Why did Kerry loose? An afterthought.

[robini123]

My best-case scenario was that the President squeaks buy with the 270 for the win, but looses the popular vote. Plus holding current seats in the House and Senate with modest possible gains.

What happened; The President wins the election with 279 EC votes, wins big in the popular vote, House 55 (11 more than Demos) and Senate 231 (31 more than Demos), and to boot Daschle is out of a job… this shocked me!

So why did Kerry and the Democrats loose so big? Lack of vision in my opinion. Most Democrats that I ask; what is the Kerry plan on Iraq? Some of them can’t answer the question, but those that do say; he will deploy 40 thousand more troops and gain International support. The 40 thousand troops was a valid point, but from what I hear from France is they would not work with any President in Iraq, Russia saying they support Bush, and Saudi none to happy with some of Kerry’s comments… just to name a few.

So I would ask what is Kerry’s B and C plan incase his primary plan does not work… and not one Liberal could answer that. Now keep in mind that Kerry consistently says that the President lacks vision and has no backup plans in Iraq.

Kerry lost because he was selling a vision that the majority of American’s were not buying. In a prior post I showed that Kerry’s spending greatly out paced governmental income, thus adding to the deficit and making it impossible for Kerry to fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half in five years. And this is only one of many examples I could bring fourth.

In the second debate Kerry had the chance to bring clarity to this issue, to convince the American public that income would surpass spending and what was left to be used to pay down the deficit… but he did not do that. So what did he do? He completely ignored the challenge to his spending and did his usual attack on the President. Points like this is why the Democrats lost so big. Lack of vision and the refusal to clarify their position.

If Kerry had presented himself throughout the election as he did during his concession speech I think he would have won BIG!!! Why he chose the path he did is beyond me.

Lessons to learn: If the Democrats are wise they will do a deep introspective into how and why their campaign to oust Bush failed so miserably. The reasons are obvious to me and all Republicans; Democrats will need to get past the hatred of Bush, quit being so blindly partisan, and look to where Republicans were successful, and learn from the Republican victory.

[AndJusticeForAll]

Originally Posted by robini123

So why did Kerry and the Democrats loose so big?

"On the bell curve, Bush supporters liked George more than Kerry supporters liked John. Kerry supporters hated George more than Bush supporters hated John. The Web sprouted sites such as KerryHatersforKerry.com offering slogans like "He's awful and I'm for him." The question was whether there was enough anti-Bush to heat up the lukewarm Kerry support -- and the answer was no. Kerry never got from ABB to JFK.

John F. Kerry was a Vietnam vet, and the "Swift Boat Veterans" wounded him anyway. John F. Kerry came out against gay marriage and got tarred with it anyway. He shot a goose, and the NRA hated him anyway. He said life begins at conception, and the Catholic Church came after him anyway. He could barely utter the L word, and he got tagged as a "Massachusetts liberal." He won the debates, and it didn't matter.
In the end, a majority of Americans -- 52 percent to 46 percent of likely voters -- were dissatisfied with how things were going and still voted for the man in charge. A majority -- 47 percent to 41 percent -- thought we were on the wrong track and still reelected the conductor. Given the choice between the commander in chief of the war and the guy who promised only a "smarter, more effective war," they decided to go home with the guy what brung 'em to the battlefront. Fear didn't just trump the long-jawed hope. It trumped the economy, it trumped healthcare. It trumped John F. Kerry.

Are you an armchair analyst? Kerry wasn't liberal enough, conservative enough, tough enough, straightforward enough. The young people didn't vote enough. The new voters weren't Democratic enough. Choose one from column A. But with my morning-after coffee clutched in my hand, I remember that episode of "Sex and the City" when the women sat around psychoanalyzing all the reasons why a guy didn't call them. Finally, a male friend gives the no-brainer: "He's just not that into you." The voters were just not that into John F. Kerry."


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...vote_for_more/

[odannyboy]

Originally Posted by AndJusticeForAll

" The voters were just not that into John F. Kerry."


http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...vote_for_more/

Bottom line: Voters were much more against GWB than any were for Kerry.

Kerry did not have anything he could point to as uniquely his, and instead tried to appeal to everyone.

The Democratic Party is soon to suffer the same fate if it does not reinvent itself and distance itself from the fringe elements that try and identify with it.

It must take a stand, and in a world increasingly immoral, many people paint it as being part of the problem. In some instances it is just that.

The number one priority amongst voters, with a war on and jobs fleeing the country, is morality, and if the Democrats don't become a party that stresses something other than being all-inclusive it very well may find itself going the way of the dinosaur.

[Betty Boop]

Yes - that's exactly it, odannyboy. Coming from an extremely conservative evangelical background one of the things drilled into my head from cradle room was that "If you stood for nothing, you'd fall for anything." George W. Bush was able to translate on some plane that being all-inclusive is indeed falling for anything.

Yet, not that many years ago, when the former President was running against Bob Dole and the Republican party was imploding by being so totally exclusive and intolerant, I remember then first lady Hiliary Clinton saying that it had occurred to her that she couldn't understand how one could be Republican and a Christian. It was a jovial comment made in semi-jest at the time but said a lot for why President Clinton was elected twice - he knew how to use/translate their faith as faith-in-action statements to his vision for America. We as Americans hold those Judeo-Christian values/morals dearly even if we don't always measure up to them - because they are the foundation points for our American lifestyle.

When the Democratic party rediscovers not how to exploit faith but energize it personally in a candidate's life, such as Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did, I think then you will see a real campaign that will take those social issues that Democrats do fight for and believe in so dearly and again make them credible even with conservatives.

It was the lack of credibility of Kerry's practical Catholicism that in large part defeated him. You cannot profess one premise and then have an open record that openly supports/mocks it in the eyes of people who will judge that. People may not have agreed with or liked George W. Bush's personal religious beliefs but he has a record of consistency within that values framework and that spoke volumes for him on Tuesday - why the high voter turn-out in his favor from the very conservative right.

As Sen. Kerry said in concession - We are all victors (on Wednesday morning) because we all woke up Americans. The process had not failed. But, odannyboy, for those who worked so hard, who believed so sincerely in Sen. Kerry's message and vision, I know it was still painful to wake up on Wednesday morning to defeat. I really hope that those who believed in his message will honor it by not being hateful in their response to the coming term but rather work hard to see a way to more middle ground, just as I hope that the Bush supporters do not get cocky "with a mandate" as was expressed by Dick Cheney. A mandate manta ignores that nearly 50% (48%) of the American people did not agree with them - and sets a second term for success on very shaky ground out the gate, in my opinion. Both the Sen. and the President were right, we need to find the commonality and work together because Wednesday morning we are all Americans and the political rancor now needs to be laid to rest for our great nation

[AndJusticeForAll]

"Over 55 million Americans voted for the candidate dubbed "The #1 Liberal in the Senate." That's more than the total number of voters who voted for either Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Gore. Again, more people voted for Kerry than Reagan. If the media are looking for a trend it should be this -- that so many Americans were, for the first time since Kennedy, willing to vote for an out-and-out liberal. The country has always been filled with evangelicals -- that is not news. What IS news is that so many people have shifted toward a Massachusetts liberal. In fact, that's BIG news. Which means, don't expect the mainstream media, the ones who brought you the Iraq War, to ever report the real truth about November 2, 2004."

Don't shoot the messenger.

www.michaelmoore.com

[robini123]

"The voters were just not that into John F. Kerry."

That is a given.... I have to disagree on who won the debates though. Bush had substance and was believable, Kerry had style but ducked most of the issues.

[Betty Boop]

It is true that there was a Herculean effort on both sides of the aisle to get the vote out - as they should have always done. More Americans voted for that conservative evangelical than ever before, though, too - so even a greater number than voted for the liberal Senator from Massachussetts, so the GREATEST number in American Presidential elections.

One commentary that I listened to, and which I have to agree with AJFA, is that we are witnessing how our American society is now very split politically not just Democrat and Republican but also churched (or synagogued) and non-churched (non-synagogued). Considering the registration numbers by party, it is apparent, though, that the Republicans turned out the better vote numbers (churched and unchurched) because hands down the Democrats registration numbers alone should have seated a Democrat in the White House.

Very good points on your part, though.