely different verdict? Ever heard of the "butterfly effect?" How one small causal difference can result in an effectual change many magnitudes greater than the original cause?

Here's something I found that perhaps puts it better:

The Jury's Out

While some experts appreciate the value of deliberative polling as an experiment in civics, they aren't sold on its substantive value in policymaking.

The argument that an electorate's opinion "would" shift identically to that of a small sample is tough to support scientifically, according to Ken Dautrich, a political science professor at the University of Connecticut and director of the school's Center for Survey Research.

"It's not that simple," Dautrich said.

"The fact that you bring people to a place and have them deliberate for a week means you've changed them.

They have experiences that other people elsewhere in the country don't. In that sense it's difficult to use deliberative polling as representative of the population as a whole," Dautrich said.

http://www.la.utexas.edu/research/delpol/NewHaven/straw2-16-02.html

Deliberative polling may be an interesting intellectual excercise, but in my opinon less scientifically valid than traditional polling.

What would be interesting is if a paticular excercise in deliberative polling were done with several different jurys kept incommunicado from each other. Would they arrive at the same conclusions? I doubt it, unless the "weight of the evidence" was very high. And even if they did, it would still not follow that the generalization to the general population could be made, but it would be an interesting experiment in the sociology of small groups.

[AP]

148. No shit. Isn't that what a prez election is about: congealing opinion...

...around your candidate?

Read the Sunstein article from the conference on the site I gave you above. Sunstein says that you have the polarization effect when you put people together who already feel the same way about an issue and they sit around reaffirming each other. But when you have a random sampling and you give them a broad range of information, that probably doesn't happen.

What deliberation does is show you what CAN happen, not what will happen.

I don't think this study shows that Edwards would have won. I think it shows that he was the best raw material for creating a winner.

As for "different juries" -- sure, give it a shot. I bet they would have come up the same way.

[AP]

150. Another thing: I don't think the Amerian justice system is based on the

acceptance of the notion that no two juries would come to the same conclusion about the same case.

Firstly, we have very practical evidence that that isn't the case. In high stakes trials, lawyers run their case before mock juries to see what they think. They pay a lot of money to do this. There's NO WAY IN HELL lawyers would do that if they thought no two juries were going to come to the same conclusion. People tend not to repeatedly waste time AND MONEY on things that don't work.

So even with sample sizes as small as 9, lawyers are confident that when both sides present their best argument, you can learn something about what any group of nine people will think based on what a completely separate set of nine people think.

Secondly, we wouldn't have juries peroforming such important roles in the civil and criminal justice system in America if there weren't sufficient confidence that it is the case that small samples of people will still come to the same conclusions when presented with the best evidence and arguments available.

Which comes round to the things Sunstein acknowledges in his paper: deliberative polling doesn't measure the influence of discussions among people already predisposed one way or the other, and it doesn't provide only information that crystalizes beliefs already held. It includes people who have a range of opinions and asks them to consider a broad range of information.

And although Dautrich is concerend about making policy based on deliberative polling, I dont' think that's where deliberative polling's value lies. As I said, it shows you what's possible. It tells you what's likely to happen if you can get all the information out there into the hands of decision makers, not unlike mock juries.

[AP]

98. Furthermore, this is a methodology that these professors have used....

...in other settings, and it has been the focus of academic conferences, and it has been peer reviewed.

If you have a problem with it, your going to have be a little more detailed than calling it "shenanigans" and implying (without explanation) that it's intentionally biased.

Hey. I have an idea. Why don't you write a paper criticizing the methodology, and you can submit it to a conference or to a journal, and we'll see how your criticism gets peer reviewed. What do you say?

I'm not saying there aren't legitimate criticisms that could be made. But I'll tell you right now, yours isn't a legitimate criticism. Not by a mile.

[Clarkie1]

145. See post #144

[VOX]

101. Edwards was the Demcratic candidate that the White House feared the most.

Edwards was the first Democratic candidate that took a major hit from the White House (in early 2003, yet), which would indicate that he was the candidate that they feared the most.

IMO, with a well-run campaign, including rapid and thorough response to the outrageous Swift-Boat brand of crap, Edwards indeed could have unseated *. (This all presupposes that the elections weren't hopelessly rigged -- something of which I'm not entirely convinced.)

John and Elizabeth Edwards have the capacity to connect with the average American, the kind of feeling-left-out, disenchanted voter as described in the outstanding book, "What's the Matter With Kansas?"

This is all worth keeping in mind when 2008 draws closer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54335-2003Feb10?language=printer
With Edwards, White House Shows First-Strike Capability
Tuesday, February 11, 2003; Page A19
{b]Is President Bush afraid of John Edwards?
<snip>
But the White House and Bush's political arm, the Republican National Committee, seem preoccupied with Edwards, a first-term former trial lawyer. A month ago, when Edwards began his candidacy, the RNC put out a 10-page report a day later branding him "An Unaccomplished Liberal in Moderate Clothing and a Friend To His Fellow Personal Injury Trial Lawyers." At the time, the GOP had not issued similar takedowns of the other Democrats in the field.

A week later, on Jan. 14, a White House official told the Associated Press that Bush was delivering a speech on medical malpractice as part of a "whack John Edwards" day. When Bush called for limits on awards in medical malpractice suits last July, he spoke in North Carolina.
<snip>
A key Bush activist, Tom Rath, has joined the American Association of Health Plans, an adversary of Edwards, to help the HMO lobby's political efforts in New Hampshire. The group last week released a poll showing Edwards in fifth place in the state.

In private conversations, Republicans linked to the White House often talk of Edwards as the most dangerous of the Democratic candidates, because he is handsome and southern and "undefined" in the public imagination. That gives him the potential to create a populist challenge to Bush...
<snip>

[elperromagico]

114. Dean was the candidate the WH feared most. So was Kerry. So was Clark.

If you listen to the talk around here, the WH were a fearful bunch indeed back in early '04.

[AmericanDream]

120. They did fear edwards

Rove was quoted as discussing with his strategists and staff that edwards would be the hardest to go after and beat. They were favoring a run by dean, cuz he would've been so easy to label as "out of the mainstream" just like kerry. That argument does not work with edwards because when people see him, they see what a lot of others see in bush... someone they can relate to, connect to, and be comfortable with. Its hard to predict who would've won... but edwards could have done what kerry did not... he would have framed the debate around domestic issues and not the other way around. We (democrats) need to start framing the debate rather than the republicans decide what the campaign agenda is going to be. In early 2004, all polls indicated that the economy was the major issue on the voters' mind... and kerry didn't build on that, instead he "reported for duty" and gave the bush people fodder for their campaign. Democrats always win on domestic issues and we should never concede those to the repubs.

[VOX]

134. Edwards was taking WH rockets in **'03**, before the others.

That, IMO, is significant. And it is documented in the WP article linked above.

[LittleClarkie]

141. Of course. Trial Lawyer. Ooooh scary!

When did the GOP declare war on the trial lawyers, anyway?

[bush_is_wacko]

103. First of all. The "election" was not even legitimate!

No Democrat was going to win that position. It was rigged. The evidence is everywhere!

[Kenneth ken]

105. other:

no; vote rigging was going to beat any Democratic candidate, so why bother playing what if?

[McCamy Taylor]

112. Yes. And he will win in in 2008. He is kind of candidate USA loves.

Who were the last two Dems to win? Carter and Clinton, charming charismatic southerners with no experience to speak of but who had great audience rapport.

Edwards has winner written all over him.

:dem:

[elperromagico]

113. When you consider that Kerry only needed 18 more EVs to win,

I suspect anything is possible.

The questions for me with any of these hypotheticals are:

A: Could the candidate have won the states Kerry won?

B: If the answer to A is "yes," then what states could the candidate have won to make up that 18 EV gap?

C: Assuming A and B favor the candidate, could the margins have been large enough to overcome any attempt at vote tampering or voter supression?

Answer me those three, and I'll respond. :D

[ZootSuitGringo]

116. Hell no!

How could Edwards have won an election which centered around Terrorism and National Security? Does anyone seriously thinks that the election was going to be about something else?

[loudsue]

122. God, Himself, couldn't have won the general election, if the voting

machines didn't get programmed that way.

And, furthermore, if God HAD been on the ballot, but NOT listed as a republican, He likely would have lost by about 3% in most swing states.

:kick::kick::kick:

[PurityOfEssence]

123. Boy, the Clarkies are out in force today, aren't they?

Face it: he whupped your boy. Even with all the money, connections and attention, he whupped him good and proper.

Edwards was the only candidate after Iowa who improved his standings. Had there been some length to the season, it could have turned.

[Clarkie1]

143. Edwards was the one with the money, connections, and attention.

Connections to trial lawyers with $$$.

Big money from trial lawyers (unlike Clark and Dean, that's were most of his $$$ came from).

And overabundant attention from the MSM after Iowa particularly.

[NoPasaran]

136. Sure

I still think Kerry could have won if his campaign hadn't sucked so bad.

[Sapphire Blue]

137. Would any Democratic candidate have 'won' the election

given the 'architecture' in place?

[tom_paine]

138. No. The Imperials were NOT going to allow a "Democrat Emperor"

If they had to steal and suppress 10,000, they would have done that. 100,000, they would have doen that. I strongly suspect that, through all methods of vote-stuffing and disenfranchisement, both manual and electronic, perhaps as many as 5-8% of the votes were shifted, stuffed, or stolen.

The chance for ANY Democratic "candidate" to acheive the Imperial Throne of Amerika, I think, is equal to the chance that Chaim Weitzmann being elected Head of the Nazi Party.

The EXACT same chance.

Hence, my vote that the result would have been the same.

[Awsi Dooger]

140. The landslide loser consensus scares the hell out of me

Because it demonstrates how incomparably ignorant our handicapping has become. Of all the options in this poll, landslide loser is easily the one with no basis in fact or informed opinion, but as I'm typing this it dominates as a clear majority.

That's why I dream of a nominating process in which the idiot masses are not involved. Their priorities royally suck, which is how we end up with an annointed John Kerry, even more vulnerable than qualified for the job. It's really not much different than an Oklahoma being bet from a 3-point underdog to a 1-point favorite over a vastly more talented team like USC. Public opinion is a wonderful tool, invaluable to gang up on the other side.

We need an almighty party chief who understands the varied landscape and the specific necessities of each cycle, and isolates the best ticket accordingly. One vote only. I guarantee we win more elections that way.

More than a year ago it could not have been more clear the GOP was petrified of Edwards. Hell, even Ben Stein said he was scared of the "Breck girl." The DU consensus was that meant they were trying to bait us into Edwards; they were really frightened of Dean. Yeah, and the Columbia football team. When Kerry emerged as the clear frontrunner during the primaries, I remember two polls that had Kerry and Edwards both leading Bush. But the margins screamed that Edwards was the better option, and would be leading Bush by much greater margin than Kerry, if Edwards were the frontrunner and emblazoned on all the major mag covers, etc.

I would have chosen an option that was not available here: "very close loss, much tighter than Kerry." The two factors we continue to downplay on DU in regard to 2004 -- incumbency and 9/11. IMO, those two cushions would have enabled Bush to defeat Edwards by roughly half his margin over Kerry, i.e. not enough to sway Ohio or a combination of other states totalling 18 electoral votes. Again, it's now 11 of 12 successful re-elections since 1900 if the incumbent's party has only been in power one term. No matter how we rate him here, Bush was not nearly as unpopular as the one incumbent who failed in that spot, Carter in 1980.

I usually agree with dolstein, but not in his assertion that money, or lack thereof, would have crippled Edwards. I hope we take from the McAuliffe era an understanding how overrated money can be. It's a 50/50 nation that now leans slightly but devastatingly GOP on the federal level due to 9/11 and national security concerns. Money was not going to influence those security moms in our direction, no more than lack of air time was going to nudge the less singleminded white women away from us. I'm amazed that only AP among this elongated thread mentioned women as a criteria for preferring Edwards to Kerry last year. I'm talking about likeability and message, not looks. The 2004 vote was always going to pivot based on white women and white women only. I still don't understand how that was ignored, and not top rung on the priority pole. It can't be reasonably argued that Kerry was better suited to pull the white female vote than John Edwards. We blew the block 54-45 after only a 1 point deficit in 2000. That was game, set, match. In Florida, white women split on the Castor/Martinez senate race but preferred Bush by huge margin, something like 10 points. None of the other major voting blocks altered significantly, other than Hispanics who drifted GOP also due to 9/11 residue. I've posted that link before: http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=750

I admire the DUers who continue to debate this every day. I'm still deflated and burnt out on politics, sticking primarily to sports. But I hope we look back at 2004 not in regard to who might have won, but as a tool in aiding future cycles. I continue to believe GOTV and registration are spectacularly overrated, as opposed to identifying the proper candidate and message. Preference, not signatures. You win by influencing the voters who have already participated, not my swamping the opponent with newbies. In an incumbency cycle, bashing the opponent is wasted dollars and breath. I guarantee Edwards would have been much less obsessed with masochistically denouncing Bush on the stump day after day. I saved the tapes of Kerry's lauded debate efforts. When you look back months later, it's obvious why they didn't garner more votes. Virtually all of his best moments were attacking Bush, much more than laying out a hopeful agenda of his own.

[AP]

142. Now there's a great, informative, thoughtful post. Two comments:

1) unless I can't remember my own posts, I think someone else might have mentioned the women's vote, and

2) Don't worry about the %s -- up until there were about 40-50 votes, Edwards was doing really well. The top category started at about 45% with the two no categories totaling about 40%. The top yes category leveled at about 38% for a while when the bottom two moved to 50-55%, and then the vote total exploded. Guess how the huge influx voted?

I'm going to guess that the sample is becoming less representative of reality as the vote total increases.

On Edit: re point 1: my post 62 -- now I remeber.

[sampsonblk]

146. Speaking for only me - I would have voted for Nader

I am not the only one. Edwards was even more of a collaborationist than Kerry.

[Azathoth]

147. He would have lost by a slim margin exactly as Kerry did

That's the dynamics of the country right now. Bush has successfully polarized the country. If I remember correctly, something like 70% of the voters were saying they had made up their mind who they would vote for before the primaries were even over. This election was about Bush. People who voted Republican voted for Bush. People who voted Democrat voted against Bush, not for Kerry.

The one advantage Edwards would have had would have been his message. His "two Americas" theme, and his focus on economic and social policy, could have become the centerpiece of his campaign, and it would probably have resonated with voters. Kerry's campaign was directionless and had utterly no message aside from "I served in Vietnam and I'm not Bush."

[Awsi Dooger]

149. Let's be honest about the skewed results of this poll

It's the Clark supporters furiously voting landslide loss. Nothing else, and meaningless.

If you had an identical poll asking if Clark would have destroyed Bush, the same posters would manipulate a similar margin boosting Clark.

It's the current version of "DU this poll!"