How many of you wish Kerry could have got McCain to be his running mate?

I know. Kerry gave in and McCain is a Bush lover, but wouldn't it be better than what we have now?

.

If Dems have to have a repug on the ticket to win then it's not worth running anyone. Besides , it wasn't Edwards that lost the election for us, it was Kerry.

A ticket like that would be a mess... It would be seen as crass opportunism and summarily rejected by the American people..


I don't personally dislike McCain but I can't see much room between him and Bush* on the great issues of the day...

all polls were trending towards Kerry victory.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5079897

the moment Kerry stepped on stage and said "John kerry , reporting for duty". When I saw that, my heart sank. IMO it was the soldier boy thing that sunk him. It made him an easy target for the swift boaters.

not unreasonable when much hinged on "can I vote to switch presidents during war?"

then Rove called forth the flying monkeys - buckhead, swifties, etc

in Vietnam, I thought it was rather hypocritical of him to use his time there as a tool for winning the white house. IMO it should have been brought up but not made a central part of his campaign. I think that the fact that he highlighted this part of his life is the reason that the swift boaters for bush were so effective.

your colleagues in vietnam, and then coming back w open eyes and bravely opposing the war and saving more lives by helping to end the war. we're probably agreed on that really.

swiftboaters for bush were effective because media gave them so much "free time" w/o giving much free time for those who were refuting them

might have agreed. Assuming a Dem-heavy senate where his vote wouldn't ahve made or broken legislation, any wya. I liked him mostly, though, for his work on campaign finance reform.

However, since that time there have been very few moments I have respected the man. The only recent thing he did that I liked was denounce the highway bill as a truckload of pork and sweetheart deals.

he walks hand in hand with bush even after they slurred his whole family

EOM

McCain comes across to me as being a sleaze-meister. I kind of liked Edwards. We could use some youthful idealism in the party.

No, I don't think McCain was a good choice... there is no telling that choosing him would have made a difference. Republicans would have not trusted that any more than Democrats would have. McCain has some issues about when to be loyal and to whom - complex guy with serious problems IMHO.

Whatever dumbya promised him, it caused him to sell his soul to the dark side. He did not look comfortable hugging the chimp, but the horse head in his bed made it possible.

We should have had Dean and we didn't or Clark. We screwed up.

Nip this thing in the bud before it gets 400 replies....

Nice to know they had their priorities straight while Katrina made landfall

I was thinking about the one with them in a bearhug in shirtsleeves, but "cutting the cake" that they think the poor should eat (let them eat cake) works, too...

...Love is in the air....

THAT'S the one I was talking about....
Thanks!

at the top of the ticket. Edwards, who isn't shy about speaking out, was "disappeared" by the media and had little exposure. Kerry, who could be vocal if he wanted to, chose to ignore things he should have addressed. That's why the Swiftboat Liars got traction. As for McCain, I voted for him once in the New Hampshire primary, but have now lost all respect for him. Anyone who could kiss George Bush's feet after South Carolina . . . All that said, Diebold won the election anyway.

He lost the election because of that fact.

Clinton demonstrated that you can't let crap go unanswered...not for an hour much less days and weeks.

Kerry should've slammed the Swift Liars and associated Republicans as unpatriotic lieing slimeballs who have no respect for men who've served their country. Everyday he should've done this until they crawled back into their holes.

His failure to do so demonstrated that he might not have had the balls and good judgement to be an effective president. Not that Junior does but Kerry really F'ed this up.

I seriously never expected him to be much better as the #1.

... this arrangement is both improbable and wholly unlikely, and completely bad for the country. Why on earth do you think this is a good arrangement?

To my mind, this thinking is typical of the increasing militarism in the country--Kerry wouldn't say that the Iraq war was wrong and needed to be terminated immediately, and McCain has been running on his Vietnam era war record forever. Why on earth should we be adulating the warmongers?

If you wish for people who really don't want real peace to run the country, you'll never have genuine peace.

stupidest post of the week!!!!

and it's only Monday! :eyes:

Then Dean could have been President.

no.

no, I don't wish mccain were his running mate, and yes, my old sweat socks would be better than what we have now.

McCain is a "flip-flopper" of the 1st degree!!!!

I never said anything about edwards.
In fact, if anything, I would have rather had edwards at the top of the ticket, in hindsight.

and, the question wasn't who would win, but who would have been better.
That's why I said my sweat socks would have made a better president/vice president, because even though they would have done nothing except sit in the corner and stink to high heaven, we would not have 9/10ths of the problems we do now.

:)

McCain is a Republican and I don't agree with him on the issues. I thought Edwards was a very strong candidate. He was my choice after Dean and I almost went with him in the beginning.

Here we go again. Democrats willing to move to the center or even right of center (McCain) just to win an election. This is why Clinton will be the Demo candidate. There are lots of things that "would be better than now" that I wouldn't accept. Besides, McCain stills likes Bush, even after the hatchet job done on him by Rove. Can't respect him for that.

The bulk of us would not want a conservative on our ticket. Hell, we had Lieberman - that was bad enough

It laid the ground for Kerry's tepid efforts at countering all the BS that the rethugs threw at him during the campaign. Also I see it as the reason for Kerry's deafness to warnings and pleadings from the progressives to be more combative in regards to the rethuglican crap. I was especially appalled by the protracted efforts Kerry made to woo McCain despite rethugs condescending ridicules - in fact made me lose respect for Kerry.

that they probably would have won.

But then we'd be stuck with him.

I want McCain as my VP about as much as I want to take a rusty saw and saw off all my fingers and toes.

He is a conservative repuke who sucks up more to Bush than what some of us here at DU seem to not want to admit

Top 10 Conservative Idiots - there again is McCain sucking up to Bush



You want this as your VP? If there was ever a reason for me to vote 3rd party - having McCain on my ticket would definately be a start. This website gets all bent out of shape about democrats that are too moderate so I highly doubt we'd want a CONSERVATIVE on our ticket

would be better than what we have now, but that`s not the point. I respect McCain`s service during the Vietnam War, but I have no intention of supporting him on any ticket. He`s hugged Bush one too many times.

That would never have happened. Thankfully!

that the majority of us agreed with. And on that issue we have a much better guy to shout out about and support - the Honorable Russell Feingold.

McCain only supported CFR because he was guilty as hell in corruptly schlupping up funding from his criminal buddy Charles Keating. He was compelled by guilt and wanted to clean his record up some. It was largely a stunt, not ingrained morality or ethics or anything like that.

The other author of the CFR bill - our very own DEMOCRAT, Russ Feingold, did not need to learn his ethics lessons by first participating in campaign finance crimes. Our DEMOCRAT - Russ - has integrity right from the get go.

On every other issue - McCain is a die hard Repuke. Not quite as extreme on a few issues, such as torture, as the BushCo criminals but nonetheless he is a Repuke who makes me PUKE.

I wish we could ban these thoroughly embarrassing, completely uninformed suggestions about McCain that crop up from time to time here. They are the most banal, the most irritating, most counter-productive discussions on all of DU, imo.

NO - I would have been livid had McCain been on the Democratic ticket. He is a PNACer!!!! He is such a gung-ho PNACer that Little Willy Kristol and Davy Brooks supported him over Bush in 2000! It was the Weakly Standard that launched his run in '00. Willy Kristol started the "good press" - the "press" likes McCain train - that puffed the little jerk up and was contrived to make him look good. McCain was on with their agenda to invade Iraq way back then, fer chrissakes - how would it have been better to have a die hard Kristol/Brooks puppet PNACer on the ticket than an intelligent, decent person who really understands and deeply cares about the lives of regular folks as John Edwards does?

STFU about McCain being on any Democratic ticket once and for all. It is so mortifying to realize we still - after all this time - have people who call themselves Democrats, bamboozled by McCain.

No, I do not wish Kerry could have gotten McCain to be his running mate.

There's no evidence that would have made any difference and besides, John McCain sucks.

Democrats need to be LESS Republican, not more.

lose if you must, but don't give up your principles.

but no i dont want mccain. not a dem, we have excellent dems to chose from. not a nice man either, i have seen the snot in this man. dont like it

Because I believe Kerry would have won with McCain. I was very disappointed in John Edwards who only seemed to contribute two things to the campaign-- boyish good looks, and his "Two Americas" speech. Given how close the election was I think McCain would have swung it for us.

McCain obviously would not be the first choice for VP of me or others here on DU. But bearing in mind the limited powers of the VP, in a binary poll between (1) Kerry-McCain winning in 2004 and (2) chimp-dick winning in 2004, I would pick (1) with no hestitation.

:puke: or :rofl:

McCain wouldn't have helped any more than Edwards. Edwards wanted to fight. He said so. Then Kerry cut the legs out from under him. On top of that McCain is a Repug, for God's sake! We're trying to get those people out of the government, not insert them into even higher positions.
:argh:

How many of you voted for Nader in 2000?

You might hate my post, but nothing is more selfish and loathsome than voting with "your principles".

It wouldn't have helped John Kerry get elected anyway. Fraud is fraud. And BushCo would have done ANYTHING to actually get elected for the first time in 2004.

and other moderate Republicans thought Bush was terrible, but supported him 2004 anyway. I will never support politicians like that, and the damdage that they have caused.

Why would I want someone who is sleazy and a Bush-suck-up?

several times working for the dems, including election day. Believe me when I tell you that there was so much theft going on. We could have run anyone; it did not matter. I have lost all respect for McCain.

it had NOTHING to do with who we ran as VP...when you take two precincts, combine them in the smallest building in the world, and reduce the number of voting machines they used to have by one half...let the last person in line at 7:30 PM stand for another 5 hours until they vote in the cold rain...put people in the wrong lines so that they have to get back in line and wait for another 2 hours in the COLD RAIN, when people are CRYING after they FINALLY cast their ballots after standing in the cold rain with their 3 year old for more than 3 hours, when handicap people are told they have to stand in line as well, or we cannot accommodate you in that way (violating all HAVA laws)...when you have to FIGHT to get a BLIND/PARALYZED person to the front of the line and the lines waiting are SCREAMING at election officials to let them go to the front...when election officials deny a helper in with that disabled person to cast their ballot and you have to SHOVE the rules up their ass and they STILL do not get HAVA....

Not to mention everything else that went on in all the other counties...let's not EVEN mention the recount fiasco in Ohio.

Could have had Jesus Christ as the VP candidate and still lost.

That said, McCain would not have been a good idea.

If I had to vote for a Republican for President, McCain would be at the top of my list. But that wouldn't have made him acceptable to be a heartbeat away from an elected Democratic President. Also, in the end, he never would have accepted.

I sincerely believe that the reason Kerry lost was because of the school terroism in Chenya. It was at that moment that the poll numbers shifted. Everyone who had a kid or a grandkid imagined what it would be like if terrorists attached their school. More people at the time thought George W. would be tough on terrorism than Kerry, who came across to them as indecisive.

By the way, I saw a new bumber sticker: "W: Still the President." The word "still" was emphasized. Are they telling right-wingers to stop complaining?

a strongly pro-war hawk, anti-choice and has a very conservative record.

Buchanan, I bet a lot of skeletons would jump out of his closet if he said he was running. No one has ever brought up his finacial accounts and he will not attack big business.

McCain would still be loyal to his party. He can cross party lines here and there but I still don't think so.

..the upgrade with the improved biography module and new media interface.

anyway. I gave him a win and he threw it back in my teapot....

who would rather we had 80 Republicans and 20 "pure" Democrats who would reliably cast useless protest votes than have 60 moderate Democrats and 40 Republicans.

John Edwards did a fine job in his campaigning, and I also happen to think he would have made a very decent VP.

From the rigged voting machines, to the rigged media, to John Kerry's own unwillingness to fight hard against the Swift Boating tactics --- all of it equals what we are stuck with today.

Having McCain as his running mate wouldn't have changed a thing, and I would not vote for any ticket that has McCain on it. He's sold his soul to the devil already.

We didn't need the "Two smeared vets" tour.

Kerry and Clark might have been good. I like Edwards, but some media consultant taught him to deliver speeches like a huckster. I much preferred him before the campaign. He came across as more sincere then. Less downhome "shucks" but more sincere.

would be better than what we have. I'd rather hold out. wait and see.

McCain is a 1. Repuke 2. A gutless Repuke.

Why do people seem to think McCain is special??

amount of passion that liberals dislike Lieberman

Fuck McCain and every other Rethug scumbag out there!

He barely inspired Democrats much less Independents. What was Iowa thinking????

Kerry as the President would have been great.

Kerry as the candidate struggled to find the right message.

Of course this assumes there was no voter fraud...

I IMPLORED Kerry with letters to get vicious. To stop playing pity pat, and showing "respect for the office" with Bush, and start calling that retards "errors in judgment" what they were. Fuck ups, incompetence and deliberate deceit. He just wouldn't do it. Had he done it, he would have won in a walk.

He's the best president we never had.

that doesn't yell or use bullying tactics to get what they want. I am sorry, we need to look for inspiration within ourselves and stop depending on public people to move our souls. I don't live in Iowa, but the people their were average, hardworking, sensible Americans who didn't want a politician that comes across as their best friend.

Sorry that's not good enough for you.