In hindsight, which Democrat would have done best?

You are right that it's not the same in the sense that gay marriage is one right and that gays have all the other rights people do while back then, people were denied many rights.

 

Right on, Gene. This is what Robert Reich addressed so eloquently here http://www.robertreich.org/reich/20041103.asp and why Kerry lost the election.

One could look at other mistakes, like the Democratic Convention, where the eloquent speakers, like Obama, were only on cable, and Kerry chose to wrap himself in Vietnam, when he should have been defining himself ala Reich. For me, that was a huge turning point. My wife and I sat there, watching Kerry's speech, and feeling like we were being tortured in a dentist's chair. I actually said to her, at a moment when we should have all been on a high, those of us who wanted badly to defeat Bush, "I can't believe he's doing this ****!! What the hell is he doing??" and other things that wouldn't pass the obscenity filter. She just shook her head in disbelief.

Opportunities missed.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

I hear ya, Deckard. but it's not just the presidential race. it's the presidential race on top of resounding midterm elections and gains in both houses by the republicans during this election. it just seems to me that the democratic message isn't working...or the candidates aren't saying it right...or something fundamental like that. i don't think it's just, "oh, well kerry should have said this or that." i don't think it's that simple. i think the country is much more conservative than many would like to believe.

 

Hey, keep your livin' room civil.

 

Max:

What values do the conservatives hold that aren't being addressed by the democrats? If i recall nobody's championing a tax and spend economic policy, Bush has suggested states could do the whole gay civil ceremony thing, they're both pretty gung-ho on military, Kerry's anti-abortion, GOP is Ok with deficits....i just didn't see anything that would frighten a conservative away from the Dems, other than a lack of confidence in their leadership.

Had the democrats run a great campaign, and been trounced in the election, i think it would be fair to say they were out of touch with the electorate. But everyone seems to concede they ran a terrible campaign and yet came very close. Any number of things could have swung this the other way...and then we'd be hearing from the lefties about how the GOP was so out of touch .

 

1. i don't know that it's values. it's certainly perceptions regarding leadership and values of the candidates, though, i think.

2. the danger for the dem party is limiting this discussion solely to the presidential election. congressional elections over the past 4 years should be taken into consideration as well.

3. as easy as it is to say, "if things swung the other way, we'd be hearing X"...it's easier to say, "if bush wins a close michigan battle, his margin is even greater." ultimately the ifs don't count.

 

Well, in one of the mistakes Kerry made was he stood up in a debate, stated he was Catholic, stated he didn't think abortion was right, but also stated that he could NEVER appoint a pro-life justice to the Supreme Court. I think that hurt him big time. He just got rid of half of all the supreme court candidates with a sweeping remark and alienated most of the Catholic vote.

I'm not even Catholic, and I don't see abortion as the issue that a lot of people do, but I knew it was a mistake to say that.

 

I did not use polling data to reach my conclusion.

Rove et. al. mentioned BEFORE the election that they put gay marriage ban initiatives on the ballot to motivate their base. Rove et. al. AFTER the election said that their strategy was succesful. Rove is not also known to speak the truth in public, but I think he did this time and I will support this below.

From Rove's statements, I leaped to the conclusion that "Bush voting, social conservatives hate queers" or some such. I admit that is an overstatement (but so was "more people are socially conservative than we previously thought" to which I was responding.) But my overstatement contains grains of truth. What issues motivates social conservatives like gay marriage? Not many. Why is that? If this isn't gay hating, queer bashing, homophobing, what is it?

You might also remember the sh*t Kerry took for mentioning Cheney's gay daughter. Why was there such a strong reaction from the right? I posit that Kerry's statement moved the Bush ticket away from "queer intolerant" to merely "queer conflicted", which in turn sent a mixed message and might un-motivate some of those social conservatives to not vote. Thus, I deduce that the gay marriage ban really was a central part of Rove's strategy.

 

I thought Kerry had the "Bush is incompetent" clear-to-understand message. Some independent voters though did not buy the message. And that is one of the leading reasons Kerry lost.

 

Or is it that the Democratic Party is more liberal than they know? Forgive the nuance.

 

No Worries, that's not a clear message focused on how to address important issues. And that was not something the majority of Democrats didn't already know. Where Kerry failed was to put a clear, coherent, easy to understand and promote "vision" of where he was going to take the country. Oh, he said plenty, and in a lot of ways too much, but faced with an incumbent, wartime President, with all the advantages Bush held as the incumbent, and with Rove running his campaign, the fact that Kerry made the race as close as it was just adds to the frustration I feel. I don't buy into the notion that the electorate is as conservative as so many of the post-election pundits have said was the "big surprise" of the election.

The race was Kerry's to lose. I still believe that. He had to work very hard to blow it, and Bush/Rove had to work very hard to win it. Sadly, they both succeeded.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

It is the same message that Clinton hammer GW with: "Are you better off today than four years ago?" The implied message here is whether the President is part of the problem or part of the solution, which in essence questions the competency of the sitting President.

 

Kerry is no Bill Clinton as a politician, or as an orator.



Keep D&D Civil!!

 

Al Sharpton


A perfect representation of the party. Opportunistic. Self-absorbed. Out of touch with the majority of the nation outside of his home region. And invisible until the campaign begins.