Lost more Senate seats (including the Minority Leader, Tom Daschle!)
Lost Governorships
Lost the Gay Marriage debate in so many states
How? George W Bush is the most hated sitting President since Tricky Dick - and not even Nixon had a negatively-slanted “documentary” made about him, purposely timed to affect the election. The whole weight of the entertainment media was against Bush, the whole weight of the world’s diplomatic community was against Bush… this should have been a slam dunk.
Why wasn’t it? Why, in fact, was it the complete opposite - a slam dunk for a President and a Party who, as early as this (well, yesterday) morning, had no right to expect such a thing be possible?
Obviously, President Bush isn’t as universally reviled as the Democratic contingent here on the SDMB touted him to be, Michael Moore’s “infoganda” notwithstanding.
I think you people should take this as a “reality check,” unless you want to continue to lose seats in Congress and various state legislatures.
The average American opnion is that, if the rest of the world is telling us we’re wrong, we gotta be right.
When push came to shove, most of us were very uneasy regarding the terrorists and the possibility that they might blow up our schools or other horrible crimes.
In spite of their contrary views about abortion, religion, environment, favoring the rich etc, we know that Bush is familiar with the warfare while Kerry is an unknown. Thats why the popular vote went for Bush.
Lastly, Kerry spent most of his time bad-mouthing Bush and far less time going into detail on what Kerry would do.
You might want to check this premise. Do more people hate him, or is he hated more by only the partisan Democrats? It would be a huge strategic error to assume that you can win because so many people hate your opponent.
How is “losing the gay marriage battle” an example of blowing it? That battle was lost before the opening shots were fired, a classic example of a “wedge issue” created only to energize the opposition.
Fuck, I am pissed.
The only consolation is that the GOP is going to have to clean up their own mess. They’re going to have to come up with the money to close the deficit; the soldiers to occupy Iraq (which is going fairly badly for us, see the latest Newsweek); and every terrorist attack from here on out will be their fault.
Nah. I’m showing my bias here, but I can’t imagine another collection of such colorful men. The officers in that war have been made mythical, almost.
A rag-tag force of men … today?
“I used to be a greeter at Wal-Mart. Now I’m the commander of the northern forces.” :dubious:
<voiceover>
"Dear mom,
War is, like, hell. <scene pans over a grassy field>
It’s nothing at all like Halo. OMFG, we totally got shot at last night. <sounds of gunfire>
PEACE OUT <scene of a rickety old fence>
–Mark Allen, 2005" :smack:
You forget: us ivory-tower liberals cut our teeth in the dorms with daily 8-hour ultraviolent gaming sessions, supplemented by military sim on the weekends and 2 hours at the gym everyday.
It’s hard to convince people they should’ve trusted Saddam Hussein. Democrats can yell “Bush lied about Iraq” from dawn till dusk, but can’t deny the fact that everyone thought, in good faith, that Saddam had WMD. Granted, Bush made the case sound more certain than it actually turned out to be, but until we conquered and combed through Iraq, there was no one who thought Saddam wasn’t trying to hide something. So that charge failed to stick very well.
The economy is, in fact, improving. Bush may well be responsible for a massive deficit, but no one blames him for the recession of 2001-02 and the resulting job loss - they realize that the tech bubble burst before he was elected, and that 9/11 was beyond his control - and now things are turning around. Many who lost jobs have them again. The charge of “More jobs lost than any president in history” fails to stick.
We do appear to be winning the war on terror. The “October Surprise” Osama video underscores this - instead of making threats, he’s explaining himself and offering terms of truce? And trying to tie himself to the Palestinian cause as well, when he never (at least not publicly) seemed to care about them before? Osama is sounding weak and desperate. And outside of Iraq, there haven’t been any spectacular terror strikes in months.
These were the Democrats’ biggest charges - lying on Iraq, job loss, and mismanaging the terror war. But they couldn’t make a convincing enough case for them.
[QUOTE=MadSam]
When push came to shove, most of us were very uneasy regarding the terrorists and the possibility that they might blow up our schools or other horrible crimes.
I dont know about anyone else but thats why I voted for Bush.
Then why did you support a president who didn’t go after the terrorists?
You know, I don’t worry about the terrorists at all, never have. I believe our country can come back from anything it’s subjected to, including an attack on domestic soil. I felt absolutely no fear when I watched that Osama video, because I don’t believe he poses any real threat to us. Barring something like a civil war, or a situation wherein all the world’s nations (not just the ones with the skeery brown-skinned people) form an alliance against us, I think the American nation is going to stand. Yet, I see so many people just quaking in their boots about terrorists, to the point that they’ll vote for anyone as long as he promises any kind of unspecified “protection.”
And I’m the one diagnosed with an anxiety condition!
The Dems blew it by going with a guy who was competent but uninspiring, which is kind of a pity since you really could have used some competence right about now.
I have no doubt that but for the 22nd Amendment, Bill Clinton would now be closing in on FDR’s record.
Competent? By what measure? Surely not his senate record.
Kerry is uninspiring, I agree. But, even as a marginal Bush supporter, I can’t see anybody attributing Bush’s win an “inspirational” message or personality.
I won’t even go in to Clinton, other than to say he had enough trouble completing two terms, nevermind the 22nd Amendment.
I saw a report recently in which a couple of ordinary “shopgirl” Australians were asked who they were going to vote for in our recent election. Both agreed that it would be better for them from almost every angle if Latham (the left candidate) got in, rather than Howard (the incumbent right candidate), but that they would nonetheless vote Howard. Why:
“Because of the war on terror”.
Period.
Has Howard done anything in particular about terrorism? No. Did Latham in fact suggest that he’d do anything different from Howard about terrorism or vice versa? No.
I think when people “is skeered, daddy”, there’s a flight to the known. Or something.
The Democrats lost because the Democrats are Republican Lite. They seem to stand for nothing except being Republicans- just a little less so. Nobody is going to vote for somebody that is nothing more than just a little less than the Real Thing.
Americans have shown that they do not vote for the president based on the issues. They consistantly gave Bush a bad rating. They believed that Kerry would do better on the issues that concerned them. But they still voted for Bush. It seems like Bush had an almost supernatural ability to do things that upset people and somehow go up in the polls with the same action.
Americans are looking for the guy that tells the best story. They want the guy that seems most like a president. They want the party that is going to make stuff happen- no matter what that stuff is. And the Dems arn’t that.
The Democrats need to start standing for stuff. They need someone that will offer a real health care plan. They needed to have the guts to vote against the war before it happened- it was painfully obvious to me that the whole thing was a lie from the beginning. I’m sure I’m not smarter than nearly the entire Democratic party. They need someone that says the fight against gay marriage is ridiculous. They need someone that promises to reign in the religious zealots. It may hurt them at first to move to the left like that, but it’s their only option. They are never going to appeal to the right, all they can hope to do is to attract people to the left. I think by showing strength, standing up for what they believe in and electing strong candidates with strong views on issues- even the contriversial ones- they can once again become a viable party.
