Kerry ran a Rationality-based Campaign

[liberalpragmatist]

Let's face it. Kerry's usual appeals weren't emotional ones - they were practical, rational, logical ones. How what Bush was doing was impractical or bad public policy and instead offered rational, reasonable solutions instead.

I think this may have been a bit too close to the whole Dukakis "competence" tack.

Unfortunately, it overestimates the electorate. It'd be great if we had an electorate that objectively analyzed all the candidates, their records, and their goals, and made a rational choice. Unfortunately, we don't have that. Frankly, even many Kerry-voters I met weren't the most rational actors - I met many who while clearly ideologically making the right choice for themselves, didn't care much for a rationality-argument. They just viscerally disliked Bush for emotional reasons.

I think next time we need to couch our rational arguments by invoking "common-sense" as much as possible, and furthermore, we frankly do need to explictly state as often as broad themes.

[sally343434]

1. Won't matter

First, you're assuming that Kerry's campaign "failed." There's more than ample evidence that it didn't and that Bush stole this election too.

Second, until we take the job of vote counting out of the hands of republicans and put it back into the hands of the public, it isn't going to matter what kind of campaign anyone in any non-republican party runs.

[mary195149]

2. I agree, Kerry couldn't of done anything more,

if the repubs already had it set up they were going to win before the election began. I can't believe that the whole country is not
outraged!!

[sally343434]

3. I might disagree with you

I will agree with you if you're referring to Kerry's campaign. Indications are that it was enough to win.

But if you're referring to Kerry's utterly disgusting abandoning of "the fight" when it was obvious that the election was hacked, I would disagree. He could have done a lot more than what he did, which was ... nothing. He just turned his cowardly ass and ran away.

While I would still like to see Kerry in the White House, it is no longer because I think of him as a principled caring person, because he obviously isn't. No, I would like to see him in the White House only because he isn't Bush.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Somehow, I can't describe Kerry as cowardly.

This was the fight that he wanted. He proved himself in Nam and he took the fight to them on BCCI. Something else is in play. Either he's been nuetralized by something out of his control (threats to the family?) or there is a bigger battle underway that has yet to made public. There are several threads alluding to a big story on some ex-FBI agents that were involved with suspicious lockdowns of voting precincts. There's a big money paper trail, too. I tend to believe it's the latter.

What I can't believe is John Kerry just gave up and walked away from the Presidency that he spent 2 years campaigning for.

[sally343434]

6. I don't know

I don't know about the "threats to his family" thing. He is a man of considerable means, and he can afford to buy protection. After all, even Bill Gates and his wife drive to work by themselves in their car every day, and I'm quite confident he has nothing to worry about during that drive.

I also don't know about there being a "bigger battle underway that has yet to be made public." It seems to me that, with each news cycle that goes by, the likelihood of any challenge being taken seriously is considerably diminished.

[cornermouse]

9. Kerry's tour in Vietnam was a long time ago.

Its a fact that people change over a 30 year span. I just didn't expect Kerry to quit the race prior to the votes being counted. And to me, that was the biggest flaw in Kerry's campaign; the fact that he quit way too soon.

[regnaD kciN]

10. Sorry, but Kerry failed...

...not so much in narrowly "losing" an election that may have been stolen, but in letting it reach election day close enough that they would be able to steal it.

Bush had one of the most disastrous first terms in history. Leaving aside 9/11, he p*ss*d away the budget surplus, sent the country into recession, and brought job growth to a standstill, while letting gas prices soar to over $2.00/gallon. Not to mention getting us into a quagmire in Iraq, and clearly using false pretenses to get us over there in the first place.

Even as the election arrived, Bush's unfavorable rating topped his favorable one, and far less than half this country's electorate thought him deserving of a second term. Yet, by election day, the race was still "virtually tied" or "too close to call." When you let a deeply-unpopular president stay close enough to pull ahead at the end (by hook or by crook), that campaign was a failure.

If Kerry had run an even halfway-decent campaign, the race would have been over by mid-October at the latest...and the only question on November 2nd would have been whether Kerry's "coattails" were long enough to bring a Democratic majority in the House and Senate into power with him. Instead, he was battling for his political life against an incumbunt who a majority of voters wanted out in the first place! Since Kerry was a prosecutor, let's put it in a way he might understand: his campaign was like an inept prosecutor's summation who made his presentation to a jury that had already concluded the defendant was guilty and, by the end of it, had caused enough of them to shift so that a "hung jury" resulted. That's failure, pure and simple.

[gumby]

5. Rationality is irrelevant in The Bush/Rush Era.

Have you been reading Lakoff?

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/

Then check out the religious-righ here
http://www.yuricareport.com/

Then for sure read
"Jesus Plus Nothing" http://www.harpers.org/JesusPlusNothing.html?pg=1

[fnottr]

7. I think the campaign was hoping the ABB feeling

that was in so many people's gut would be be enough emotional edge for the campaign. Although it certainly was for me (and for most everyone here I'm sure) a lot of people I talked to were looking for an emotional peg to cling to from Kerry, and all he kept talking about was the issues. I personally admire his seriousness, far too many people saw him as distant and cold. While I believe this perception was perpetuated by the media more than anything else (no one who went to a Kerry rally could ever call him distant or cold) the fact is, his campaign didn't do enough to address that issue for the people who weren't already supporters.

[Forever Free]

8. The Republicans managed to define him

and make that "out of the mainstream, weak on defense, flip-flopping ultral-liberal" label stick onto him. He wasn't able to shake it. As much as I loved Kerry as a person and a candidate (there couldn't be a more qualified man for the job), his campaign ha SERIOUS and SIGNIFICANT flaws.

Number 1:The lack of a clear and defined structure inside the campaign. There was always bickering between Cahill, Cutter, Shrum, and even Carville over where the campaign was headed. There was too much debate, which crippled any action from being taken.

Number 2: NO clear message until late until the fall. Throughout the primaries and the convention season, Kerry kept an optimistic and positive message, allowing the Republicans an opening during their convention to hammer him hard. This caused the Kerry folks to go into a tailspin looking for a way to parry and counter-attack. Only until late September, did Kerry hit his stride with his strong criticism over the war in Iraq.

Number 3: A failure to dominate the news cycle and "rapidly respond" to constant Republican assaults. Time and time again, Kerry's shortcomings were constantly being scrutinized under the media spotlight. The whole Swift Boat controversy dominated the news cycle for all of August. Kerry was not able to highlight Bush's flaws in the same fashion. Also, the Republicans were able to play the expectations game during the convention. They deliberately insinuated that Kerry would receive an improbable 10-12 boost from his convention, inflating his expectations and raising the bar. At the same time, they deflated Bush's expectations and lowered the bar for his post-convention bounce.

In addition, the campaign had a dangerous tendency to be alarmingly lethargic in responding to key falsehoods about Kerry. The most notable is the issue regarding the vote for the $87 billion. Time and time again, Republican surrogates would hammer Kerry on the issue and time and time again, Democratic counterparts would offer a lame rebuttal.

At every turn, the Republican political machine was always one step ahead of the Democrats. John Kerry was constantly outmanuevered and outplayed. For some of the issues, it wasn't Kerry's fault per se. A lot of the attacks were complete nonsense. However, some of the attacks were among the oldest in the political playbook (the old Massachussetts liberal trick). He should have been able to successfully refute those attacks.

In the end, John Kerry did well in the final election returns. Unfortunately for him and 58 million others (including yours truly), it just wasn't good enough.

[bklyncowgirl]

11. Read "What's the Matter With Kansas" Persona & emotion count

I started reading "What's the Matter With Kansas" a few days ago and was instantly struck by how John Kerry's demeanor and lifestyle play right into the hands of the resentment of liberals that the right has cultivated over tha past twenty or so years.

I like John Kerry but he is the ultimate lifestyle liberal. During the campeign I applauded the fact that he was clearly willing to be himself. Unfortunately, being himself was perhaps just the wrong thing to appeal to voters in the midwest.

Bush on the other hand presents himself as a "humble" man of faith, a rancher who loves nothing more than clearing brush and bass fishing. It's a totally false image, of course, but he plays it to the hilt and has a compliant media to provide him a showcase. Quite frankly if you are not a regular consumer of alternative media, you are not going to be aware of the fact that Bush purchased his "ranch" in 1999, a few months before beginning his run for president.

Kerry appealed to the intellect. Bush appealed to the emotions and there were just enough people who were frightened by Bush's "Vote or Die" rhetoric and/or were put off by Kerry's chilly reserve to get Bush close enough so that he could steal it.

[lojasmo]

12. It's populism, and it's the only way we'll win. N/T