Did the Repugs(along with a little help from media), pick our candidate?

[digno dave]

Honestly, who among us a year ago would have thought the best Democratic candidate to take on George Bush would be a Northeasterner with a voting record more liberal than TKennedy?
Nothing against northeasterners or liberal voting records, but you don't exactly see the repugs pushing an Gary Bauer candidacy to take on the Democrats for the White House. At this point, as clear-headed Democrats, it's not who you want to win that matters, it's who you know can win that matters.

It got me thinking that maybe Rove and teh repugs were truly leary of facing Dean in November. Rove does nothing without being cognicant of the political ramifications of his move. I am sure everyone remembers Rove yelling out "We want Dean", or something to that effect. That, along with the fact that all the right wing political pundits and political operatives started slamming Dean as the Iowa primary drew closer. They labeled him with the L word as many times as they could, when a look at his record would put him 5th or 6th in line behind the other candidates when judged in that capacity. He was no more liberal than Edwards or Kerry. Were they all hoping we would listen and do everything we could to ensure Dean would not be our candidate? They new this was the one candidate who could galivinize the Democratic base and could tehn fall back on his moderate record to court the centrists when the GE unfolded. If Rove wanted to face Dean why would he and his operatives work so damn hard at tearing him down?

Now this brings us to Clark. The repugs didn't chance wiating around until 2 weeks before New hampshire to start tearing him a new one. He got fight off the bat. We all remember the Shwarzkoff quotes. Then there were the questions about his loyalty to the Democratic party. Most of us poor saps took that one hook, line and sinker, i'm afraid. He spent the first 3 months of his campaign aswering the same stupid ass questions about those two issues.
Finally we come to Kerry. Funny, but most of the same people so eager to pounce on Dean and Clark have not been heard from since Kerry has become the front runner. He has gotten a free ride since Iowa, and we are just letting him skate. I've heard more negative stuff about Kerry coming from Dean than any repug out there. Kerry has, what 18 years of recorded votes in the Senate to be scavenged for debate and we haven't heard hardly a word about any of it. Believe me, though, there is plenty there to look at. Kerry is easily more liberal than Clark, Edwards, Dean, Lieberman or Graham, but we aren't going to hear about any of that from the repugs until the GE. That is the way they want it. Kerry's pandering and flip-flopping make Clinton look like Pat Buchanan when it comes to those tendencies. He has no core principles(see Torticelli). he will be painted as a man with no conviction. For a nation at war, Kerry has an abismal voting record on defense and intelligence. This will be an embarrasment for him to deal with. He voted against the B-1, the stealth, F-15, F-16 and numerous other military items that are still in use today. Oh, yeah, and he just so happens to be from the state where gay marraiges may soon be written into law. No problem here in teh digno dave household, but not so fast in about 65% of other american households.

That interview with the Crimson Harvard newspaper will work nicely against him as well. Put US troops under control of the UN.....are you serious?!?!?!?! I know it was 30 years ago, but look what we are doing to Bush over what he did 30 years ago. You don't think Rove will have fun with that issue. Please. Do away with the CIA?!?!?!?! That's gonna play real well these days...with the whole terrorost thing and all. He is a bed-fellow to lobbyist to the nth degree.
Please understand, most of what i have written is from the perspective of the repugs. I don't necessarily agree with the principles, i am just laying out examples of what they will do with Kerry as their opponent.
Karl Rove may have gotten just what he wanted all along.

[FloridaPat]

1. It seems clear as a bell that the media certainly jumped in

a at least destroyed any chance of Dean's nomination. When have you ever heard the war cry of "Who Can Beat Bush"!! The donkey should be able to beat Bush. The big question is, what in the world are the Democrats doing? Are they willing to fight, because they sure haven't done much the last 20 years. I don't know if the repubs are behind this, but it sure looks like the media is involved.

[cavebat2000]

2. Ive seen nothing but positive news about Kerry

Its kinda irritating.

[digno dave]

3. kerry gets a

free ride.

[murielm99]

5. I have seen negative news about Kerry.

I e-mailed ABC news yesterday about their evening news. They had a big segment about Kerry, and how he does not like special interests, but takes their money anyway. They talked about how he had people "bundle" contributions for him.

Oh, yeah...they spent about 20 seconds talking about Bush's pioneers, who bundle. If you blinked, you would have missed that part.

They spent a great deal of time talking about a tech company that Kerry's vote favored, and how they later gave him campaign money.

It was all perfectly legal (dig, dig).

I asked them why they did not discuss any of Bush's bundlers, like Stephen Goddard, Jr., a pioneer (someone who bundles $100,000) for shrub. Goddard was the head of the Arthur Anderson office, where they shredded lots of Enron documents. I asked them why they never discussed the Ken Lay connection to shrub.

Jut wait. This is only the beginning. The real smears are yet to come.

[ShimokitaJer]

18. How is that a smear?

I can't tell you how many times I've heard Kerry supporters on DU yell about how Kerry never took any special interest money, and now you're saying it's a non-issue? You don't deny that Kerry took the money, you only say that Bush did too.

A smear is an unfair or deceptive representation of a candidate. I don't view finally calling someone on their bullshit as anything near the same level.

[AbbeyRoad]

4. Don't forget

The DNC helped out too.

[interceptor]

6. Well, perhaps

Perhaps this is or isn't what Rove "wants." I for one thought most of the Republicans "wanted" it to be Dean.

But probably, Kerry is just the one the majority of caucus-goers wanted. I really believe the majority of people don't just make up their mind at the last minute based on who spends more money or because they were befuddled by whatever news agency. We're most likely seeing the real deal here...this many states can't be that wrong. The one you or I would choose? Eh, maybe. But that's the way it goes.

Wish he hadn't have voted against so many military programs, but some of his choices aren't that bad. The AH-1 and B-1 in particular probably could have been done without. If he can reason through each choice it probably won't be so terrible for him, and I don't think that's going to be a big issue, whether he voted to fund Project X 20 years ago or not...

[ShimokitaJer]

19. Here's why you're wrong

The exit polls indicated that most of those who voted for Kerry did so on the basis of "electability" rather than agreeing on the issues. Perceived electability is an extremely subjective criteria, and one that is shaped by assumptions about other voters. In other words, more voters chose Kerry because they thought more voters would choose Kerry. It would be naive to believe that these assumptions are not shaped by the news media, especially when the news media speaks of each state in terms of the "winner" rather than how many delegates were won, encouraging an electoral style "winner take all" image of the primaries.

Now, it is entirely possible that those voters, if they actually took the time to review everyone's positions closely, might still have voted for Kerry. However, you know as well as I do that most voters are not as fixated on the primaries as we at DU are. In fact, most of them know very little about the election except that they don't want Bush. They are voting based on the limited information available to them and voting against the current resident rathat than for the next president.

I won't go so far as to say that the media is solely responsible for Dean's downfall, but it is wrong to pretend they had no effect.

[andym]

7. Who did Rove want

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=194470&mesg_id=194470

Take a look back at this thread. They clearly had done lots of prep for Kerry. They also seemed to want Dean, but were concerned by his money raising capabilities.

They put Clark in the "middle", probably because he hadn't been able to break through the media blackout (in theory he could really have neutralized their typical attacks) and they didn't particularly want Edwards, probably because they couldn't use many of their tried and true attacks (northeast liberal) and because he might be more likeable than *.

[bowens43]

14. You want Rove to pick our candidate??????

You're kidding right?

[GreenArrow]

8. No, Rove had nothing to do with it

and Bush is going to lose.

[PretzelWarrior]

9. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO tired of this meme--to wit:

"Rove and his company are all-seeing and all-knowing fortune tellers. They have the ability to think 20 moves ahead in this great political chess game and we will lose at every turn because of it."

No, we will lose if we jump at shadows because of that load of horsesh!t. Carville was a master at manipulating the message to Clinton's benefit. But there were things he screwed up. Same for all political advisors.

To me, Rove has similarities in appearance to Rush Limbaugh. I think that about sizes it up. They are both overblown in self importance and in the praise/fear ascribed to them.

Get on with things. Kerry's in all likelihood the standard bearer so either get on the bus. We got us an election to win.

[Old and In the Way]

10. Bush vs. Kerry

Yeah, Karl must be doing backflips in the WH with joy.

[eileen_d]

11. The Repugs didn't pick my candidate(s). I picked my own. n/t

[emulatorloo]

12. Well that Mars idea worked so well, maybe this is another winner for Karl!

I am currently so committed to my campaign against steroids, that I will be unable to take time to vote in the general election.

:shrug:

[bowens43]

13. Another tin foil hat post?

Clark was a weak candidate from the start. Other then his uniform he had nothing to offer as a presidential candidate. Dean self destructed. The media didn't select Kerry, the Repugs didn't select Kerry. The primary voters seem to be selecting Kerry.

It sounds to me as if YOU are advocating allowing the repugs to chose our candidate for us. You seem to think that being a liberal is a bad thing. Sorry to inform you but many of us, probably most of us disagree. There was a time when Democrats were proud to wear the liberal label. Every thing that you paint as negative , I see a s a positive.

[digno dave]

15. Still waiting for reasonable retort

Funny, but no one has taken the time to list the ways Kerry will defend himself against the issues listed above.

Oh yeah, and i forgot to mention the Patriot Act, NCLB, IWR as items he voted for but now is against. I am sure voters will have a clear idea of what they are getting if they chose to support Kerry.

[BigDaddyLove]

17. This may seem a bit crazy, but because Kerry voted........

for the Patriot Act, and the Iraqi Adventure etc, it will be harder for Republicans to paint him solely as a bleeding heart Northeastern Liberal.

[ShimokitaJer]

20. It will also make it harder for liberals to vote for him

Gee, this sounds a lot like 2000.... and 2002...

[digno dave]

16. Clrk an empty uniform?

Clark hurt himself on a few ocassions with some ill-concieved comments, but he offered more policy proposals than i have heard from Kerry.