Kerry lost because he was a lousy candidate - not cause of liberal issues

[timeforachange]

Kerry was boring and unlikeable. He puts most people to sleep. He didn't inspire. He was too cold, too northeastern provincial. Not personalable. Too introverted, shy, reserved. He didn't open up and let people see him for what he was.

Most democrats who voted for him didn't like him. They voted for him cause he wasn't Bush. THey would have voted for a hamster other than Bush, Kerry's support was far from a ringing endorsement of Kerry.

You need passion FOR someone to win elections. Hate can only get you so far.

Issues don't matter as much as the style and substance part. We need someone who is likeable, damn it, and the american sheep will vote for him.

[ibegurpard]

1. With all due respect

your post reads like a slew of strung-together talking points.

[liberalpragmatist]

2. I liked Kerry

I think he was a perfectly good candidate. Yes, there were mistakes, but there's never going to be a perfect candidate or a perfect candidate. And it was always gonna be difficult to defeat an incumbent, b/c despite Bush's clear record of incompetence, roughly half the country had intense support for him. Kerry did a decent campaign. It's easy to say in hindsight, he "should've done this" or "should've done that," but he did the best he could, and came really close.

He should remain a party elder statesman. If he proves himself over the next 4 years, maybe he should be considered for the '08 nomination. But if chooses not to run for President (which is understandable), he could be a future Secretary of State. He has a lot of potential. I'd hate for him to disappear. He's a great guy, honorable, a great leader. He's one of the best presidents the United States will never have.

[jacksonian]

3. Kerry was a great candidate

people can't be superman. Kerry was not the perfect candidate, but no one is.

The real question is not making the candidate more perfect, but figuring out how we can build a system to get people like Kerry elected.

Our message was fine, we lost the ground game and the air game.

[hadrons]

4. if this is the case, then why did .....

In Ky, they reelected a Repuke to the Senate who is suffering from dementia

In SC, they elected a Repuke to the Senate who believes that the biggest problem in the country is lesbian teachers and who wants a 23% national sales tax (in a state with a huge manufacturing base)

In Ok, they elected a Repuke who advocated the death penalty for doctors who perform abortion (but I guess he isn't interested in making that policy retroactive since he would have to commit suicide) ... he also sterilized a woman against her will and believes there's an lesbian invasion of the Oklahoma school system

La. sent a kinder & gentler version of David Duke to the Senate (and one who had a running affair with a prostitute)

Fact it, the country is controlled by very stupid, very narrow-minded people ... Kerry couldn't done anything about it

[Awsi Dooger]

5. I agree with a lot of that

But far from everything. It's completely innacurate most Democrats who voted for Kerry didn't like him. After the debates Kerry was very well liked by Democrats, and even more respected than liked. He gave us everthing he had, literally thousands of decisions and every one of them sincerely designed to win the presidency.

Kerry was not the ideal candidate to oust an incumbent. He would have been perfect for 2000, no doubt a clear winner. Versus an incumbent you need spark and likeability, as you said passion to vote FOR and not merely against. None of our 2004 candidates had the ideal resume and style. I thought Edwards came closest and posted that throughout the primaries and earlier.

[UdoKier]

6. It was a trifecta of things.

1. a weak campaign run by Bob Shrum, a man with a record of losing elections for us.

2. Kerry's lack of interest in refuting the phony swift boat claims, or those that he "voted against the troops" - along with the false assertion that he's a "flip-flopper"

3. Jerry-rigged voting machines in some areas.

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

7. Not personalable sounds like a Bushism

just saying...

[A-Schwarzenegger]

8. He didn't pump his fist into the air very well.

It just kind of floated out there or something.

Other than that ...

[The Flaming Red Head]

9. He didn't loose the debates or the election

this is not even a talking point.

[blondeatlast]

19. Of course it is; it just isn't one of OURS...

Just sayin'...

[mopaul]

10. some day our man, or woman, will come along

to wax religious. someone who simply tells the truth, and who is not in it for the money or the fame, just the honor of it.
not a messiah figure, just a normal person who hasn't been a politician all his life, or was the son of one.

[ZR2]

11. Kerry failed to win enough votes

because he simply didn't have the right message. Everytime I mentioned this to someone during the campign, they wouldn't listen.

All Kerry would say is that "he has a plan" but he never expressed his plan. He would refer people to his website, but there is no plan there either. Kerry listed a bunch of ideas, but ideas are ot plans. Plans are how you are going to implement your ideas.

In this age of immediate internet access, A candidate has to give complete and accurate information.

[Snellius]

12. It was like he was trapped in his own personality

He seemed kind of tragic the way he was going around asking everyone what he should do to improve his image? The skiing in Sun Valley, the windsurfing, the motorcycling on Leno, even the Orvitz goose hunting moment are were as forced and phony as Al Gore playing a Kennedyesque game of touch football during the 2000 recount. That he was blind to how these stunts would be perceived only reinforced how out of touch he really was. Yes, Bush with his stage-set ranch is just as phony, but that's the reason we can't stand him too.

At heart he was, like Gore, a fine man and, once he felt accepted, maybe a great president. But we needed Batman and only got Robin.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

13. Bush Is Robin (nt)

[Snellius]

14. Bush is the Joker

Sorry, reaching for a bad metaphor there, I guess. Didn't mean to say Bush was Robin. But just that, in Kerry, we needed someone with superhuman powers and only got a guy was not as great as he first appeared. When you add up what John Kerry was up against -- a sitting commander in chief in wartime, the inertial power of the presidency itself, a well-funded, well-disciplined, and ruthless Rove machine, the whole corporate establishment, the Catholic Church and many of the Protestants, all of the mass media of talk radio and cable TV, with a minority in both Houses -- it's remarkable he did as well as he did. What many are missing -- and I think even the Republicans will come to see this -- is how furious is the reaction to what's going on.

[bitchkitty]

17. You said -

"the way he was going around asking everyone what he should do to improve his image?"

He was? Asking whom? Could you elaborate just a bit because when you throw out a statement like that, it makes it appear as though you are talking out of your ass.

[Snellius]

18. I heard that from the Newsweek editor, Evan Thomas

He's been going around to the talk shows previewing a coming article on the behind-the-scenes story of the the campaign. He claims that Kerry was so obsessively soliciting advice and asking "what don't you like about me" that some on his staff were threatening to take his cell phone away. Maybe it's not true, but Kerry's awkward attempts to define himself seemed to indicate an underlying uncertainty about how he was being perceived. I think he wished he could have been more like Dean or Edwards but it was almost like he was a prisoner of his own upbringing, privilege, and class.

[KittyWampus]

23. Snellius Is Taking The Garbage About Gore & Trying To Smear Kerry

Snellius doesn't know that Kerry actually DOES windsuf etc etc.

Why doesn't Snellius know this?

You'd think a Democrat would be familiar with his candidate by now.

Maybe Kerry wasn't Snellius's candidate.

[pinniped]

15. You mean most Democrats would've voted for the repuke candidate...

if it wasn't * running?

------Most democrats who voted for him didn't like him. They voted for him cause he wasn't Bush.------

[bitchkitty]

16. Completely untrue -

When Howard Dean was at his peak, and there were a lot of Kerry supporters slamming him, I hit back hard. I have issues with Kerry, and given the choice, would pick Howard Dean over any Democrat.

But the things you are saying are untrue. The fact is that the Bush "victory" is unexplainable until you factor in Diebold. Then everything becomes crystal clear.

There was NOTHING wrong with Kerry's campaign or Kerry's message. The only thing wrong in the Democratic Party are those who pay lip service to but seem ashamed of our liberal values, and think that to beat the Republicans we have to become like them.

[lil-petunia]

25. Nothing wrong with his campaign? WHAT THE FU???????

Were you out of country, MIA, during July and August? Did you miss the constant attacks on kerry while his campaign kept a stiff upper lip "above the fray"? Did you fail to see how this campaign dug itself a hole, then tried to repair it by digging further, until they saw the light and brought in some pros to run it?

Did you miss many of us patriots here, warning the campaign of PRECISELY THAT back in August, only to be attacked as naysayers, backstabbers and being somehow undemocratic?


Or did I miss something here?

[RetroLounge]

20. Wow, this sounds just like the Freepers at work

must be today's talking points..

:eyes:

RL

[bklyncowgirl]

21. Kerry did well but made some mistakes. long post

I like John Kerry and he was my first choice in the primaries although I came to like Dean a great deal too and had I been in a state where I actually got a chance to vote, would have had a hard time choosing between them and their differeing ideas of how to win this campeign.

Here's where I think there were problems and what he could have done better. Some of the mistakes were DNC not Kerry mistakes.

Frontloaded primaries. The democratic party wanted to get an early winner. I've always thought this was a mistake. A long primary season allows the winner to be thouroughly tested and vetted. This year the only candidate who ran the gauntlet was Dean--and that was before anyone got to vote. Contrast that with Bill Clinton who had to overcome strong challanges from Paul Tsongas and a bruising mudslinger with Jerry Brown. By the time the general election came around, voters were thoroughly familiar with Clinton's shortcomings and were able to get past them. Since the primaries were over early, Rove could take his time setting up his character assassination of Kerry and as we know he was very very effective.

The Conventions: We had ours in July, why because that's the way it's always done and we are good little Democrats and play by the rules. The Republicans did theirs in September to be close to 9/11 and to be able to continue to raise money. We had to coast through August to stretch out the money. Their convention was a week long hatefest (McCain the exception, of course). Our convention was all sweetness and light with only the gentlest indirect attacks on Bush permitted (Al Sharpton the exception of course) Kerry gave a great speech, it's true and came out strong against Bush and it gave him a boost in the polls--a boost that lasted until the Swift Boat vets did their thing.

Swift Boat: Kerry based his presentation of himself primarily on his heroic Vietnam service and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth proceded to knock him right down. Sure it came out that it was all lies-- eventually--at least to those people who bother to read the major newspapers or who watch the few TV and radio talk shows where liberals can get a word in edgewise. But the damage had been done and the fact that Kerry didn't react with righteous fury to these liars raised questions in the minds of voters as to whether he was strong enough to be commander in chief.

The Elitist Image: I give Kerry credit for refusing to pretend to be someone he isn't but why not take a few high profile swipes at Bush's phony cowboy persona. I have a feeling that alot of those rural people who see Bush working on his ranch would be surprised to find out that it was only purchsed in 1999. I know plenty of well informed liberals who don't know that. He ain't no cowboy, he never was and never will be and that should have been driven home.

Iraq: Why the hell couldn't he say something like "It was a mistake to vote for the Iraq War Resolution. I based my vote on information provided by the administration. That information was misleading."

Themes and schemes: Kerry proposed all sorts of programs and plans but if asked to show a unifying ideal for the campeign aside from "stronger at home--respected in the world" I couldn't name one. This came home to me at one of the last rallies, where Bruce Springsteen gave a short speech which summed up beautifully what we were fighting for and Kerry gave a disjointed laundry list of programs and grievances. Sure it may be corny but perhaps borrowing a little of Springsteen or Barak Obama's idealism and poetry might have been a good thing.

[novadem]

22. A Feeding Frenzy

on Kerry has begun because he lost. Had he won Ohio he would be The Messiah of the Democratic Party and Cahill, Shrum, Carville and Begala would be geniuses.

[KittyWampus]

24. Freepers Are Happy To Agitate Here. And Some DU'ers Unwittingly Help

[LibDemAlways]

26. Bullshit

Chimp was and is the worst imaginable candidate. He can't formulate an intelligent thought. Has to be "wired" in order to make it through a debate. Even with his handlers feeding him his lines, he sounds like a moron. He has no record except war, death, destruction, deficits. He surrounds himself with the most evil people on the planet.

If not for the whore press which props him up and Diebold which alters the vote totals, he'd be packing his bags right now.

This election had very little to do with Kerry and everything to do with the repukes' unwillingness to give up power at any cost.

[independentpiney]

27. Kerry is very likeable, but the pukes defined him

The flip-flopper shit stuck till the end. One thing I cannot understand is why the campaign, with all its resources never explained the IWR vote and 87 billion in a way most people would have understood. Why wasn't there an ad using soundbites from his floor speech before the IWR vote? Or a simple explanation of the amendment to the appropriations bill he supported?

I think that and the weak, slow response to the not so swifts cost more than the values issues.

[rasputin1952]

28. I am locking this as inflammatory...

The OP comes on assaulting Kerry, then leaves, w/o responding to any of the posts.

Thank you for your understanding.