I am *positive* JK had some hand in Obama's latest message

[MonteLukast]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5703582

After reading this, I really want to smack all the "Kerry didn't fight back" whiners.

Obama crafted a sincere, thoughtful response to why he doesn't let himself get dragged into every petty fight like a big ol' palooka. I'll just bet Kerry was yearning to say something like that, but he knew it just wouldn't fly in our fight-loving, terrorism-smarting 2004 campaign season.

Leaving aside the fact that he DID fight back against the swiftboaters and it didn't get reported, I have often wondered, what if JK did take the other route and say, some fights are not worth getting into?
Knowing the environment at the time, it would've been completely distorted into unrecognizability coming from him, and the "Kerry is weak" meme would've been amplified tenfold. But what if, four years later, this same thought came from somebody very much like him... somebody with greater visibility... and much more leeway to say such shocking things...

Kerry is getting his own message across through Obama!

[YvonneCa]

1. I'm sure Obama is the beneficiary of...

...the lessons of Kerry, 2004. ;) That was a great thread. Thanks for pointing it out. Here was my response:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Some of us can...and it's time we stood up to say that it's not about the 'bubbas' or who we want to have a beer with. The 'bubbas' made the choice in 2000 that we have been living with since.

It's about who will be a REAL leader. A REAL leader who's not just popular...but respected and listened to. We surely haven't had that since 2000.

[karynnj]

2. I agree 100% with you

I don't think you can ever know what the result would have been of going the other route. I think that people need to carefully look at the result of the root taken. Immediately after the election (and at the time of the election), two things seem to be true. The SBVT's impact was from the media coverage as well as the ads. The media gave them undeserved credit and signaled no disgust with the purple heart bandaids.

1) Nearly everyone credited (or blamed) Kerry with a "high road" campaign, he was seen as presidential, a classy guy, brilliant debater and a decent person by almost everyone but the RW. Kerry fighting back personally at a more detailed level would likely have lost some of this - in addition, he needed that perception to have any chance in actually governing.

2) By election time, people who wanted to know knew that the SBVT were liars - even many on the right knew it - but thought the attack was brilliant.

3) Having spoken to many Bush voters in my family and in my town, it wasn't the SBVT. It was the war and rallying around the President and thinking that you can't question the "hard decisions" that the President had to make or the tax cuts.

One thing that might have helped would have been if "Going Up River" were made in say 2000. That movie was a far better look at the 1960s anti-war movement than the idiotic "Sixties" TV movie and explained Kerry's role in it. The despicable attacks on Kerry's service were obvious for what they were. The attacks on his protesting occasionally appear even on DU. The question is whether Kerry could have treated the questions on protesting as Obama did on the Wright issue and as Kerry did the questions on his service - with a speech. Kerry actually did that - in 2006 with "Dissent", but it is very likely that given where the country was in 2004 - those sentiments, even if not extended to Iraq - would not have worked.