Kerry aide says about kerry

http://www.nyunews.com/news/campus/8429.html

I think he's right about some things on here. I think it's obvious he didn't connect with blue collar workers enough. And how they really didn't understand how the media worked like Karl Rove did. Thought negative attacks would not have an effect.

Lovely. He loses an election and blames the voters.

No wonder we can't fight ourselves out of a paperbag.

Pukes are fighting a culture war and winning while screwing the middle class and working class. The point is we need to fight a class war because that is our strength.

that we need to learn to live-with corporate greed and profit over people... it's the ONLY WAY... ask the BIG DOG :puke:

i just posted SOME of our CORE values in skinners thread... hopefully it ain't to late to comeback.

they would have been better served buying his duds at Salvation Army rather than L.L. Bean. Wearing the brand-new, stiff-looking, never-been-worn-before, probably-still-had-the-tags-on-them clothes just made him look like he was pandering to hunters. It made the whole hunting thing look phoney.

And I don't even hunt.

the terrible advice. I think being in the Senate so long just numbs their brains. Alot of Kerry's athletic activites seemed to come off as "photo ops." His biking and windsurfing apparal was just "too perfect" and expensive. It turned off alot of folks. Whenever I posted about it not looking good to average folks I got trashed on DU. But, I'm not an "under 30" something so I knew that it wouldn't go well with the average person. Lots of DU athletes seemed to admire that Kerry looked like a "Dude" or whatever, but it just didn't go with the serious problems our country faced and made it look like he was in some kind of competition with Bush trying to outdo him, since Bush was always falling off his bike.

Well...this means we have to work all the harder to get this election turned over...but sheesh.....it's real hard when Kerry has to be convinced something was wrong with our electorial process....:eyes:

It was an appeal to the X-games youngins.

But the hunting thing seemed singularly awkward. If he really hunts, you would expect he has a favorite old hunting jacket and a beat-up cap. It woulda made him look genuine. But the camo he was wearing looked like it was still wrapped in plastic.

...voters?

Thomas Frank talks about the same sort of perception of the Democratic Party.

A very good article. Ignore this gentleman's points at your own peril, especially about the reality disconnect.

The DNC is stiff with these people and they have to be beaten to a near-death experience with a Clue Stick.

a ten foot long 'clue-stick' to boot ;->

is that you go on CNN and call the Swift boaters a bunch of opportunistic liars. And you do so on the same day they start their attacks or the day after. Seems easy to me.

No kidding. When the hurricanes came in, the Dems were on a high note. When I came back three weeks later, the Kerry campaign was just beginning to launch a counter-attack against the swiftboat liars.

And you want to know a sad truth, the DNC should have known that they needed to retaliate quickly because Dukakis made the same mistake. He just assumed that the American people would just shut off the negative ads, but listen, they don't. Whenever you hear someone on the air saying that they're tired of hearing the mudslinging, it's probably a Republican operative trying to quiet the Dems.

I wonder if that naivette comes from running in so many "easy" elections? It's not hard for a Democrat to win an election in Mass. And, the population in that state may be of the mind that mudslinging is unacceptable.
A national race is different. A campaign has to be prepared to get to know other regions, and to not run an easy race.
The assumption that they could bring the Northeast to the South and all would be well was not true. I noticed in Missouri that they came with orders rather than questions. They didn't come and say "what is Missouri like? What are the people like?" How do we court them? How are elections won here?"
They sent a kid in his 20s who thought he was an expert and never asked for input from the veteran Democratic office holders who had won campaigns, etc.

People are not nice and civilized in the South. They only pretend to be. They smile and shake hands when you're looking and then they stab you in the back when you're not. There is no civility, there are only results. Machiavelli Christians.

And why should it come as a surprise when these people love to see the fight. What do they enjoy? Wrestling, Race Car driving with its potential for fatal accidents. 'nuf said.

Kerry had problems getting his message out. It was up to the DNC to get him in gear. Who recommended these speech writers? They needed just one of Al Sharpton's speech writers to work for Kerry and we wouldn't have had to worry about recounting this election and pushing this boulder up the hill.

It's we activists they should have listened to! AND, many of our DU "under 30 year olds" who didn't graduate from Harvard could have written speeches which would have left track marks on Rove's hired hacks!

snip:

"We had a very yuppified campaign," he said, citing as an example Kerry's five speechwriters, all of whom were Harvard University graduates and were under 30. "I could never convince those people that the privatization of Social Security was a big issue."

...and the Democrats should have ran more on optimism and hope.

"negative attacks would not have an effect". As they continue to get their asses kicked!

Democrat's begin to get a little tough on the republicans and the repukes put them in their place by crying loudly about it..."Why are the Dems being so negative and mean?" So then the Dems back off, the repukes laugh and kick their ass with negative attacks!

The Dems should do what the republicans always do... Claim media bias. Constantly and loudly and never let up.

The Democrats should put the media on the defensive AND NEVER LET UP as the repukes do (in reverse)...and pound away how right-wing and conservative the media is.

The media is very sensitive and will then bend over backyards to prove the opposite...Rove, Limbaugh and the republicans have known this forever...but the Dems have to start pounding away at the media, and NEVER let up, (but they never do) they'll give up with the first nice story...fucking spineless fucks...the republicans never let up and by doing so have people believing there's a liberal bias in the press.

When will the democrats wake up and pound away relentlessly?

When we demand nothing less of them, and we demand and receive nothing less than wholesale reform at The DNC. Until we get that, nothing else matters and nothing will work.

We are no longer in a gentile game, infused with comity and respect. The sooner we recognize that fact and play by their rules and expand on those rules, pushing them to areas they never expected, we will continue to be their jailhouse bitches.

Personally, I am no one's jailhouse bitch and I do not aspire to the throne. I expect the same out of my party. The repukes play the game with the same ethics one can find in Cocaine Dealers.

Well, we have to be Tony Montana.

The right wing paints the democrats as whiners and they complain too much. But in actually they need to whine even more than they do.

Accusing the Democrats of whining and the media runs with it and the Democrats back off...

However, if the Democrats just keep pounding away, as the republicans do and NEVER let up...people will take notice and start to believe. Just as the repukes do-- say it often enough and people will believe it...in this case it's the truth and there is a republican owned corporate media bias...

Pound away relentlessly and the republicans begin to look like whiners and on the defensive.

that I have known for twenty years, and I have watched in increasing frustration as the Dems rolled over and played whipped puppy in the face of outrageous Republican attacks.

Would the Republicanites have dared tried to impeach Clinton if he had refused to back down on gays in the military (he could have just issued an executive order and told the brass that anyone who disobeyed would be court-martialed for insubordination--this is what Truman did when he racially integrated the military) and health care (where his mistake was trying to please the insurance companies)?

What if Clinton had come right out and said, "I'm lifting the ban on gays in the military, and any military personnel who refuse to abide by this will be court-martialed"?

What if Clinton had started with a proposal for a complete national single-payer system and then gone on TV, using his considerable personal charm to say, "You know from your own experience and the experiences of your friends and neighbors that the insurance companies don't deserve a piece of this"? "Imagine never having pay a deductible or put off necessary preventative care because you can't afford it. Imagine having your doctor, not some anonymous clerk who doesn't know your situation, decide what care you need. If this sounds good, call or write your Congressional representative and Senators." That's what he should have said.

The Republicans would have recognized him as someone not to be messed with, especially since there was still a Dem majority in Congress.

Instead, he STARTED with a compromising position that was already halfway to where the Repubicanites were, which is a TERRIBLE negotiating tactic.

In being so willing to compromise with the minority of Republicanite Congresscritters, he did the equivalent of painting a target on his butt.

:thumbsup: to Zinfandel.

and offered to quit his job and join the campaign but they NEVER called him back.

He likes negative campaigning and they were against it. They were focused on swing voters and "swing voters don't like negative campaigning".

The only way Bush could win was to drag Kerry down to his level of disapproval and they did. There were a lot of people that voted for Bush even though they don't like his policies. That is insane.

We have to stop letting them define the issues and being so nice. We don't want to be the meanies.

everything we can do. Because at this point it isn't about Kerry, it's about not allowing that maniac to stay in office another four years. Bush is not capable of cleaning up the mess he made. And, if the Dem Campaing Ops like Begala and the Pundits who secretly might have wanted Kerry to win (if there are any) are down in the dumps about Kerry not being stronger then they won't help us unless we push them and light a fire under their butts to get on this Election Fraud story.

Kerry or any Dem would be better than the Screaming Chimp who has visions of blowing up the world so he can look like a "real man" in his own warped mind.

Our country is at stake. Kerry will have to be forced dragged kicking and screaming but we've got to do the work to make it easier for him to step in.

How the hell did we get in this mess! They wouldn't listen to us, they didn't take us seriously. We are just the "Internets." :-(

I thought he was intelligent and qualified, one of the best candidates we've ever had in that respect.

However, I saw CSPAN coverage of him with a gathering of Vietnam veterans, and he seemed uncomfortable with them, which surprised me. I know that the men he actually served with were loyal to him, but that was then, and he seemed unable to let down his guard.

I could imagine Bushboy going right in there and shaking hands and slapping backs, and "the guys" would have just eaten it up. Like most sociopaths, he can turn on the "good old boy" style of gregariousness when it suits him.

Kerry was also too nice. I've noticed over the years (especially from working as an industrial temp and riding public transit) that blue collar workers like feisty politicians. It doesn't seem to matter what their actual positions are--they just want someone who will get in there and fight for what he believes no matter what anyone else thinks. (I think that was part of the very liberal Wellstone's appeal.) I think it has something to do with their own feelings of powerlessness. They want someone in their fighting for at least some part of their beliefs, and if they can find only someone fighting for their prejudices instead of someone fighting for their economic interests, they'll figure that at least their prejudices are being actively promoted, so they'll take what they can get.

By being so slow to fight against an obvious slander, Kerry came off as a wimp, and as another poster mentioned, the all-too-perfect hunting gear was a bad idea as well. It didn't make him look like a tough guy but like a New England aristocrat pretending to be tough as he posed for an LL Bean ad.

face" and if it's for a liberal cause they will listen because they like the "tough guy" approach. We have years of Rush Limbaugh and that O'Reilly guy pounding it into their heads. For some reason our Dem Leadership just doesn't get it. I guess they don't listen to radio or watch TV...too busy all the time.

I talk alot to blue collar guys. One, a truck driver, didn't like Bush but he thought Kerry was a wimp largely because of his lack of response to Swift Boat. Strangely, or not so strangely, the Democrat my blue collar guys liked was Dean. Why? Because he came off as a fighter.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, about Howard Dean. He was the front-runner in the primaries until about February, but then the Repukes put out the word in the corporate media that Dean was the candidate they would MOST like to run against Bush. So then the Dems, with their focus on "electability" and ABB (understandable enough), dropped Dean like a hot potato and nominated Kerry.

Which is in fact EXACTLY what they wanted us to do, because they were LYING (as usual) about Dean being the one they considered most beatable! Dean was actually the one they were most afraid of. They knew all about his appeal to blue-collar types. They knew he was a fighter and not afraid to get down and dirty...and they were SCARED!!! So they put out all this hype about how they hoped the Dems would nominate Dean.

And we fell for it! I bet the Repukes are STILL laughing about that one...behind closed doors, of course.

--Linda

watch, listen and pay attention to negative attacks and no matter what the same people say in the polls, (that they don't.)---They do. And they believe them and vote accordingly. They always have. It's a fact proven over and over again...

But the republican fed stories, that "negative attacks don't work", are meant to convice Democrats to the contrary. And the Democrats fall for it every time.

It would show that dems are not stuck up snobs who think they're too noble and pure to get down in the dirt and sling mud. The campaign slogan should have been - BUSH LIED US INTO WAR.

PS - and if the repugs say kerry voted for giving bush war powers, remind them that bush also lied to congress to get the senate votes.

He complains about Kerry's campaign being too yuppy. Well, we're after soccer moms, right? And what are soccer moms? Yuppies!

I grew up on a farm. In college I quickly found that my colloquialisms were bad english and the result of my being a stupid hillbilly while their colloquialisms were simply popular culture and my not knowing them was the result of my being a stupid hillbilly. I was treated the same way for two years after college in the suburbs of Chicago. Then I moved into the city itself.

After six years of abuse at the hands of these elitist pricks, moving into Chicago was heaven. In Chicago hillbilly is just another ethnic group. And as one that almost speaks English, more welcome than most.

And you don't get pulled over by the cops because your car is not nice enough. You don't get pulled over by the cops because you're driving two mph over the speed limit. You don't get harrassed by the cops walking down the sidewalk because your clothes are not nice enough.

I was really surprised to find that life in the city was very, very much better than life in the suburbs for a guy who grew up on a farm.

Cities are dirty. Farms are dirty. Suburbs are squeaky clean.

Cities are full of blue collar workers. Farms are full of blue collar workers. Suburbs are full of white collar professionals.

Cities don't have enough cops. Farms don't have any cops. Suburbs believe in the death penalty for speeding.


So what moron came up with the idea that we would align better with the burbs than the countryside?

people are stupid. Period. Even the smart people in this country are stupid.

I'm sorry. But you can't get anymore 'elite' then a group of people going to the polls, to tell a another group of Americans that they are not worthy of marriage....And I doubt many of those were Democrats.

unless you think the majority is repuke

... in the presence of an idiotic electorate...

Fix the root cause - idiots - and its symptoms will go away...

my $.02...