Ex-Dem. Party boss (McAuliffe) blasts Kerry in book

[Placebo]

Former Democratic Party boss and Clinton friend Terry McAuliffe is lambasting John Kerry's unsuccessful presidential campaign, calling his effort to unseat President Bush "one of the biggest acts of political malpractice in the history of American politics."

In his scrappy memoir, McAuliffe criticizes the 2004 campaign that he was responsible for defending but ultimately lost to what he describes as a more organized Republican machine. McAuliffe calls the Kerry campaign gun-shy, distracted and incompetent.

McAuliffe is close to Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton and will support her presidential bid if the New York senator runs in 2008. McAuliffe's book, published by Thomas Dunne Books, could serve as the opening salvo against a potential Clinton rival as Kerry weighs another bid. However, McAuliffe has kind words for other possible candidates, such as Sens. Barack Obama and Chris Dodd and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

The book, "What a Party! My Life Among Democrats: Presidents, Candidates, Donors, Activists, Alligators and Other Wild Animals," goes on sale Jan. 23, but copies have already shown up in some bookstores.

More...

[The Count]

1. Earth to Mac Auliffe: Kerry won! Not getting this makes you a clueless git

Not interested in another word from this idiot.
He should have sued in Ohio and Florida.(Kerry too)

[NoodleyAppendage]

14. This sting of his defeat is too great to bear for you, so you use DENIAL

MacAuliffe is dead on. Kerry's team was abysmal in 2004. We knew from 2000 that FL and OH were likely to perpetuate fraud, which meant it was even more important for Kerry to "beat the spread" and have a healty margin to insure victory. He failed to do so.

J

[jarab]

22. In all non-partisan honesty, you're correct, imo. (nt)

...O...

[EFerrari]

23. Did we also know about CO and NV and PA and NM and NC?

Kerry won. George Bush was reviled and we held together a progressive coalition for TWO YEARS to make sure he was thrown out. Geeze, I did phone banking with Greens and Indies to OTHER STATES for months for Kerry.

Even if he had screwed up as badly as possible, he couldn't have lost because we weren't going to have it.

Another thing, more concrete: if Kerry lost, why did they have to fake the Ohio recount? Just a clean recount would have put Kerry in, iirc. But there was no clean recount. There was fakery.

Kerry did his job. The infrastructure he needed to defend his VICTORY was. not. there.

[The Count]

25. The sting of the stealing of my vote hurts much more, believe me!

I voted for Kerry against my better judgement, more against Bush than for any of the war supporters on the ticket. I might have accepted a loss easier, as war was not made an issue in the elections.
But Kerry won and Mac Auliffe didn't send 'all them lawyers".
besides, it was McAuliffe who crowned Kerry before primaries began, so if he didn't like him, tough.
How do you know Kerry didn't "beat the spread"? What was "the spread"? Since all numbers were bogus, what are you basing your conclusions on?
here's what I base mine on:
(in all civilized countries exit polls are relevant)

[KittyWampus]

26. It was MacAuliffe's fucking JOB TO COMBAT ELECTION FRAUD, not Kerry's

MacAuliffe's the one who wasted precious time and resources ignoring Democratic party infrastrutcture and the growing GOP manipulations of elections.

He is trying to absolve himself for not doing his own fucking job.

Kerry was supposed to singlehandedly run for President AND deal with voter fraud?

[NoodleyAppendage]

35. It was Kerry who decided to hire Bob Schrum, not MacAuliffe.

Kerry's group ran a pitiful campaign and was weak on putting the Chimp on the defensive. This is the fault of Kerry, not MacAuliffe.

J

[LTR]

2. I don't disagree with him, but...

...isn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

McAuliffe didn't do a great deal as DNC chair. It took Howard Dean to give them a swift kick in the ass.

[Mass]

3. "But a Democrat out whacking Democrats sells books,” T. McAuliffe

If he were just another Republican with a book, he wouldn't sell any. "But a Democrat out whacking Democrats sells books,”


http://thinkexist.com/quotes/terry_mcauliffe /

[gratuitous]

4. Is McAuliffe still around?

I'd have thought he would have moved to Libya or someplace similar by now, ensuring the continuation of some "elected" despot's regime. Who cares what Mr. Irrelevant has to say?

[OKNancy]

5. LOL - read the article... it sounds like DU

McAuliffe said Kerry's camp was so afraid of offending swing voters that it didn't defend his record or criticize Bush. He said he was muzzled by Kerry's aides from assailing Bush's military record.

He said the campaign also ordered speeches at the Democratic National Convention to be scrubbed of any mention of Bush's name or his record — although McAuliffe privately encouraged firebrand Al Sharpton to go ahead with his attacks on the president in his crowd-pleasing speech.

"I thought the decision of the Kerry campaign to back off any real criticism of Bush was one of the biggest acts of political malpractice in the history of American politics," he said.

[Mass]

7. No, DU would be wacking McAuliffe as well.

[The Count]

28. I give McAuliffe this particular detail. But it didn't lose us the election.

McAuliffe was derelict in his duties to insure recounts.
Whatever flaws kerry's campaign had (and it had plenty, starting with not being anti-war/anti-Bush), it still led to victory.
To say we had to win by enough to beat the stealing is about as idiotic as "we fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here". Unless you guys know the number of votes will be stolen, so we can raise that...:shrug:

[Pithy Cherub]

6. May that book earn its rightful place in

the remainder bin! :eyes:

[Elidor]

8. A bagman speaking publicly is like a whore showing up for church

And about as welcome.

[wisteria]

9. McAuliffe is a three time loser, 2000, 2002 and 2004. n/t

[Roland99]

16. And Shrum is twice as bad. We need NEW blood! OBAMA!!!

[The Count]

29. Steal, steal, steal. But he's a loser because he ignored our cries for cleaning

the elections - he didn't publicize it, he didn't push for reform. So, on that we agree. But elections were stolen (I can think of a few states in 2002 - Minnesota, Georgia, Florida - where I KNOW the results were different and the senate would have been ours.

[underpants]

10. Look everyone I think we can all agree, some mistakes were made....

and McAuliffe is a douchebag

[mikeytherat]

12. That's not a very nice thing to say.

I'm not convinced mistakes were made.

;-)

mikey_the_rat

[The Count]

30. heh, heh - you have something against consensus, eh?

[Peace Patriot]

11. Oo-oo-oo, yes, he just loves Christopher Dodd, with whom he colluded on

the "Help America Vote For Bush Act" of 2002 (Bushite corporate-controlled electronic voting), along with felons Tom Delay and Bob Ney.

There was never a stinkier skunk in the Democratic Party than Terry McAuliffe. He and Dodd together almost out-putrify the Bush Junta.

His silence and collusion on electronic voting, run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by Bushite corporations, is UNFORGIVABLE. It may well have destroyed our democracy. It was high treason, right up there with the outing of Valerie Plame and our entire WMD counter-proliferation network. He, like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove, deserves a lifetime of community service cleaning bedpans in Veterans' hospitals, after all their war booty is confiscated.

[Kolesar]

13. I think John Kerry was very much off-message in his campaign

He was often on the defensive--for bullshit matters, admittedly--but he was on the defensive. I cannot get anything credible from his defense of his Iraq War Resolution vote. He missed campaigning on the environment. His speeches were incredibly convoluted. That whole leadup in the convention with Max Cleland was a wasted opportunity. sigh

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[liberalpragmatist]

17. Kerry's campaign wasn't great, but it's inaccurate to say he never attacked Bush

If McAuliffe is speaking about the convention, then yeah, that was a blown opportunity.

But during the fall stretch of the campaign, the Kerry campaign constantly assailed Bush. I agree that the critique unfortunately lacked a consistent theme, but Kerry repeatedly took issue with Bush, even on Iraq. I lived in a swing state at the time and the airwaves were flooded with anti-Bush ads, some of which were honestly kind of a stretch, like blaming Bush for the flu vaccine shortage.

So it isn't really accurate to say that Kerry never attacked Bush.

So there's some truth in what McAuliffe is saying, but it's clearly an effort on his part to shift the blame and also make the Kerry campaign (to use McCain's language, "no great shakes") the "worst campaign in history." Nope - I don't think Gore's 2000 campaign was much better (better in some ways, such as the convention, but much worse in others) and Kerry's campaign was nowhere near as bad as the '88 Dukakis race. (Dukakis lost a completely winnable race by 8 points.)

[Ezlivin]

18. Kerry f**ked up so badly that if Ohio's machines hadn't been rigged, he'd have won

I'll grant that Kerry ran what at times appeared to be a toothless campaign, but if the votes had been fairly counted he would have won.

It's easy to criticize Kerry for blowing the election if you don't believe there was election chicanery.

[NoodleyAppendage]

19. We knew that fraud would occur, which meant he had to have a good margin.

The cold, sad truth is Kerry couldn't generate a healthy margin of victory over a dumbass, draft-dodging jerk. I fault Kerry, not fraud or voting machines. 2000 taught us that fraud was likely, which meant that Kerry needed to work doubly hard to make up any difference.

J

[Ezlivin]

21. What a terrible way of living in America

"We knew that fraud would occur, which meant he had to have a good margin."

Wow. That is a simply stunning statement. Are we now living consciously with fraud? Will we have to make future political decisions based upon rigged machines?

"Well, since we know we can't win Ohio because they have the machines rigged, we'll have to _____________."

Damn. It's like saying you need to train extra hard to win a race because you know your opponent is cheating.

Is that how it is now?

[EFerrari]

24. Yes. We know that black and brown and low income votes

will be stolen. :mad:

[The Count]

32. Apparently. It's a natural handicap for Dems, it seems.

Glad I am not the only one whose head is spinning over those statements.

[The Count]

31. How much was stolen? How do you know he didn't have a big margin?

How do you quantify election theft? By whose count?

[EFerrari]

20. Just when you thought Terry had STFU.

GET A DAY JOB, TERRY, YOU WERE THE DISASTER.

[jaksavage]

27. Bonesmen

I was unimpressed with Kerry's campaign and his quick aquiescents to defeat. Then after his less than tactful gaff before the last election I am convinced , Kerry is not on my side.

[The Count]

33. The question is - which side is that?

:shrug:

[rebel with a cause]

37. Sorry to say, but a lot of democrats feel like this

I volunteered in the Obama/Democrat office here in 2004 and there was little support for Kerry in this part of the state although we were blue. This area was bush country but that does not mean everyone liked bush. Quite a few of the dems voted for neither bush or Kerry, but chose candidates from the other parties.

My opinion is that McAuliffe and Kerry both blew it in 2004 and allowed the election to be stolen. They neither were strong enough to do what needed to be done. IMHO.

[The Count]

40. You actually summed up everything I think in the matter. Nicely put!

"My opinion is that McAuliffe and Kerry both blew it in 2004 and allowed the election to be stolen. They neither were strong enough to do what needed to be done. IMHO." :thumbsup:

[blm]

34. You mean you believed the lie BushInc made up about insulting the troops?

BushInc makes shit up like that because they believe STUPID PEOPLE will believe crap like that.

Keith Olbermann did an entire commentary on that and Tom Friedman wrote a column about it - best column he ever wrote. Bush told that lie because he counts on STUPID PEOPLE to believe their lies.

[MagickMuffin]

36. Pics do not lie:

Kerry in Wheeling, W.Va


Kerry in Greensburg, PA


Kerry in ME (Edwards in pic)


Kerry in CO


Kerry in Flagstaff, AZ


Last but not least; just saving the best for last
Kerry and the Dawg



Since there is always just a lively debate about Kerry I thought I would bring out my Rally pics.

[The Count]

41. While W had the same people bused from one campaign stop to another

It's quite obvious that we won, and by a large margin. All the propaganda about "the country being divided" was meant to create the illusion that the odds were close for either candidate so no one would be surprised.
It was however both McAuliffe's and Kerry's fault for ignoring our shouting about fraud and not make noise about these lies.

[MagickMuffin]

45. It's hard to beat the Hydra Machine

A list of the heads might be something like

GOP/RNC
Corporate News Media
527's
RW Radio

Well you get the idea. Add some of your own very favorites.

I watched every Kerry campaign rally that was televised on C-SPAN. I know how many people were FLOCKING to see and hear Kerry's speeches. I watched people gathered for what looked like miles. People who seemed full of hope for a new direction. I don't think these people decided not to vote in November.
However, I do know that people with lower incomes and mostly black precincts (in the "swing" state of Ohio) waited in LINE IN THE RAIN FOR UP TO 8 HOURS TO CAST THEIR BALLOTS. A lot of them left in frustration without ever having cast that ballot.
There was also a college that was a target of this suppression of the vote.

So, there were things set into motion before Kerry even decided to run. In Ohio Kenneth Blackwell as SOS and Bush/Cheney campaign chairman. Anyone remember 2000 Kathrine Harris SOS as well as Bush/Cheney campaign chairwoman. Setting up party loyalists as SOS's is a brilliant strategy just as much as Rove is a genius.

Then there is the media who played a pivotal role in the campaign.
Who got the royal treatment?
Who got treated unfairly by attacking how they dressed, or what kind of sports they were into?
Who was labeled an elitist?
Who was labeled as a flip-flopper?
How did those memes get started and why did they eat up all the oxygen in the news media?
Why didn't more Democrats stand up for Kerry?

The same thing also applies to 2000.....

[NashVegas]

38. Terry Must Mistake Me For Someone

Who actually believes the Democratic candidate is chosen by ordinary primary voters.

[confludemocrat]

39. Who cares, they're both old news.

[The Count]

42. Maybe so, but the stealing of the 2004 election is still a secret - and I want it out

I fault everyone who doesn't bring it out.

[last1standing]

43. There is so much blame to pass around from 2004 that everyone is right.

The ultimate responsibility has to lie with Kerry as he was the head of the ticket and therefore the "leader" of the Democratic party at that time, at least symbolically. He, either himself or through staff he chose, made faulty decisions that allowed the repubs to take the white house. A real leader, as Kerry is, would not only agree with me, he would go further. That doesn't mean that Kerry is unfit for future runs, but he needs to learn from his past mistakes. We'll see if that has happened.

As for the jackals, like McAuliffe, who now want to gnaw at the rotted carcass of the 2004 campaign, spewing venom and self-aggrandizing half-truths, they only show themselves for what they truly are, parasitic scavengers quick to swoop in on the remains that greater, more noble, creatures have left behind. They serve a purpose but its best not to turn your back on them.

[depakid]

44. He's correct about the gun-shy part

Kerry lost the election at the convention and in the 6 weeks afterwards, when he decided "no more Bush bashing."

The response to Bush's challenge "knowing what we know now would you have still voted for the war" pretty well sealed our fate.

[MODemocrat]

46. Whatever McAuliffe has to say is immaterial

He didn't do his damned job when he was the Boss. He's almost as clueless as George W. Bush.Why does
he dislike John Kerry so much? Does he, himself know why? :+ :+ :+ :+ :+ :shrug:

[Hieronymus]

47. For sure McAuliffe is for Hillary ..

so his opinion is skewed. However, Kerry was indeed a lousy cindidate.

[IndianaGreen]

48. Team Hillary is using Rovian tactics to knock off her opponents one by one

Carville and Begala have done their hatched jobs on Howard Dean, and already began to bemoan the "inexperience" of Edwards and Obama. What will they say about Clark, who knows?

Today was Kerry's turn to be swiftboated by Team Hillary.

[w4rma]

49. McAuliffe should have worked to clean up election fraud and Kerry shouldn't have listened to the DLC

"don't attack Bush" crowd.

They both made huge mistakes.

[sandnsea]

50. McAuliffe & Hillary WERE the 'don't attack Bush' crowd n/t

[w4rma]

51. Is that true? I think that is true. Thanks for noting that. (nt)

[sandnsea]

54. On the yellow cake - 'everybody makes mistakes'

Good god, seemed like Bill was constantly stepping in right when we had momentum going against Bush. This is what he said in July 2003, when we were really getting momentum going against Bush on the yellowcake,

"You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president," Clinton said. "I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to make without messing up once in awhile. The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now. That's what I think."

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/23/clinton.iraq.sotu/

McAuliffe lost us seats between 2000 and 2004. We went from 50/50 to 55/44. The House went from 221 to 232 for Republicans. I don't know who the hell they think they are telling ANYBODY how to run a campaign.

[w4rma]

55. More agreement from me. I remember all of that now. That BS made me very angry at the time. (nt)

[dailykoff]

52. Asswipe. (n/t)

[fujiyama]

53. I really can't disagree with much of what he said about the Kerry campaign and its mistakes

Some of us could see Kerry's inability to get a message out against the Swift Boat Liars until way too late. We saw the numbers falling...though part of that was due to saving money until later. He also had the poor political judgment to choose Bob Shrum. And I think his campaign meandered along at times with no clear message.

Some of the problems were inherent in Kerry's speaking style, which while being very intelligent, coherent, and eloquent (the opposite of the chimp) went in circles. Kerry's problem was summarizing a point, rather than issuing a formal essay. That and making dumb statements like "I would have voted for it..." I understood Kerry and agreed with him on most issues, but certain statements he made were just dumb.

But McCaullife was craptacular in his own regard. He couldn't take back congress over the years he presided as DNC chair. He ignored grass roots funding, catering mostly to corporate interests.

And ultimately, he's a Hillary surrogate and the timing of this book is quite suspect as well.

[Tellurian]

56. Anyone know? Is this the 4th or 5th thread started and then deleted

when the goin gets tough?

Waste of time!

[Scout1071]

57. I'm not crazy about Terry, but he is right.

The Kerry campaign was very disorganized, from my personal experiences anyway.

I was greatly disappointed in their event execution, etc.