Well, I believe it was the length of a belt of machine gun bullets used in WW2 airplanes.
Oh, wrong thread, well, what’s the difference.
I believe he won more states and got more EC votes than Kerry did. Seems more a GQ question instead of a GD. 
-XT
I stand by the analysis I made after the election.
According to CNN exit polls, no issue was in favor of any one candidate than the “who do you trust to handle terrorism”; 58% of respondents said Bush, 40% said Kerry. No other issue reaches that 58-40 split- not Bush’s approval rating (53 to 46), not the decision to go into Iraq (51 to 45), not how things are going in Iraq (44 to 52), not the economy (47 to 52), not the tax cuts (41 to 32). Bush came into the election having convinced the American people that he was able to deal with the threat of terrorism. Kerry made no real headway on that issue at all, and it broke him.
On a more substanseless issue, I also think Kerry was doomed by a pessimistic message. It’s a simple fact that Americans reward optimistic candidates and punish the dour. Only twice since the development of radio has the positive, optimistic candidate failed when facing a dour, cynical candidate- 1928, when “Happy Warrior” Al Smith fell to uptight Herbert Hoover, and 1968, when Nixon beat Humphrey. Even as you attack and criticize, you have to maintain an upbeat attitude and message about a can-do attitude. FDR, even as he criticized Hoover for the Great Depression, maintained the attitude that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. Truman lambasted the Won’t-Do Congress in 1948, but talked about the things that Americans could do with the right party in power. Eisenhower, even as he talked about failures in Korea, maintained a sunny disposition and talked about what America could accomplish. I don’t think I even need to more than mention Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton to point out how one can criticize the opposition while infusing hope in everyone.
Kerry did not do that. Kerry criticized and was critical, but I never felt from him a sense of anything other than dark foreboding. Even the slogan, “Help is on the Way” contains an element of the dismal- that things are bad, and they’re only going to get worse without Democrats in power. And that’s not a message that resounds and enthuses; it’s a message that plays only to the people who already think things suck and would vote for you anyways.
Every morning during the campaign, I would listen to WTOP News Radio. (For those unfamiliar with the station: not talk radio, news radio. No talking heads or discussion groups or Rush or Al. Just actual news.) The morning broadcast would talk about the campaign and what the candidates were saying. And invariably, whatever Bush said would start with “We are going to…” and what Kerry said would start with “This administration has failed…” Optimistic vs. Pessemistic.
From memory:
The Washington Post had an article a year or so ago where they interviewed a Democratic operative/campaign manager on this very question. His opinion was that the Republicans had a better on-the-ground get-out-the vote movement in Ohio. Made up of locals and such going door to door, neighborhood by neighborhood. The Democrats, for the most part, had activists bused in from all over. The guy conceded that the democrats outplayed and that they should no longer rely on outside activists to stir people up. It has to be done at the local level.
That was Wiki, but if you’ve got a better cite, I’m open. If you clicked on the link you would’ve seen that yes, there were some local alerts:
Maybe Bush thought he had a chance in New York, New Jersey, and Wash DC. Those were all pertty close. 
Well, NJ was kinda close, but not like Ohio.
But that’s the point. I live in Indiana; the so-called “local” alerts, at least in regards to the political climate, were most certainly not “local” in their political impact. In fact, they were plastered all over the media. IIRC, they also happened to coincide very nicely with times that either Kerry was gaining ground or Bush was losing it.
I’m just pointing out that, while technically true (and I’m not saying that you’re not technically correct), to only consider the national threat level in this context is rather misleading.
I voted for Bush, as did many people I know. None of us believed in the things you assume. This was one great problem I saw with my Democratic friends, some of them big givers to their cause (MoveOn, etc.): they really don’t understand Bush voters. They continuously make wrong assumptions. They think Bush voters are either mentally inept or morally depraved. The Dems will never win unless they truly understand what they are up against.
Briefly: I am a veteran, a political centrist. I don’t like right wing politics (nor left wing). I was open to Kerry, and I waited for him to make a clear case on Iraq. For or against. Stay in or get out. But make a case. He might have persuaded me. I just never heard him make a case one way or another. He seemed to be the poster child of “hate Bush” campaign, but not much else.
Second: My esteem of Kerry did not fall because doubtful accusations of the Swifties, but because Kerry would not release his military records, and because he left his unit after 90 days on the boat. His wounds were not severe enough to be rotated home, though on a technicality he could. I had a second Lt. like that. He disgusted me.
White men, especially veterans (and even more so, serving military) voted overwhelmingly against Kerry. Despite his sonorous voice and high manner, he just seemed to lack integrity. He was a leftist posing as a centrist. I initially thought I would vote for him, until I saw him a political opportunist, who would not admit what he really thought or who he really was, and was running on a hate ticket. In the end, he made me sick. I had/have doubts about Bush, but Kerry became repulsive.
I think many other male veterans felt this.
Bush won because, yet again, The DNC chose an irrelevant, equivocating, career-Senate, faux-Populist from the Northeast as a national candidate.
If the DNC ever gets its’ head out of the ass of the Northeastern States, and out of the Senate, they may well carry an election…That is, if they can get their hands on a successful, centrist governor of a non-NE, non-California state…'Til then…
Then again, it’s not unusual for POTUS to “flip” every 8 to 12 years or so.
My theory on why Bush won leans less toward Ohio than what was done to secure Florida, namely the prescription drug giveaway. Florida was, of course, an extemely close call in 2000.
Making future generations pay for a short term bump has always been a good political move.
The drug giveaway appeals to an older demographic, obviously plays well in Florida. Saw plenty of exit polls, talking about different items, but I believe a large number of people vote their pocketbook and are less than willing to admit it in a poll, much easier to say I support his stand on Iraq, moral issues, whatever.
In fairness to Sentient Meat, he didn’t say that all, or most, Bush voters believed factually incorrect statements. But there were many more who did believe those wrong things who voted for Bush rather than Kerry.
Out of curiosity, if you dislike Kerry getting out of a combat region after 90 days, how do you feel about Bush’ military record?
The DNC didn’t choose Kerry. Kerry won the plurality (and I believe majority) of primary electoral votes. The convention is just a formality anymore.
NO SOUTHERNERS!
Amen. If Kerry had been sincere in his “I have a penis too, dammit” campaign, he would have released his records. What bothered me was the fact that he wanted to make his entire campaign about what he did for three months 30 years ago, rather than what his positions are today. Every time I heard him utter the phrase “band of brothers”, my eyes cramped from involuntary rolling.
He didn’t want to talk about his senate record, because in a time where security concerns are paramount, a consistently pacifist and liberal voting record is a severe liability.
I know I felt it. The preceeding paragraph neatly sums up my feelings on Kerry as well.
What else could we have expected? Kerry was nominated mainly because of a general perception, right or wrong, among Dem voters that only a veteran with an honorable service record could defeat chickenhawk Bush in “wartime.” It should have helped that Kerry had an even more honorable antiwar-protest record. Maybe it did, maybe it hurt more than it helped – who can say?
:rolleyes: But Kerry’s Senate record is nothing of the kind.
:rolleyes: Actually, Slim, he was a centrist posing as a leftist, and not very convincingly.
I think this guy was pretty much on the mark both before and after the election: Twenty-One Reasons Why Bush [del]Will Win[/del] WON!
80% of the population in the US are mentally challenged. Am I being too generous allowing for 20% to be smart? I should also include every human on the planet instead of limiting my estimate to this country. I even voted out of my party (Green) so as not to split the vote and he still won. All this time I thought my vote counted. :dubious:
How Bush won the 2004 election. Same way he “won” in 2000. Rove figured out that the DLC’s “triangulation” strategy of moving toward the center on most issues would result in an increasing tendency for a 50/50 split between Dems and Pubbies among American voters. And in some states, the Presidential race could be decided by a very small margin of votes. A margin small enough to be significantly affected by dirty tricks, among other things. His analysis of opinion polls and voting records showed that this was true in some important “swing” states that carried large numbers of electoral votes, including but not limited to Florida and Ohio. Therefore he concentrated his efforts on those states, using fair techniques like mounting large “get out the vote” drives, and unfair techniques like the doctored voting rolls in Florida in 2000. He did this in both elections, and it won for the Republicans.
The Democrats do not seem to have figured this out yet, though it’s blatantly obvious.
So is it the conservatives that have “given up on democracy?”
That is what is called a non sequitur. It does not follow from the statements leading up to it, unless you assume that your vote only counts when your side wins. That would be a rather pointless definition of the term “count” in the sense of an elctoral process. Your vote “counts” in that you are free to cast it as you wish. If you’re going to take your marbles and go home when you don’t win, then perhaps it would be better not to play the game in the first place.