In your heart of hearts, what do you really think happened 11/2?

[Bossy Monkey]

Obviously, some of these aren't mutually exclusive. Pick the one you think is most true, or choose other and elaborate on your answer below.

Please no flamewars here. If you want to post flamebait, do so on your own thread.

I'm kind of leaning towards the 527s (Swift Boat/ NRA). I'm in SC where they had practically no worries about losing and yet they bought time on the local Fox affiliate (or maybe the whole network, I don't know) during the time slot where either the early or late football game would have been to trot out the same old slanders. I can only imagine what it would have been like in a battleground state. I suspect that those who crow about what a great fundraising job the Kerry campaign did aren't counting totals that include 527s. I bet that overall they kicked our asses.

[Technowitch]

1. Given the exit polls, I'm positive they stole it.

Not just a little bit certain either. I'm talking 100% positive. There's just too much evidence of tampering to back it up, too.

[Cornus]

4. Totally agree nm

[Dem Agog]

12. Add my 100% Positive it was stolen to Technowitch's ...

Absolutely. I would bet the farm that this election was blatantly, evilly stolen.

[Lizzie Borden]

2. The republicans stole it.

no question about it.

[Vincardog]

7. The FASCISTS STOLE it and will be in control until we clean up vote count

and electronic ballot boxes. This NOW is either the end of Democracy or the rebirth of the USA. You decide.

[nolabels]

17. WE decide

We are the majority :kick:
We are finding out the truth now :kick:
They cannot stand losing and they are more afraid of us* :kick:
In times like this real adults must step up to this child's game that has turned awful and decide what is best:kick:


* Depending how you slice it, but also are you willing to slice off part of your neighbor?

[DenverDem]

3. Massive and obvious fraud!

No question.

[Xipe Totec]

5. Control the Media, control the message

Perception is reality.

[ewagner]

6. Other

I'm beginning to believe that we might have lost because the church groups came out and voted en masse.....and they did it LATE in the day.......this is just a gut feeling from what I observed around here even though I have asked other DUers for their experience and couldn't get any feel that the same thing was going on elsewhere.

[demnan]

8. The Republicans used the Swift Boat Liars

to define Kerry and his campaign did not respond quickly enough or strongly enough to persuade people he had leadership ability.

[theorist]

9. But wasn't it within 3% in SC.

When I voted there in 2000, Bush won handily by something like 14%. I'm leaning towards the stolen election, and SC may be a place where they didn't try anything dirty. If SC's results are assumed to be fair and correct, then there should have been a uniform increase in Dem support throughout the country, minus the states with gay marriage bans on the ballot.

[Bossy Monkey]

14. No. Fucking blowout.

I was too depressed to check before, so I didn't even know.
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/special_packages/election2004/
Tables don't work well on DU, and if I put the post in plain text so I can regularize the spacing, it'll fuck up the URL link above. So forgive the unintelligible mess you'll see below; I'm pretty sure the numbers will come through, though:
Bush , George (i) Rep 924,170 58.04
Kerry , John Dem 650,350 40.84
Nader , Ralph Ind 5,431 .34

[jjmalonejr]

10. Security Issues

All of these things contributed, but when push comes to shove I believe that Americans were pumped full of fear and misinformation and Kerry was unsuccessful at penetrating this veil of terror.

Yes, fraud happened and needs to be investigated, but I'm just not convinced it made the difference.

Yes, values voters came out in numbers, but I'm still not convinced it made the difference.

Jobs, taxes, health care, abortion, guns, gay marriage...you name it, they all take a back seat to these BIGGER issues of national security (no matter WHAT people say to pollsters). Constantly pivoting back to your comfy domestic issues, and constantly playing defense on the less comfy "wedge" issues, takes the focus off where you want it to be. Attack your opponent where he's strongest, or his strength will come back to bite you. Unless you debunk the myth of the "strong, decisive commander-in-chief who keeps us safe from terrorists," you COULD NOT WIN.

Mistakes aside (and there were a number of them), Kerry did a pretty good job on Iraq and foreign policy when he spoke about them. Trying to link the $200B spent on the war to the shortchanging of domestic programs was lame, though. People will pay any price if they believe it makes them safe. When people are afraid (and the GOP made sure that they were), pocketbook issues are far less important.

Kerry did begin an attempt to de-link the Iraq War from the War on Terrorism, but didn't spend enough time on it to really make it sink in. He let rhetoric from the Bush campaign that he wasn't committed to success in Iraq neuter his criticism. When he got accused of being a dove, he feigned being a hawk. And he wonders why the flip-flopping accusations stuck?

On terrorism, he only pointed to the President's ineffectiveness SINCE the attacks, and completely avoided an examination of Bush's pre-9/11 priorities. I suppose that was out of fear of a backlash, but when Cheney's going around saying that electing Kerry would increase the likelihood of another attack, how could ANYTHING you say be construed as a low blow?

Mind you, I say all of this as a staunch Kerry supporter, and one who would support him again in 2008 (the "Payback" election).

[haunce]

11. Elections

I think the Republicans stole it AGAIN:grr:

[newyawker99]

25. Hi haunce!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[shakerbaker]

13. Losing was never

an option for Rove and Co.

[On the Road]

15. Yes, They're Not Mutually Exclusive

1) Ohio may have been lost purely on the basis of underallocation of voting machines and other means of vote suppression.

2) In addition, it is entirely possible that Republicans committed enough outright fraud to swing Ohio and even possibly Florida.

3) Outside of those issues, I believe gay marriage was the stealth issue of this campaign, one that did not show in the polls partly because it increased intensity rather than change support a candiate, and partly because the social climate leads people to keep silent about appearing to be bigots.

4) The other factors were there, to, but Kerry ran a good enough campaign that he would have won under different circumstances.

[LiberalAndProud]

16. stolen. 100%

[HEAVYHEART]

18. The bastards STOLE THE ELECTION AGAIN!!!!

[notadmblnd]

19. People don't go to the polls in droves when they're happy

with the status quo, of course the base will turn out... but this year voter registration and voter turnout was extraordinary. I was at 6 different precincts on election day and the people that turned out were not there voting because they were happy with the status quo.

[Tommymac]

20. Grand F'ing Larceny.

:wow:

[Bossy Monkey]

21. Evening kick...

Not that 169 votes is anything to sneeze at, but still.

[redsoxliberal]

22. stolen. There is lots of evidence. I am 99.9% sure.

[Orsino]

23. Plenty of idiots...

...abetting the fraud, which I doubt was nationwide.

[idiosyncratic]

24. It was stolen. Repub votes were added all across the country!

Otherwise how could * have gotten so many more votes now than he did in 2000.

[jimmyp]

26. TOTALLY

I'm just very disappointed that we seem to be the only ones that are outraged.

[shakerbaker]

27. That's because the Media are

the Recon Lackies!!

[Bossy Monkey]

28. kick for the morning, and I swear I'll leave it alone n/t

[GOPBasher]

29. They stole it again, though some of those other things are true to, as

you said.