Reply #5: I think people were afraid to change presidents during a "war".

[ginnyinWI]

I talked to (Republican)people during the campaign who thought it would be a disadvantage to change presidents because of Iraq. Back then they still had confidence in *--that he somehow knew how to bring the occupation to a satisfactory conclusion.
Those of us on the Left blamed * for the invasion, but those on the Right were drinking the Koolaid, and were too lazy to actually take a look and consider Kerry seriously. Instead they believed Rove's characterizations.

Also, Kerry didn't have an easily sound-bited solution to Iraq at that time (but does now). Being an honest leader, he didn't want to start spouting slogans and promises that he couldn't keep. So people were unsure what he'd do differently. But that said, anybody who really listened to him would know how smart and capable he was--as seen during the three debates especially.

And here's the last part of the problem: the media drowned out much of the advantage of those three stellar performances by running with the Mary Cheney thing, or other distractions--anything the RW wanted to use to distract from *'s failure to perform. They repeated the smears and failed to rebut lies. This also goes back to Kerry's handlers and their failure to fight hard enough, too.