Dems could have WON. Let's admit it: mistakes were made.

[WiseMen]

Given the national security environment, Kerry may have saved the Dems from a
McGovern scale defeat. If all the votes were truly counted, Kerry probably won -- but,
all the votes are never counted, the underclass are always less likely to deliver
"good" ballots. The system has been rigged for a long time.

But still, mistakes were made which were as much driven by forces in the Democratic
party apparatus and culture as by decisions by Kerry:

1. It's national security stupid. The Dems took a hell of a long time to facing up to the
need to undercut Bush's credibility as CIC. In a time of war and terror, fear trumps all
and Dems should have been focused of building terror of Bush's incompetence in Iraq
before turning to favorite issues of health care and jobs.

2. A pretty face does not cut it when there is a gun at your head. You want Mr. T coming
to the rescue. The massive lobbying effort for Edwards by numerous party interest
groups, including Nader, was sadly misguided. Kerry needed a Wes Clark or a Sam Nunn
to watch his back on National Security, someone with the gravitas to slap back the "weak
on defense" and swift-vet type smears that we all knew were coming down the pipe
from the Rove fraud factory. But NOooo, we wanted charisma, appeal to the youth, and
someone to run in 2012?

3. Election time is no time to threaten majority "Morals." Activist in Boston and San Francisco
made homosexuality a hot issue at the wrong time, in the wrong country.
Majority rules! Kerry's morality and principled positions on homosexuality happen to be
viewed as unprincipled immorality by the majority. Speaking the "truth" about our
favorite Lesbian is enough to define yourself as a "bad man" to many voters.
Kerry has learned a hard lesson. I don't know if party activist have.

Still hoping for a major vote fraud scandal to break. But, barring a beautiful miracle
lets see if the party can knuckle down to the hard work of political re-education at
all levels. A hell of a lot of folk voted for Bush, against all facts, against their own
interests, against the evidence of their own eyes. Teachers needed!!

[benburch]

1. We did win.

We won by several percent. The difference is vote fraud and amounts to sedition.

[DELUSIONAL]

11. WE WON -- WE DIDN'T LOSE

There was gross vote fraud!

[w13rd0]

2. During the primaries...

...you savaged anyone supporting anyone other than Kerry. After the decision was made, most of your posts attacked Kerry, and now you stop by to do some more finger painting. Forgive me, but wise?

[WiseMen]

6. I have never "attacked" Kerry. His life of service deserves our respect.

Please review my posts. I do believe that the campaign apparatus was
complacent after he primaries and did not take the viciousness and deviousness
of the Repub operation as seriously as it should have early on.

I am very familiar with what happenned internally and MB and staff were just not
the ready for the fight. Kerry turned it around in the end, but the August "strategy"
re the vet-smear attack was a disaster.

[Ducks In A Row]

3. WE didn't lose anything. The fuckers stole it again

so stop with this losing crap and start getting rid of BBV

[Wickerman]

4. Kerry ran a virtually stumble-free campaign

Anything he or the campaign actually did were very small potatoes. Bush stepped on his, er, Bush screwed up daily and seemingly folks supported him like he was the second coming of John Wayne. Is this country that stupid? I still prefer to think not.

[Democat]

10. A stumble free campaign? He let the Swift Liars trash him for weeks!

Come on. Kerry did pretty good but his campaign took forever to get started. They tried to play "nice" for the entire early campaign while Bush's people were running attacks from the start. Kerry got destroyed by the Swift Liars when he let them attack him everywhere for weeks without a decent response.

His team was also unable to effectively frame the argument against Bush like the Bush team was able to do to him. Kerry was a "flip flopper" and an extreme liberal. What was Bush? There wasn't a message that stuck against him. They couldn't even paint an extremist as an extremist, or they wouldn't.

I can't believe anyone could look at the Kerry campaign and say there wasn't room for improvement.

Looking at the early campaign, the "nice" convention, the Swift Liars fiasco, and whatever else, let's not make the guy a saint.

I appreciate what Kerry did for us, but strategically we got out gunned quite a few times during the campaign.

[Wickerman]

12. "There wasn't a message that stuck against him."

I think each issue could be argued that Bush had more support of the media than Kerry had. Nothing ever stuck to Bush, nothing ever does.

I don't intend to put Kerry up for sainthood at any time soon, nor did I say that their wasn't room for improvement - I said he ran a virtually stumbleproof campaign. There simply weren't huge gaffs - Rove and media were waiting for the big moment - none came. Bush had dozens - Kerry attempted to capitalize, media refused to accept.

I'll accept the fact that mistakes were made but recognize the bias - Bush's debate performance alone should've tanked him - the media let him walk. There is a double standard, Dems must run a perfect campaign, Bush only had to avoid pissing himself more than once daily for the adoration to continue.

[Democat]

13. I agree

The campaign did not make any major gaffes of its own. I think not responding to the Swift Liars quickly was a mistake but even that was Bush's making to start with.

The debates were amazing. Before the debates the media said that they were the most important deciding factor for undecided voters. As soon as Kerry won, the media said that no one will care about debates so they don't matter. If Bush had won, can you imagine how the media would have buried Kerry?

The most important thing that those on the left should be working on behind the scenes is the media. We have Air America now, which is a start. We need our own version of Fox and then, most importantly, we need a far better prepared talking head army to go out and scream our message on every show that will have us on.

At least half of the time when you see someone from the left on television they don't even know the day's talking points, they are uneducated on key obvious issues, and more often than not, they just don't have the debating skills or charisma to take on the well trained hand picked right wing media soldiers.

The media is our enemy and the only way to get our voice back in the media is to fight for it and spend years and a lot of money. The Republicans spent decades getting where they are and we haven't really even started our work yet.

[Wickerman]

14. Yep, we have made the mistake that the field is relatively level

That corruption is small-time, that grass-roots is truly grass-roots. Nope, we need heroic efforts to compete with this level of evil.

[BootinUp]

15. I agree, so the conclusion is

the majority just didn't like him period.

Sorta like how the majority of us dems who really followed the primaries din't like him above other candidates.

Kerry is a great man, a fine politician. I backed him all the way, but he was not the best candidate for a national race in this time we live.

*asbestos on*

[WiseMen]

21. I think the DNC fooled itself thinking Bush could be rolled without a

vicious fight. I really think that the V.P. choice was the decisive choice showing that
the Dems were not focused on ripping Bushes head off over his national security
failures. Clark was a far better choice, but labor and mainstream Dems pushed
Edward (also a great guy, but not a credible attack dog on terror and Iraq).

Kerry should have gone with his instincts and shunned the "charisma" ticket in favor
of the "serious" ticket.

[AuntPatsy]

5. We won it pure and simple, they stole it, the heads at the top let

them, they will redeem themselves in my eyes only if this election fraud is exposed...

[CaptainCorc]

7. Whoops.

Wow...my apologies, I misunderstood your meaning. Please disregard.

[Bluebear]

8. So now human rights are determined by the majority??????

"Activist in Boston and San Francisco made homosexuality a hot issue at the wrong time, in the wrong country. Majority rules! Kerry's morality and principled positions on homosexuality happen to be viewed as unprincipled immorality by the majority."

When do you suggest was the "right time" to stand up for those beliefs? And since Kerry spoke against gay marriage, how was his view so pro-gay and 'principled'?

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. You want something to do now, do this

-----------------------------------------------------------
FIGHT! Take this country back one town and state at a time!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm

[springhill]

16. Where have you been?

I swear, if I see one more post about what we should or could have done or where we went wrong I'm going to hurl. They can program the e-voting maches to make it so the person they want to get the votes will get them. Got it? That's what was done. We got the popular vote. We won the electoral vote. It was stolen from us. The republicans are the ones who SHOULD be sitting around wondering where they went wrong. But me know why they are wrong. They are extremists, and the MAJORITY of the United States are not extremists.

[WiseMen]

20. I have been totally devastated by what has happenned. Been all out for

Kerry for the last two years, and still support him for Pres., despite the bizzare and
painful "concession." Was all for fighting this to the last drop. Don't really know
why John threw in the towel.

[TheKingfish]

17. Im sure mistakes were made by the guy who lost to Hitler too

Whats the point? It should have been a landslide.

[WiseMen]

18. Yes, a landslide going into Nov 2 would have made it harder to steal

eletion, but whatever set of multiple devious methods.

As soon as it became "too close to call" the week prior the door was wide open to
election fraud.

[bullimiami]

24. there never was too close to call

you are just full of the kool aid.

the media. bahhh. crap. all spin. never any goddamn facts. kerry won in a landslide. look back and find me an election won with 53-54 percent and its a landslide.
the fraud was built in from the get go. they didnt come up with it this week.

my anger is that we dont seem to have been equipped to fight it.

still hoping though.

[Carolab]

19. Shut up.

WE didn't do ANYTHING wrong.

The DNC did! We were let down.

WE won this election. WE did! The Democratic citizens of this nation who put their lives on hold, worked long hard hours to GOTV, stood in lines in the rain, gave up their hard-earned money.

THIS IS OUR ELECTION. AND WE WON'T LET THEM STEAL IT.

NO MATTER WHAT JOHN KERRY OR JOHN EDWARDS OR THE DNC DID OR DIDN'T DO OR DOES OR DOESN'T DO NOW!

THIS is OUR fight!

[robbedvoter]

22. He won. Mistake was afterward in welching on us

No campaign is perfect. But compared to who? W's make believe - with the same audience bused in from town to town? Pretend campaign, mock election.
Whatever the mistakes, Kerry won.
He needed to insist on that even if he can't take office. Failed the leadership test.

Famous last words:
"I have no time for those crying in your teacups for stolen elections"
John Kerry, campaign trail 2003

[bullimiami]

23. what part of the vote was rigged dont you understand?

we couldnt have won ever. they fixed it. they would have gotten what they needed no matter what or they would have done something else to change the outcome or stop the election. they are playing for keeps. either we are or we arent.


kerry got about as many votes as he was going to get. probably around 53-54 percent. that is a landslide in american politics. the faith based, the scared, the republican diehards they were not going to vote for a democrat liberal or centrist. maybe if you had a democrat screaming about jesus and talking in tounges he could have pulled a little of the evangelical vote?

or do you think a further left candidate would have helped more. dont think so. kerry had pretty much all of them. look how little the greens and nader pulled in this election.