2004 was much much much nastier than this primary. Yeah, really.

[Herman Munster]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1DqOwP3Xzc&eurl=http://hillaryis44.org/

[Drunken Irishman]

1. I actually agree Herman and that ad was the beginning of the end for the Dean campaign.

It all began to go down hill shortly after that ad aired, because experience and electability became a major issue to Democratic voters. After that ad aired, many Democrats began questioning whether Dean had what it took to lead this nation in a time of war. It was ugly, uncalled for and really turned me off of politics for quite awhile.

[dorktv]

3. were you on these boards? The nastiness was amazing...

so what is going on now should be no surprise.

[TheDonkey]

5. Seriously, some people forget easily.

It's a little different this time because now it is X vs Y when before it was X vs ABCDEFG (X being Dean versus everyone else!). Once Kerry started winning and Gephardt, Clark, and Dean people tore each other apart it was over.

[dorktv]

7. Kerry sucked. Still does suck. Sorry if you were a Kerry supporter

but at least Dean had passion. And the willingness to push for all fifty states.

Hmmm...makes me wonder if the reason he ran was what a lot of us supporters here in AZ thought it was for-the chair of the DNC.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. This is the most patty-cake primary I've seen. Even Gore did much worse to Bradley

I don't know if the "shocking dirty campaign" people are pretending, delusional or just have never seen a campaign before.

[Herman Munster]

4. Just imagine if Hillary ran the same ad now

Instead of Osama morphing into Dean's face, it would be Obama.

Could you imagine the outrage?

[tabasco]

6. Kerry went down in the GE because of his war vote.

Four years later, another one bites the dust.

Toadying to fearmongers is not a wise career choice for Democrats.

Time for this party to find its backbone again and get rid of all the gutless enablers.

[babylonsister]

8. 2004's issues are totally different than today as you pointed out.

It's a whole new ballgame this year, though I missed the infighting of 04, thankfully, as did the OP.

[Political Heretic]

9. No he didn't. Sorry but that's some revisionist history.

The public support wasn't there for ending the war in 2004 - a majority of people still supported it. Kerry's Iraq policy wasn't "I will end the war" it was "Bush mismanaged the war effort, and I will wage the war better."

Kerry went down in the GE because he couldn't / wouldn't respond to the Republican attack machine and appeared to be a weak, ineffective candidate to the voting public.

[Colobo]

10. Excellent post. I agree with your views on the 2004 election.

[tabasco]

11. He appeared to be wishy washy because he voted for war and had no moral ground

from which to condemn the war. Kerry voted to give madman Bush a loaded gun and brought his judgment into question. Kerry appeared as a typical politician in trying to read the polls to decide which way to vote. This made him look indecisive and weak. There was no real opposition candidate and Democratic turnout for the primaries was one of the lowest ever. Democrats were not excited about Kerry because of his failure to oppose Bush.

The Iraq war vote was the singlemost important reason Kerry lost the (s)election.

[OHdem10]

12. This primary has been surreal. I have not seen anything

that would begin to compare with Campaigns past.

[Occam Bandage]

13. Oh, no. This was my favorite.

I like how we smear the very idea of liberals. It's great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4-vEwD_7Hk