Reply #95: I don't blame him as much as I blame the party as a whole

[LittleClarkie]

Not organized enough. And the anti-Bush campaign had a backlash as well. I think some were more defensive than they would have been had there not been a contingent calling Bush "Hitler" no matter how true that may or may not turn out to be.

Those who sit back now and say that Kerry let them down should go and look in a mirror. He was part of it, but not the whole enchilada. We weren't organized enough. We weren't grassroots enough. Some of us were too far to the left and scared the middle. For any of those elements to divorce themselves from the loss and point fingers is wrong.

We all get part of the blame. I could have been down at HQ more. The party could have started organizing in 2000.

One thing Kerry has been going around saying is dead right. We need to start NOW, not after the next presidential primaries. The GOP was already on it after the first election, preparing. We need to do the same. Now.

WE let us down. All of us. Including Kerry. But not exclusively only him. If we don't accept that, we can't work to improve the situation.

We need to decide what we're about as a party. Right now, I think we're too scattered, trying to cover about 10 different issues at once, shooting our wad here and there ineffectively. Kerry couldn't please us all. If he talked health care, then someone was shouting he needed to talk about the war. If he was talking about the war, someone was shouting that he should be talking about the environment, and so on. When he was being positive, there were forces saying "attack!" When he went into attack mode, some said he was just the "no" candidate with no plan of his own.

He needed to damn the torpedoes, even in his own party. He couldn't cover everyone's issues. Until our party can get it's priorities straight so that we can get most of our guns aimed in the same direction, I fear we will remain ineffectual in elections.

After Easter, I'm going to volunteer to work on the local Dem Party newsletter. That's part of what I'm doing to make my local party stronger. That and give money that I'd never given before.

I do wish we'd quit bitching and get a move on. I'm told that some in our local party get that. Those who normally only get active during elections are remaining active now, even one retired guy I talked to.