Matsubara
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:18 AM
Original message |
Shrum: Kerry's Regrets About John Edwards |
|
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1626498,00.htmlKerry's Regrets About John Edwards Wednesday, May. 30, 2007 By ROBERT SHRUM
After a day of filming at Edwards's summer home on Figure Eight Island in the Outer Banks, we went out to dinner. Afterward, while Elizabeth drove the car home, John and I headed back on his boat; as the darkness closed in, we got lost in the tall grasses of the shallow waterways. He finally found the channel; and back in his living room, we talked about the likelihood of war in Iraq. Edwards said no one had yet made the case to him.
That fall, as a vote loomed on the resolution giving Bush authority to go to war, Edwards convened a circle of advisers in his family room in Washington to discuss his decision. He was skeptical, even exercised about the idea of voting yes. Elizabeth was a forceful no. She didn't trust anything the Bush administration was saying. But the consensus view from both the foreign policy experts and the political operatives was that even though Edwards was on the Intelligence Committee, he was too junior in the Senate; he didn't have the credibility to vote against the resolution. To my continuing regret, I said he had to be for it. As I listened to this, I watched Edwards's face; he didn't like where he was being pushed to go. The process violated a principle I'd learned long before—candidates have to trust their own deeply felt instincts. It's the best way to live with defeat if it comes, and probably the best way to win.
The meeting we held in the Edwardses' family room did him a disservice; of course, he was the candidate and if he really was against the war, it was up to him to stand his ground. He didn't. If he had, it almost certainly would have been Edwards and not Dean who emerged early on as the antiwar candidate. But Edwards didn't want to look "liberal" and out of the mainstream; he was, after all, the southern candidate and thought of himself as Clintonesque. He valued the advice and prized the support of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. I had my own concerns: If he took the antiwar route, I knew I would have been characterized as a malign force moving him to the left—which wasn't true, although I wish it had been given that I now regard the Iraq invasion as one of the great mistakes in the history of U.S. foreign policy.
Kerry had asked Jim Johnson to head up the vice-presidential search. Jim, my friend stretching back to the 1972 campaign, was one of Washington's best connected "wise men"—at times successively, and at times simultaneously, not only chairman of the giant mortgage company Fannie Mae, but of the Kennedy Center and the Brookings Institution; he had been Gore's chief debate negotiator in 2000, and was a likely treasury secretary or White House chief of staff in a Kerry administration. The candidate was obsessed with keeping the veep process closely held to prevent the speculation and leaks that had embarrassed him when he was on Gore's final list in 2000. This worked—until the last hour.Okay, so now it's Edwards' fault? Nothing about Kerry's lack of media savvy and image control? People were voting primarily on POS vs. Kerry, not Edwards. And this is from Bob Shrum, a man who has been in competition with Susan Estrich for "who can singlehandledly sink the most dem campaigns in one lifetime". Has Shrum ever WON a campaign?
|
Warpy
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:21 AM
Response to Original message |
1. Shrum should be sent back to his own party |
|
along with all the other DLC parasites. I'm truly sorry their party went nuts, but ruining ours by turning it into what their used to be is just plain wrong. Perhaps if he and From and all the other campaign ruiners went back to the GOP, they could change it from within.
We're sick of them. Their way doesn't work.
|
bryant69
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:32 AM
Response to Reply #1 |
7. I'm a moderate Democrat but I totally agree with this |
|
I'm so tired of the DLC I can't stand it. Bryant Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com
|
babylonsister
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:22 AM
Response to Original message |
|
http://pundits.thehill.com/2007/05/30/why-democratic-political-consultants-love-the-iraq-warsnip// This followed the disclosure that Bob Shrum advised John Edwards to send young men and women to die as a way of improving his weak national-security resume in 2002. Why Democratic officials listen to this is beyond me. Here are the presidential campaigns that Bob Shrum lost: 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004.
Here are the presidential campaigns Mr. Shrum won: none.Nice work, if you can get it.
|
Deep13
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:24 AM
Response to Original message |
|
Edited on Thu May-31-07 09:28 AM by Deep13
I misread it. I thought based on the headline it was a mea culpa from JK. It is actually written from Shrum's POV. Yes, the afraid-to-be-right point of view has been a resounding success for us.
|
blm
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:24 AM
Response to Original message |
4. Strategists full of shit. Kerry-Edwards WON. Had McAuliffe secured the election process |
|
Edited on Thu May-31-07 09:27 AM by blm
the strategist class wouldn't be a prominent force moving the Dem message further to the right.
You will never hear the TRUTH about ELECTION FRAUD from any strategist in the Dem party. Securing the election process for all Dem voters and Dem candidates means Democrats would actually be able to take the office they earned, and Dem strategists and pundits would have a more difficult time paying their expensive DC mortgages.
|
Deep13
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:30 AM
Response to Reply #4 |
6. I don't see how the DNC could secure the election process. |
|
Here in Ohio, the process was in the hands of Bush cheerleader Ken Blackwell.
|
blm
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:38 AM
Response to Reply #6 |
10. Constant attention to counter their tactics for 4 years straight, as promised in 2001. |
|
Edited on Thu May-31-07 09:40 AM by blm
The GOP pulled every tactic they could in 2002 and 2004, even though we learned about them during the hearings on 2000 election fraud.
How in the hell did it the problem WORSEN in 2002 and 2004?
Read McAuliffe's book - try and find the chapter he wrote about how he implemented a counterattack on the various fraud uncovered in the hearings on 2000 election.
|
Deep13
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:43 AM
Response to Reply #10 |
14. Well we were paying attention. |
|
We all knew Blackwell was trying to fix the election, but there was no legal remedy for it until Blackwell himself left office.
|
blm
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:46 AM
Response to Reply #14 |
17. The Dem party infrastructure in Ohio was collapsed by 1997 and allowed |
|
Edited on Thu May-31-07 09:49 AM by blm
to further disintegrate in 2000, 2002. It was nowhere near being prepared to get the votes counted in 2004.
Howard Dean has had to concentrate on those states like Ohio with the weakest party infrastructures that had been ignored for almost a decade.
|
bunkerbuster1
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:27 AM
Response to Original message |
5. What's with Time's fascination with self-loathing "liberals"? |
|
Joke Line, Ana Marie Cox, and this jerkwad?
|
Deep13
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:32 AM
Response to Reply #5 |
8. I have no clue why that is. |
|
I'm not self-loathing. The way to win is to tell the truth. Reality has a liberal bias.
|
Virginia Dare
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:34 AM
Response to Original message |
9. Shrum is a very good example of what is REALLY wrong |
|
with the Democratic Party, allowing hacks like that to suck the blood right out. They don't give a shit about the Party, they only care about themselves and the money.
|
Deep13
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:41 AM
Response to Reply #9 |
11. Carvel is another example. |
|
Edited on Thu May-31-07 09:44 AM by Deep13
He said after 2006 that H. Dean should be fired for "Rumsfeldian incompetence." Keep in mind the Ds had just won a major national election which included ousting six R. senators and not losing a single D-held Congressional or gubernatorial seat anywhere.
|
Virginia Dare
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:42 AM
Response to Reply #11 |
bunkerbuster1
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:44 AM
Response to Reply #11 |
|
It's hard to imagine a more inappropriate public response to the mid-term victory than the "Ragin' Cajun's".
|
bunkerbuster1
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:42 AM
Response to Reply #9 |
12. And once the dust has settled and it's safe to tell a dirty-laundry story |
|
sell it to Time for, what, thirty pieces of silver, was it?
|
RevCheesehead
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 09:45 AM
Response to Original message |
|
"Elizabeth was a forceful no. She didn't trust anything the Bush administration was saying. But the consensus view from both the foreign policy experts and the political operatives was that even though Edwards was on the Intelligence Committee, he was too junior in the Senate; he didn't have the credibility to vote against the resolution. To my continuing regret, I said he had to be for it. As I listened to this, I watched Edwards's face; he didn't like where he was being pushed to go. The process violated a principle I'd learned long before—candidates have to trust their own deeply felt instincts. It's the best way to live with defeat if it comes, and probably the best way to win."
Fuck you, Bob Shrum. :grr:
|
Blackhatjack
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 10:04 AM
Response to Original message |
18. Give credit where due ... Howard Dean has rebuilt numerous State Dem Party Organizations in spite of |
|
Political strategists who advocated the 'cherry picking' approach to obtaining the magic number by focusing money, time, and resources on head-to-head 'battleground states.'
I know for a fact that North Carolina was virtually ignored by the Kerry Campaign decisionmakers because political strategists decided to follow the above strategy.
Edwards could have won North Carolina, which has a sizable military population and large moderate political population, if money and time had been spent here. However, it was not a decision Edwards could make, and Edwards had to 'toe the line and keep his mouth shut' once the decision had been made to 'pass on North Carolina.'
While I am convinced that Kerry/Edwards actually won the election, there is no doubt that posters here are correct in pointing out that Kerry and Edwards got really bad political advice in carrying out their campaign.
If Edwards succeeds this time around, he will owe Howard Dean a debt of thanks for instituting his '50 state strategy.'
|
bunkerbuster1
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 10:06 AM
Response to Original message |
19. I see Shrum's book is to be called "No Excuses." |
WinkyDink
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
|
Thu May-31-07 10:12 AM
Response to Original message |
20. "I said he had to be for it." Right there is the summation of Shrum's ETERNALLY FAILED |
|
ideas!
How does this man EVER GET HIRED??
|
DU
AdBot (1000+ posts) |
Thu Apr 25th 2024, 05:11 PM
Response to Original message |