We Blew It At Our Convention

[ruggerson]

The Democratic convention should have been devoted to making the case that the Bush presidency was an abysmal failure.

Star speakers should have destroyed Bush with laser like precision.

Then Kerry could have come out at the end and given a rousing, positive, forward looking speech, stirring the country to look beyond the nightmare of the Bush reign.

Instead, the decision was made to have "NO BUSH BASHING" at the convention. The media, which loves it when Republicans go negative, but hates it when Democrats do, forced the Kerry campaign into this mistake.

It's one we should never repeat.

[autorank]

1. No kidding. We appeared weak. Not much to rally the trooops.

[genius]

45. But Kerry wanted everyone to be nicey-nicey to Bush

Kerry's people edited all the speeches they could. Now Kerry has won and conceded leaving me to wonder whether he was on Bush's side all along.

[Mirwib]

59. This has become a logical nightmare.

If Kerry is the strong candidate that everyone thought he was, why has he appeared so weak since the election?

[eleonora]

2. I completely agree 110%

We were soft on the issues, soft on the accusations because the press loves to portray us as whiners. NOW WE MUST ACCUSE like the repugs do. We need to be NASTY.

[alittlelark]

3. Were we SUPPOSED to?

I pray ( in a non-religious way) not.

[Skip Intro]

4. No

I don't agree.

I think we had a powerful convention, and I felt the momentum. Most threads on DU agreed at the time.

What happened, tho, was that as the post-convention bounce developed, the bush regime issued "targeted" threat-level increases based on four year old intel. Remember?

That zapped all media attention away from our convention, and everthing else. A horrible threat was upon us.

Remember?

[JohnKleeb]

5. yep

We actually were quite united, it felt so damn good, and now here we are divided again, fuck that sucks, I hate revisionist crap like this.

[ruggerson]

7. Yep

But the larger point is that negative campaigning works. The Bush family has mastered negative campaigning. It can destroy the opposition and make it impossible to get a message through.

Democrats like to take the high road. I understand the impulse. But the high road does not win elections. It simply doesn't. We have to fight hard and we have to fight dirty. And we have to preemptively destroy whomever they nominate next time.

[Mist]

43. Couldn't agree more

Why are Dems always so nicey-nice? There's conclusive evidence this doesn't work. Get down and dirty and fight like the Rethugs! I think people (voters _and_ candidates) who piously proclaim they're taking the high ground are being selfish and arrogant. Their precious idea of themselves is more important than winning for all of us. Someone needs to tell these folks that politics isn't about being polite.

[Ima]

51. I agree!

We can't win with one hand tied behind our back. We need a candidate willing to get his hands dirty. Rather than a person of privilege, wanting the victory handed to him, on a silver platter. This crap about, I'm to well mannered to fight, is disgusting.


After we fight fire, with fire, a few times, maybe the other side will see, it is not in their best interest, to fight dirty. They get away with it ..so why not?

[eleonora]

11. the Bush convention was not above making fun of Kerry with flip flops

We should have done the same. We should have attacked Bush's weaknesses and lies in a razor sharp manner.

No matter how bad this sounds, and I really wish we could survive politically being white as snow in our comments, but that just isn't feasible in this current atmosphere of 'war'.

[okieinpain]

40. oh don't forget about the purple band-aids.

[WilliamPitt]

27. I was writing about that exact thing just yesterday

in the book I'm writing:

==

My favorite example of this happened more recently, on August 1st, 2004. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge came barnstorming out that Sunday with a blizzard of warnings about looming terror attacks against targets in New York, New Jersey and Washington DC. Our nifty color-coded alert system was raised to Orange, or High. Headlines from coast to coast blared the bad news, and the stock market began Monday by giving itself a sound beating. Late Monday night, however, saw articles popping up on the Washington Post and the New York Times websites. This was the Post's midnight take: "Most of the al Qaeda surveillance of five financial institutions that led to a new terrorism alert Sunday was conducted before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and authorities are not sure whether the casing of the buildings has continued, numerous intelligence and law enforcement officials said yesterday...'There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new,' said one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. 'Why did we go to this level? I still don't know that.'"

The data was three years old.

Tom Ridge, in his Sunday remarks, said, "President Bush has told you, and I have reiterated the promise, that when we have specific credible information, that we will share it. Now this afternoon, we do have new and unusually specific information about where al-Qaeda would like to attack."

The data was three years old.

"The quality of this intelligence," said Ridge on Sunday, "based on multiple reporting streams in multiple locations, is rarely seen and it is alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information."

The data was three years old.

"As of now," said Ridge on Sunday, "this is what we know: reports indicate that al-Qaeda is targeting several specific buildings, including the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the District of Columbia; Prudential Financial in Northern New Jersey; and Citigroup buildings and the New York Stock Exchange in New York."

The data was three years old.

"I certainly realize that this is sobering news," said Ridge on Sunday, "not just about the intent of our enemies, but of their specific plans and a glimpse into their methods."

The data was three years old.

"But we must understand," said Ridge on Sunday, "that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the President's leadership in the war against terror."

The data was three years old.

Furthermore, according to the Washington Post, "Several officials also said that much of the information compiled by terrorist operatives about the buildings in Washington, New York and Newark was obtained through the Internet or other 'open sources' available to the general public, including some floor plans."

The data was three years old, gathered on the Internet, and delivered to the American people in tones of doom, as if the hammer were about to fall at any moment.

As reported on the Bloomberg newswire, Laura Bush and the daughters Barbara and Jenna Bush held a photo-op at the Citigroup Center in New York City that Monday, the first day of Ridge's new Orange alert. The Citigroup Center was one of the targeted buildings, according to Ridge. George W. Bush sent his entire family to the very place that was supposedly about to be blown to smithereens? I don't think so. George W. Bush and his administration officials were using terrorism - the fear of it, the fight against it - to manipulate domestic American politics. On this day they were, as they had every day for almost three years, used September 11 against their own people.

Do you doubt it? Recall, if you will, the report in the July 2004 edition of the New Republic by John Judis, Spencer Ackerman, and Massoud Ansari titled 'July Surprise'. The report read, "This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials--from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official--have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf's government to do more in the war on terrorism."

The kicker appeared in the next paragraph: "A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed TNR that the Pakistanis 'have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs (High Value Targets) before election is absolute must.' What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: 'The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during meetings in Washington.'...But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that 'it would be best if the arrest or killing of HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July'--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston."

On the Thursday of the Democratic convention in Boston, the day John Kerry was to accept the nomination and deliver the central speech of the week, Pakistan announced the capture of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian Al Qaeda operative wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Pakistan, it seems, got the message from Tenet, Powell, Rocca, Black and the Bush administration itself. They delivered the terrorist exactly on cue. In that instance, clearly Bush's people wanted to use terrorism to deflect attention from the Democratic convention. What were they trying to distract us from with the three-year-old August 1st warning nonsense? It is possible they were looking to dissuade some of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of protesters, who were planning that August to surround the Republican convention in New York, from making the trip. Yet that seemed unlikely; the convention was three weeks away, so it was a bit early to start scaring people. More likely, they were looking to distract from the poll-numbers bump Kerry and Edwards enjoyed in the aftermath of a highly successful convention. Could it be as simple and craven as that? Absolutely yes, it could.

[THUNDER HANDS]

36. actually, I thought both the convention and Kerry's speech sucked

and afterwards I logged onto DU expecting to read about how horrible it was and all I saw was 'Wasn't that an awesome speech' and such.

I didn't want to say anything because I thought I must have been wrong.

I actually dropped and shook my head when Kerry did the salute and the 'reporting for duty' thing.

Out of the entire convention there were three good moments - Clinton, Obama and Sharpton.

All the rest was thoroughly unmemorable. Edwards was not ready for prime time and Kerry rushed through his speech he'd been waiting 30 years to give. He actually started sweating because he was rushing so much.

It was just bad.

[ruggerson]

42. I had the same reaction

Clinton, Sharpton (to my surprise) and Obama were the only speakers who stirred anyone. Of the three, Sharpton's was the best speech. It was the red meat, powerfully delivered, which articulated the message of justice and economic populism and gave life to the Democratic vision of the American dream.

The rest of the convention was badly orchestrated and terribly delivered. There was no theme, there was no message, there was no distillation of what we are all about.

[WilliamPitt]

53. That has more to do with modern conventions than Kerry

I covered the whole thing, and it was an informercial from beginning to end. That's the way conventions are these days; that's they way they have been for going on thirty years. The days of meaningful conventions are, for the time being anyway, very much over. When the nominee is nailed down weeks or months before the show, there isn't much to conventioneer about.

As for Kerry's speech, I disagree. Thought it was very good. But that's eye of the beholder stuff, so whatever.

[LittleClarkie]

57. I thought several people loved it at the time

Alas, I didn't get to see the bugger.

[Cheswick2.0]

46. I do not agree

We hamstringed outselves. The no bush bashing rule was idiotic. The focus on the military was also idiotic. Viet Nam didn't matter in 1992, 1996 or 2000, but suddenly we decided to make it an issue this year. Kerry's reporting for duty nonsense was embarrasing and so was his pledge to "hunt down and kill the terrorists" later in the election. He didn't sound the least bit convincing.
The whole thing was a fiasco.
We tried to play their game.

[shesemsmom]

6. The first night was powerful

then it went straight to hell

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. But wasn't it the one that didn't get much television coverage?

Or was that Tuesday?

[AP]

8. Convention was the best moment for Dems. Check out these media....

...reports.

http://www.medien-tenor.com/index1.html

[Cheswick2.0]

48. yeah cause the liberal media would tell the truth about his one thing

of course the liked the convention. We played nice. The "liberal" media loves it when we play nice.

[proudbluestater]

9. I hate to think of what kind of $$$ those advisors pull in

for giving Kerry SO much damn awful advice. The convention truly sucked big time. No Bush bashing? And they spent their entire convention bashing Kerry. With a failed presidency like Bush's how could you NOT come out and point out his many faults and failures? How could you ignore that? Did he think the people ALREADY KNEW he was a big flop? Not by reading and listening to the right-wing media they didn't.

He wanted to fight back against the swift boat shit and was told, no, people don't believe that stuff anyway. He should have followed his own instincts and started cleaning house in that campaign.

The strategy could have been better too regarding the issues he addressed. I think he should have taken on the neocons directly, the biased media, the PDB that Bush ignored, the name-calling, the ridicule.

One time at his site I posted an article from the LA Times showing that his support among women was falling fast and I got blasted for it. Apparently we were there to be cheerleaders and not point out things that could be improved upon.

So many missteps. Many difficult issues can be broached while still appearing "gentlemanly" if that was the goal.

[Ducks In A Row]

10. it wasn't just the no bush-bashing rule

it was shutting up the anti-war protesters

it was censoring people like whoopi goldburg and margaret cho.

it was a lot of things

but we were told not to whine, to support the machine and kerry

it's cold comfort to know we weren't wrong in not trusting the machine.

[eleonora]

13. yes, the problem is the media machine also

I've noticed that after each debate summary, many articles on major news websites ended with a positive note towards Bush and very seldom towards Jerry, even if he won the debate.

Also I think Repugs had the advantage of being the last of the two conventions...

[Cheswick2.0]

47. not to go all Howard Dean on you or anything

But even Dean seemed to be silenced. He alone came out with some notes on note book paper to give his speech. I can only imagine the quick rewrite that was forced on him by someone who didn't like what he planned to say. I agree with magicrat. He said the highlights were Obama, Clinton and Sharpton. Sharpton bashed bush plenty. Obama attacked the idea that the right was more religious and more loyal than democrats. Clinton was just good to look at after 4 years of bush. But everyone else was silenced, including Kerry.

[Mirwib]

60. The nomination was stolen from Dean

The media pounced on him. His so-called "melt-down" was a media induced fiction; that was a great speach.

[sandnsea]

12. We were up in August polls

Did you hear that reported? Nope. But we were.

Our convention was awesome, people were excited to watch it night after night. I've never seen so many Democrats proud of our party and our "values".

People complain that the right lets the media tell them what to think about Bush; well too many around here let the media tell them what to think too.

[eleonora]

15. but...

Then came Bush's convention and he didn't stop a second to wonder if he should 'return the favor' and not bash Kerry. He did.

And the polls dropped...

[sandnsea]

17. But but

The exit polls said Kerry bashed Bush more than Bush bashed Kerry. Did you know that?

There is something else going on in this country, something very frightening. It's going to take a little more thought and effort than just thinking we can bash our way out of it. And cooperation and cooperation means more than grudgingly supporting a candidate. Or smugly bashing everything that doesn't appeal to me me me.

[LittleClarkie]

25. I remember the talking heads saying how negative

Kerry's campaign was. I couldn't believe it. After that travesty of an RNC, with Zig Zag and the purple boo boo bandaids.

It was the same old story. There seemed to be a hyper-sensitivity. They couldn't bash us enough, and we weren't supposed to bash them at all. Kerry didn't bleed enough, Bush didn't have to bleed at all. Remember Zell with his speech about how dare this person challenge the president. Um, it's called an election, Zell. Perhaps you've heard of it.

I post again my little wallpaper that I created right after the RNC. Tell me this is what we wanted to emulate.

[Cheswick2.0]

50. people that voted for bush said that we bashed him more

they believe whatever the media tells them.

[Old and In the Way]

21. If they could scam the exit polls and the actual vote.......

why should we believe they weren't cooking the pre-election polling as well? Actually, we know they were consistantly oversampling Republicans and missing a huge segment of the population that use cell phones as their primary connection. I think the corporate media dampened the entire polling results to keep Bush within stealing distance.

[Old and In the Way]

18. I agree

"I've never seen so many Democrats proud of our party and our "values". "

What's changed? What would we really have done different? Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

We got screwed by Republican voting machines and Republican operatives that limited the vote. Nothing wrong with our candidates or our message. I can't help it if close to 50MM were too stupid to analyze the past 4 years and couldn't stop drinking the corporate media kool-aid. I still think the majority voted for Kerry/Edwards. But I believe it was again close enough to steal.

We don't have to change a damn thing about our message or our vision. I suspect that, given time, we'll see a huge seachange in those that think Republicans deserve office. Perhaps the pain and agony that we've endured these past 4 years will be more than offset by a country that will at last have an unfreepable majority of people that will let the Democrats run things and completely repudiate the remnants of the GOP. If it happens, it will be worth the pain.

In a perverse way, I'm glad Kerry didn't win. Otherwise, he'd become the new Clinton. Republicans would stonewall his entire agenda and then have a convenient Democrat to be their scapegoat. Now, they have no one to blame, but themselves. They own the complete fucking mess. When the majority of Americans catch up to what we know, it will be very, very ugly for whatever is left of the Grand Old Party.

[Cheswick2.0]

49. a couple points

we were up a couple of poinst...it should have been 15.

[InvisibleBallots]

14. I agree, I think you are right

The candidate needs to remain positive to a degree but the Republicans attack us viciously and we place nice. That's not the way to win.

[Selteri]

19. The media edited out everyone who did anyway,

Don't remember all of Sharpton's speach? You must have been watching something other than C-Span

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

20. I watched the entire thing and thought it was fantastic

your convention is not when you show your more extreme side, though I wouldn't have minded a bit more bush bashing. Maybe you aren't remembering correctly but there were a LOT of well-placed jabs given by almost every speaker.

[LittleClarkie]

23. Clinton's "They need division. We don't" comes to mind.

We were quite happy with our convention until the Republican convention rolled around and it appeared they had a bounce and we didn't from the polls.

But don't forget how bogus the bounce was.

And how much more negative could we have gotten than the ads from folks like moveon.org. They were on our side just as the swift veterans were on the other side. Did they have the desired effect? Apparently not.

[progdonkey]

22. well, we did learn that he served in Vietnam...

...and that's about it, apparently. No BCCI, no major environmentalism, nor any actual criticism of Bush. It was just "our guy served in 'Nam... elect him over the other guy (who we're told is a nice guy)."

[LittleClarkie]

24. It was an attempt to innoculate him from the anti-patriotism flak

sure to come his way. It was also an attempt to show in shorthand that he wouldn't be weak on defense.

And Vietnam had always played an integral part in his campaigns. Veterans for Kerry were omnipresent. I understand why, but I can see where he could have detailed some of his other accomplishments. Most people I talked to didn't know about Iran/Contra. That in and of itself was impressive.

[GreenArrow]

44. "...that he wouldn't be weak on defense"

If he wanted to show that he wouldn't be weak on defense, he should have chosen Clark instead of the insipid Edwards.

[Cheswick2.0]

54. oy... do you really think they wouldn't have torn Clark apart too?

Then we could have had double the bullshit military imagery. It is not military creds that made the difference, it is how effective people talk about the world sitution. Clark was not anymore an effective speaker than Kerry. Actually Kerry, had he just been himself would have done fine.

[GreenArrow]

58. yes, they would have tried to tear Clark apart too.

I believe he would have counterattacked much more aggresively than the virtually supine, in way-over-his-head, smiling shyster, John Edwards. Yes, the military imagery was sickening enough as it was. It wouldn't have been any worse had Clark been in as VP. But the idea was to win, right? ABB? Whatever it takes, Bush had to be defeated? Clark would have been more effective than Edwards in this regard. I'd have preferred Clark, not because I liked him especially, but for strategic reasons. I never doubted that Kerry would win until he selected Edwards as veep. It's all moot now anyway. Maybe it was moot all along, since it appears that some sort of cheating and theft are in play.

Honestly, the only candidate running that I would have been even remotely pleased to see winning was Kucinich--no chance there. Kerry offered very little new or worthwhile in terms of foreign policy. His domestic policies were mostly better than Bush's. But the only reason I voted for him was because he was not Bush. I desired to see the American people repudiate Bush and his policies. Bush is so repellent, so venal, so dishonest and so slimy, that I assumed the American people would rise to the occasion and send him packing. I never saw Kerry as much more than a brake on a train that was running out of control. Had Kerry won, the train would still have been going to the same place, only at a slower pace. If I had to do it over again, I'd just vote for David Cobb. The only choices that could have won this election were Corporatist A, and Corporatist B. Kerry was the second choice, Corporatist Lite.

[Stinky The Clown]

26. Two speeches stood out for me, neither one in prime time

The first was good ol' Ted Kennedy. He apparantly didn't get the no bush bash memo and his speech was pure red meat.

The other was Martin O'Malley, Baltimore's mayor, a rising Dem star, and with any luck at all, Maryland's next governor. I've watched and admired him for years and he is more than capable of righteous indignation, anger, passion, and is quite charismatic. His speech at DemCon04 was as bland as bland can be. When I saw it I just knew he was somehow stifled or had his speech edited. I know for a fact he's far better than he was that night. He's given at least one, and I think two Dem Saturday radio responses and the one I heard was excellent.

(By the way, keep your eye on this guy. He really is a possible star of the party.)

(edited for fatfinger typos)

[KnowerOfLogic]

28. The whole damn campaign was Bush bashing; that was the problem.

Voters can tell when a party/candidate doesn't really stand for anything but winning.

[ruggerson]

32. If voters could ascertain that

Bush would have lost in a landslide

[Cheswick2.0]

55. no it wasn't about bush bashing

it was about trying to look like a nicer version of bush.
Bush should not only be bashed but also jailed. The campaign failed to make a real case about exactly how horrible he is. They wimped out.

[Hippo_Tron]

29. Correction, we BLEW the post convention news cycles!

The positive message at the convention was perfect because the negativity is not what we needed on the fact of the democratic party. Barack Obama was perfect to capitalize on this positive message and Kerry was definately at his finest when he spoke. I was in an area with no access to TV during the convention so I only managed to catch Kerry's speech and some highlights of the others when I got back home, but I got the idea and I think that we did a pretty damn good job. Then comes "no post convention bounce" according to GALLUP. CNN reported Gallup and Gallup alone until somebody pointed out to the world that Gallup was WAY off in the last election, then CNN had to start reporting other polls.

But that wasn't the real blow, the real blow was the Swift Boat lieing motherfuckers for Bush. They DOMINATED the post convention news cycle. The other thing is that we also should have known that this was coming. I saw what those assholes said in their TV ads about 3 months before they aired because somebody on WorldNetDaily had written about them. CNN never questioned their credability, all they questioned was whether they were connection to Bush or not. The fact is that despite biased media, the right people should've been able to make sure that every American knew that...

1) These assholes are connected to Bush

2) These assholes not only lied, but they MADE THIS STUFF UP! They didn't even serve on John Kerry's boat! They sat down, wrote a FICTION STORY about John Kerry's service in Vietnam and then aired it as FACT!

You're right in one sense, we should've attacked, but it should've been after the convention. I have two favorite ads from this political season.

1) "Three Minutes" from the Kerry camp where John Edwards is speaking about Kerry.

2) The moveon.org ad comparing Kerry's service in Vietnam to chimp's lack of service in the national guard. "This election is about choices. The choice between John Kerry, who left no man behind, and George Bush, who just left." It's great because it's the truth.

Both ads were very good, but the fact is that Kerry needed to use a LOT more of the 2nd type of ad.

The fact is that these are the people who are willing to run ads with Max Cleland and Saddam Hussein in the same frame. Hell, even moveon.org backed down with the Bush compared to Hitler thing. They should've told Bush "Denounce the ads comparing democratic senators to Saddam Hussein and we'll denounce ads comparing you to Hitler." Chimpy would've shat his pants.

Whoever the next presidential candidate is, definately needs to hire the right people, people who know how to attack and people who know how to control the news media.

[FrenchieCat]

30. You mean.....

Hire people who know how to control the media that is controlling us? That would be a good thing to do. Where are such people? We need them like since Clinton was impeached. Think we'll find them? I don't. The people who control the media don't want Dems in office....I think they have made that pretty clear!

[Greybnk48]

33. media mind control

I agree with Frenchie Cat. If any of you had just watched the convention and had not watched the media coverage telling us how we should perceive the convention would anyone here be saying we blew it at the convention? The media is responsible for this discussion in general. We blew nothing--we won.

[Hippo_Tron]

41. There are smart people who understand the media...

That would work for democrats. The media is biased, but part of the reason the GOP comes out smelling like roses is not only the bias, it' because Bush has people who know how to control the news cycles. We need those same people so that we are at LESS of a disadvantage.

[high density]

56. I agree, the convention went great but "we" blew August

The Swift Boat Vets effectively neutralized the convention, or even made it a liability. Never again should the Democrats expect the media to act as a referee in politics.

[quaker bill]

31. The convention was great entertainment

But it obviously failed to persuade anyone who wasn't in our camp already.

We spent way too much time and money building a war-hero mythos around the candidate, that was summarily trashed the next week by SBVFT.

Vietnam should never have been an issue in this campaign. It was a very poor strategic choice.

[janx]

34. Yes, and we could see that coming.

Kerry's campaign in effect capitulated to the RW, because the RW was all about war and military and flag waving--to deal with the fear that this administration doled out on a daily basis. Of course the media made a ton of money on this as well.

So what did we do? We tried to "outdo" them on their turf. And even now, some in the Dem party want to capitulate further by paying attention to "values" and religious matters.

That strategy never works.

(And frankly, it was a little gross.)

[AngryAmish]

35. Maybe we should have had a racist cracker like Zell Miller, too

When we run positive campaigns like this year we get squashed.

[DesEtoiles]

37. My husband (not political) said people want someone to vote FOR

not just against

[spanone]

38. The media had us doomed from the beginning.

We could have taken several different directions but it wouldn't have mattered. When the media covering an event is biased it doesn't matter the message. It's so easy to be a monday morning quarterback.

[KerryDownUnder]

39. America Wouldn't Have Gotten Turned Off By Bashing Bush Because

a) Criticisms of the war, the economy, the environment, taxes, etc. would be true; and

b) It doesn't take a whole lot of humor and/or creativity to bash Bush on his record in a way that would belittle both the man and his performance.

Fact is, the Republicans attacked Kerry non-stop and the Democrats acted like they were afraid to attack Bush.

[Toucano]

52. If the media "forced the Kerry campaign"

then how exactly do we "never repeat" it?

If we were forced, then how could we have resisted?