Campaign Themes Tell About Who is the Nader of 2004

[WiseMen]

Ron Chusid, of the Kerry Campaign, argues that Krugman should have looked at the tactics and strategy of the Dean campaign before drawing belated conclusions who was acting like Nader.

For myself, I like Ralph Nader. But lets be real about what's going down.

http://forum.johnkerry.com//index.php?showtopic=345



Dean is the Nader by two themes of his campaign:


1) He campaigned as the anti-Washington candidate, opposing those cockroaches in Congress, and saying how the leadership should be swept out of office. He has attacked the Washington based Democrats for being responsible for Bush going to war, for the lack of health care benefits, and everything else bad. Obviously this makes it harder for any candidate coming out of Congress to win.

2) Dean managed to make the IWR resolution a litmus test, and managed to get the media to change their label on Kerry from anti-war to pro-war. Using the IWR and war as a wedge issue makes it harder for the Democrats to win, considering that a majority backed the war. If not for Dean, Kerry could have won the nomination and we could have had an anti-war candidate who was still acceptable to large numbers of swing voters. Dean has polarized this. By pursuing a moderate sounding course (while vigorously fighting Bush) Kerry is having problems winning the nomination by not sounding radical enough. By making it almost a requirement to sound like someone on the far left, Dean has created a situation where electable candidates in a general election are having difficulty winning the nomination. This may leave us with an unelectable nominee such as Dean.

Ron Chusid

[TeacherCreature]

1. I can not believe Kerry is wasting time like this

The point is that Kerry is trying to destroy the man who can atually win the nomination just like Nader tried to destroy the man who could win the Presidency.

Kerry is such a fool, given that Dean does better against bush than Kerry does, this is triple stupid.

[WiseMen]

4. Care to compare Dean's attacks on Kerry to Kerry's. Even Now in IOWA.

Dean is sending out attacks, often unsubstantiated.

I guess truth does not matter.

[quaker bill]

2. IWR was not a litmus test

It was a vote that authorized the dropping of 2000 pound bombs on a civilian population center of 5 million people. This cannot be written off so lightly. The unwarranted deaths of 10,000, 20,000 or 50,000 civilians (depending on whose numbers you happen to trust), was not a campaign ploy.

No one who voted for this is electable in my book. The most recent polls mirror this.

The Nader image applied by Krugman was on the money.

[KittyWampus]

5. Sorry, Dean's The One Saying His Supporters Aren't Transferrable

he's the one using the IWR as a wedge issue just as the GOP has.

He's the one using slash and burn tactics.

He's the one saying there's effectively no difference between Kerry and Bush (except he's Bush-Lite).

He's the one who seems to have amnesia when it comes to his own DLC past that he only bothered to shed like a lizards skin before entering the Primary.

[quaker bill]

7. Sorry, it is not a wedge issue

It is an actual issue. I was not going to support anyone who voted for IWR in the primaries well before I noticed Dean.

I wrote the Senator and implored him to oppose IWR. His vote was my answer.

Opposition to IWR was an actual issue among Democrats well before the vote was taken. Millions of us were holding rallies in the streets, writing letters, sending faxes, flooding phone systems. Do you recall any of this?

Guess what, we actually did it because we opposed the war. We did not do it to support Dean, or anyone else for that matter. Most of us were suffering under curious concept that killing innocent civilians was just wrong.

This movement was not a result of some campaign ploy. No representative of any campaign for President was involved in any rally I attended. (Al Sharpton did show up at some of the later ones I saw on CSPAN.)

This is a real issue and we are not done killing people over it yet.

[jwb48]

3. You have Strange Reasoning

Didn't you notice Over 8 million people on the street in one day, from one end of the earth to the other protesting this war? Or did you like Bush see them as a "focus group." Did you notice the frustration of democrats who wrote to their congressional reps some reported up to 10 to 1 against this war only to see congress turn around and support it regardless. Those who authorized Bush to proceed gambled that the war would turn out fine and they didn't want to be on the wrong side of the issue. They ignored many of their constituents, military leadership, the CIA, the rest of the world and common sense. It didn't take Dean to invent polarity against an unnecessary, ill conceived war based on lies. Nor did Dean cause people to reject the convoluted twisting and turning that Kerry and others are doing as they try to explain why they are criticizing the outcome of something they voted for. IMO that's the unelectable position. Because if the base of democratic voters have rejected Kerry's defense of his vote, how could that be a winning formula in the general election? Lose your base chasing the so-called swing voters???

Dean had the courage to reject the lies of this administration at the risk of someone questioning his patriotism and that earned him the respect of the people who support him. Furthermore,I think Dean is correct in challenging the DLC, they don't exactly have a winning record, you know especially after 2002. So if people resonate with the candidates' position and his support has lifted him to be the front runner what is the problem??

[Raya]

8. I was on the streets. Was Dean there. Don't Bet on it. Of all the candidat

Dean probably has the record of being least likely in a anti-war march. I know, Sharpton, Kucinich, Kerry have anti-war march record. Dean has supported every U.S. imperialist war. Until Now.


Guess there are enough gullible folk out there to give him the nomination.

[quaker bill]

10. Oops

HEARING OF THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE;
10:37 A.M. EDT TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1999
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1999_h/990928-iraq-sfrc.htm

SEN. KERRY: Sure.

Well, I thank the chair. And I thank you again.

I just have -- as a parting comment -- I mean, the strategic exigencies that brought us to understand that it was unacceptable to have the invasion of Kuwait, which was cloaked in a certain amount of rhetoric, was far more oriented towards longer-term implications of the potential of his moving further south -- oilfields, economy. As Jim Baker said back then, "This is about jobs." And then they found other rhetoric to couch it in. But that was a code word for those oil fields and, I think, the longer-term strategic implications of the Middle East. Now, that was sufficient to bring all of us to believe, though timing was questioned, that we had to be prepared to use force, and we ultimately did.

It seems to me that a Saddam Hussein who has the ability to develop potentially more threatening weapons of mass destruction -- and notwithstanding -- I mean, it was the show of force and the determination of the United States that really took away from him that option, previously. If the determination is not there, then the use that he put it to previously, in other circumstances, could become far more attractive again in the future, which I think is the bottom line of what you are saying.

So I think we're -- and I thank the chair for having this hearing. I mean, I think we're talking about a very significant, large strategic interest of the United States that for various reasons has been second-tiered to sometimes more emotional and certainly of-the-moment perceptions of other issues that don't rise to the same strategic, longer-term interests of our country. So I think it's important for us to be thinking about where we go, because I've said, and I think you and others have said, there's an ultimate time -- as long as he's there, and it may well be that the Iraqi people will settle that. But as long as he is there, I think most people understand that that threat remains and it's real. So -- and there's a time of confrontation. So I think we're better to do it sooner rather than later and to be real about our resolve.

<<AND ANOTHER>>

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1996/somnibil.htm

Mr. KERRY.
Certainly one is not vulnerable to the charge of failing to prepare for a ballistic missile threat by supporting the Pentagon's and administration's request for $2.9 billion for their BMD effort. Indeed, I strongly support the vigorous research and development effort to enhance our technical capabilities to spot, track, intercept, and destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles and their warheads, and I have been a consistent supporter of programs to develop and field theater ballistic missiles .

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

6. I said this last year

Howard Dean is the Ralph Nader of well-off White Liberals. Too bad Kerry didn't do anything about it them. Now, Kerry should drop out and endorse Sharpton, who is doing much better in the polls.

I like Kerry, great Senator!

[quaker bill]

9. Go Al Go!

My experience suggests the "well off white liberals" thing is bogus.

I agree with your take on Sharpton though.

[Raya]

11. Actually Dean Started as Choice of Moderates vs Kerry the Liberal. But

Changed strategy in the middle on instruction from Trippi