I’ve been keeping this for after the election… no way I would speak badly of Kerry before that. If Bushites couldn’t make a solid argument against Kerry its their problem.
Now lets vent what we hate or dislike about Kerry !
I don't care if a candidate is boring or not. Aristocratic or not. Speaks French or not. I do personally think its pathetic anyone who voted against the first Gulf War !! What the hell was he thinking ?!
War sucks... dead soldiers are a great loss... but sometimes its necessary to fight wars ! The world is chaotic... Bush Jr. invading Iraq was very stupid... Bush Sr. beating up Saddam and "saving" Kuwait was pretty "morally correct" as wars get !
Also... why didn't Kerry simply say:
“I won’t raise taxes” (no need explaining that you would for the richest)
“I won’t give hand outs”.
He needed to just say at the debates “What you’re really calling me is a flip-flopper, Mr. President, and I have a mental note with every one of your flip-flops.”
He also needed to engage the freaking media. Doing The Daily Show was a great start, but it was only a start. He needed to be on every third episode of Crossfire, pointing his finger right back in Novak’s face. He needed to be on Capital Gang, explaining the votes that Bush made infamous. He needed to offer to sit down with Tim Russert whenever he wanted and answer whatever questions he’d like. No one cares if you’re boring or if you give long answers. People just wanted substance in those answers.
And for my own personal preference, he should have embraced gay marriage. I’m aware it would have been political suicide, but that’s why I never said anything before. I would have been much happier if Kerry played more to the left.
I think it was a combination of his scintillating personality, which made Walter Mondale look charismatic, and the barking moonbats among his supporters. Before the electiion, when I thought Kerry would win, I figured that I supposed I could live with Kerry as president, but I really hated to give Michael Moore and his ilk the satisfaction.
By the way the election turned out, it seems that I was not alone in that belief. I think at least one reason for the exit polls being off is that a bunch of people went into the booth supporting Kerry in theory, but when the chips were down, not able to give him their vote. On exiting the booth, they were reluctant to admit as much to the pollsters.
Mondale is a great man, and the kind of statesman people pretend they want, but don’t vote for. If a dignified, fair-minded, and committed public servant like Mondale is now a metonymy for loser, it explains why our country is a mess.
People seem to be the most inspired by whatever candidate enrages their opponent the best, rather than those who represent our own party the best.
I’m not anti-Bush, but I thought I’d contribute what I found objectionable about Kerry the candidate. He was arrogant enough and contemptuous enough of voter intelligence to claim he had a “plan” for every single, solitary problem the country has or ever thought of having, and thinking he could get elected on that basis alone without ever having to explain just what these “plans” were.
Kerry’s campaign consisted of little more than “this president” this, and “this president” that, and “under my plan,” “I have a plan,” “when I’m president, my plan,” etc. etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
He thought he could coast into office claiming he knew what to do without having to actually tell anyone what it was.
I’m not going to vent against Kerry. I thought there were some things he should have done differently, the most obvious one being countering the SwiftLiars before they sowed quite so many doubts about Kerry. But I thought he ran a tough and disciplined campaign, and represented my party well. He was the clear winner of the debates. I’m sorry he won’t be President (barring an Ohio miracle), because he would have been a good one.
I’ll bet those plans are still up on Kerry’s website.
It’s hard to unseat an incumbent president during war time. Kerry gave it a good shot, and if the vote goes against him, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
I see in this morning’s Washington Post that the Bush camp is “convinced of win.” Well, they were convinced that there were WMD’s in Iraq too. Many conservatives still are. That doesn’t make them right. Time will tell what the situation really is, and all the impatient whining in the world should not be allowed to change that. If it does, America is in deep shit.
Kerry got more votes than any Democratic president in history. Bush won solely on the coattails of the anti-gay ballot proposition in Ohio. In fact, Bush’s margin in the popular vote may well be drawn from the 11 states where they put a “Let’s Bash the Fags” amendment on the ballot.
Kerry’s campaign made some major mistakes. He needed to slam the swift boat vets in early August before their lies sunk into the general understanding of the race. He needed to engage the media and replant the debate on the president’s record in September. And he needed to do just a bit better in the second and third debates, where he didn’t wallop Bush like he did in the first one. I also think, in the end, he picked the wrong vice presidential candidate. Edwards is great, but he didn’t go after Bush like an attack dog, which is the veep nominee’s job.
Kerry took New Hampshire, cemented the movement towards Democrats in the Sunbelt (narrow, narrow Bush wins in formerly safe GOP states) and almost beat a sitting incumbent during a war. That’s none too shabby.
Yes, there needs to be a debate within the Democratic Party on how to reintroduce economics into the political debate (and health care, too) to counter the GOP’s “wedge issue” social issue weaponry with low income and rural voters. But by and large Kerry did what he needed to do to win. The problem was that Karl Rove also did what he needed to do, which is get those anti-gay ballot propositions out there. It’s hard to overcome the power of bigotry, but Kerry almost did it.
I honestly can’t think of anything to vent against Kerry. The guy was (and remains) a highly intelligent thinker, an eloquent speaker, and a person who leads from consensus, not self-interest.
People who opposed Kerry for his looks are a testament to the shallowness of modern society. People who opposed Kerry foir his “liberal” views and “flip-flopping” are a testament to the effectiveness of the Karl Rove slime machine.
I will not vent against Kerry. Looking back, he could have done some things differently. But the death knell was the gay marriage propositions on the ballot. This brought the right-wingers out in droves. He ran a hard campaign and although he stumbled between the conventions and the first debate, he won all three debates decisively. But style trumps substance like paper covers rock.
What Kerry stood for was hard to fathom on many important issues. His plans on his web site didn’t get much notice in the media I read before the election. It also seems this country has a big enough number of homopobic, anti-abortion, pro-christian-influence on politics, people to make any stance not for those ideas a serious vote loser no matter how correct such a stance may be.
Combine the charisma of Al Gore with the “Massachussets Liberal” image of Dukakis and you got John Kerry. His inability to effectively respond to the swiftboat ads, and his lack of response to Bush’s audacious claim during the debates that Kerry was so liberal that he made Kennedy the “Conservative Senator from Massachussets” helped do him in.
He should have grown some balls and actually explained the reasons of conscience that drove him to oppose the Vietnam war, and why he threw those medals over a fence instead of running away from the issue.
Kerry’s main mistake was allowing the other side to define who he is. He did a great job fighting back, but he ran out of time, or rather, he lost traction immediately after the convention.
Kerry was too ahead of his time. He was a worldly guy that saw the big picture hense his position “respected in the world”.
Unfortunately there is the 51% who don’t care to be respected in the world. They will always be more interested in the “what’s good for me” rather than the “what’s good for the world” and they want a president to echo those sentiments.
Kerry wasn’t afraid to say “the U.S. isn’t perfect, wars are not black and white, opinions from all sides should be listened to.” Unfortunately the 51% don’t want to hear that. They rather hear “the U.S. is strong, we need not apologize or regret any actions we make, we are the world superpower.”
Most of the time, Kerry reminded me of The Prince of Wales.
He was so senatorial. Did the guy really have a pulse?
He needed one of those 30 second shock buttons, or better yet Howard Dean behind him to kick his behind each time he starting napping again.
The 911 report showing Bush ignored the warnings, the no WMD report, the prison scandal, a great debate performance, etc, etc, etc. How many lucky breaks can one guy have in a presidental campaign without actually capitalizing on one?
