Bill Clintonhttp://www.aspentimes.com/article/20050709/NEWS/107090025 Dissecting John Kerry's loss to President Bush last year, Clinton blamed the Democratic candidate's soft stand on security and the party's inability to reach out to rural, white America.
According to Clinton, in the final days of campaigning on Kerry's behalf, it was clear even Kerry's supporters weren't clear on the candidate's position on national security.
"I think, in the end, he lost in a close race because of the security issue," he said.
But beyond that, the Democratic Party wasn't able to reach out to much of rural America even though it increased voter registration and participation among groups that had previously shied from the polls.
Kerry won Cleveland by a huge margin but lost Ohio, Clinton noted.
"My advice is, get on a bus and go to rural Ohio.
"You can't win an election in this country unless you talk to people who you think aren't for you," Clinton said. "A person who wants to be president has to be at home with issues and people when he knows he's on the losing side."
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On the inevitable issue - the war in Iraq - Clinton advocated U.S. involvement for as long as it takes to help the fledging government there establish itself and until Iraqis can defend their country. Iraqis are dying in big numbers, but they turned out to vote in bigger numbers than Americans do, he noted.
"We are where we are," he said. "I wouldn't give it up yet. I think we ought to stick in there and make it work."
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/columns/imperialcity/12266/index1.html The great triangulator’s point was that Democrats can’t win the presidency if they don’t campaign earnestly among churchgoing Christians—he noted that he got 75 percent more Evangelical votes in 1996 than John Kerry did in 2004. He suggested that Roe v. Wade was the unfortunate beginning of the end of civility between left and right. He said the Democrats are wrong to deny that malpractice suits don’t drive up medical costs. And about the current war he said, “This is not Vietnam. I wouldn’t set a deadline . I agree with the president.” If anyone but him had said the same thing about Iraq, there would have been boos and hisses, as there had been the night Evan Thomas said he thought the administration had sincerely believed Saddam had WMD stockpiles.
Barack Obamahttp://www.aspeninstitute.org/site/c.huLWJeMRKpH/b.1096989/k.C19/Senator_Barack_Obama_and_Walter_Isaacson.htm John Kerry actually had — although not very many people paid attention to it — a smart idea with respect to costs that would have an impact on access, and that was taking out the issue of catastrophic care, dealing with that as part of the Medicare system, and allowing employers to offer a premium, a plan that provides basic prevention and care, but may not deal with catastrophic care, which is often the most expensive, the government picking up some of the tab on that. That would allow us to expand because the premiums would be lower, we’d potentially get more workers who currently don’t have health insurance at all having some health insurance.
If you notice the difference between the two it is stunning. Bill Clinton lends credence to every Karl Rove talking point about the Democrats, while Obama talks about how good the ideas of the 2004 candidate were. You can hear, also, how he looked at Kerry's ideas and thought they were really good, while bemoaning that not enough people get to hear about them. This was 2005, when Obama was not planning to run for POTUS, so I think there is less political calculation in his remarks than Bill Clinton's.
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