Was Kerry losing a good thing?

The jury is still out on this, but if the Dems win back both Houses next year followed by a Dem victory in 2008 and a lasting rejection of the radical brand of governance and ideology practiced by the Bush admin then there may be a case. If Kerry won last year the Repubs would have had a much easier time framing the Iraq debacle as a bipartisan blunder. Furthermore, a Bush team no longer in the White House may have taken some of the sting out of the various investigations. Also, in many respects I think things will get worse before they get better on several fronts (I assume a Kerry presidency would have been unlikely to reverse the damage before the shyt hit the fan), particulary, the economy. Again, when this house of cards crumbles, Bush will most likely be the one in the White House and assigned most of the blame. On the other hand, the Bush team can inflict major damage to our country and the rest of the world while in power these next few years (reshaping Supreme Ct is just one example) even if they remain somewhat handcuffed as they are now. So there is a tradeoff. Just look at how much he's squandered for our country in the past five years in American lives, standing, and moral authority. Another three years is an awfully long time. Any thoughts?

right is wrong.

down to one certain thing - Kerry would have opened up the books on BCCI which would have unlocked ALL the secrets to everything happening today in Bushworld. And that alone would have forced the eyes of this nation wide open.

I think this is also why some powerful Democrats didn't want him to win, either.

really struggled with this question. By the time January rolled around last year, I had really had time to take in the full scope of the media opposition to Kerry's victory. It was extreme. The media was willing to face down nothing less than a Congressional investigation and its own effective loss of credibility with all aware viewers in order to keep Kerry out of office. That's some hard core resistance he would have been up against. I love John Kerry, so much so that a selfish part of me is almost glad he wasn't recognized as the winner of the election in time to inaugurate him. Looking at the sort of opposition he would have faced had he taken the WH at that point makes me think there is a decent chance that his presidency, had it begun in 2005, would have meant his own death (figuratively, if not literally). Which, from my perspective, wouldn't have helped us achieve Progressive goals anymore effectively than not having our cadidate in the Oval Office would have. Without Kerry, to me this fight is almost not worth continuing.

May we persevere.

That's the poetic justice of 2004.

I'd much rather have had a more liberal court than the RW court we will have.

I wouldn't even care if it was a middle of the road court. Just keep the fundies off of it.

to the branch of government that can strike down ANYTHING utterly against the will of the people.

The Religious Reich learned this painfully, when SCOTUS struck down school prayer, even though a VAST majority of Americans believe in God, and forced integration, despite the ingrained bigotry of the majority. As they gained more and more electoral victories, the Religious Reich realized that there are many things you just cannot do without control of the SCOTUS.

The SCOTUS was the prize of the 2004 election, and the it will have a profound effect on the way things go for the next 20 or 30 years, REGARDLESS of how many or how few electoral victories we have.

all the people I know who voted for Bush that I'm glad Kerry lost because now they are seeing how blind they were in voting for Bush.

You will be f*cked.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

are sitting there wearing drool bibs..

It's a tempting "optimistic" thought, but losing now to win later is always a bad idea.

People are dead. A lot of people are dead and hurt and damaged by the idiot son. Yes, we can and must use his every failure to spotlight the insanity of the radical right - but I would turn the clock back in a second to prevent the damage * has done.

and would have been corraled by previous rhetoric and right wing attacks into ignoring his mistaken IWR vote, and thus the fundamental immorality and illegality of the war would have been papered over in bipartisan way and there never would have been even the qualified apology and acknowledgement he made lately. So it's possible it was better that Bush came in because it caused many to wake up to the true colors of many Democrats as they caved under situation after situation. The two part system is strained to the breaking point and ill and it will take many years to heal the wounds that were incurred as one party ran roughshod while the other partly enabled the abuse and only feebly pushed back.

I don't think so after all this crime and death and ...

it would have energized the Reichwing and the polarization between red and blue America probably would have gotten worse and worse and worse. An implosion of epic proportions is really the only way to get them to finally shut up. I just hope the whole country doesn't get sucked in when it happens.

The Republicans have shown how dangerous and corrupt they are but they have done this by harming real people. The people who died in the aftermath of Katrina were real human beings with parents, children, siblings, and friends. They were not political points.

I argued this idea with friends of mine before the 2004 election. I knew people who said that Bush being reelected would be good for the progressive movement. Politics are a means to an end not the goal itself. People's lives are being and have been destroyed by BushCo and it's nothing but tragedy.

Look at all the damage that has happened already. Kerry loosing was a TERRIBLE DISASTER for our Country.

I suspect we will find that out, soon enough.

Revolution just might come about on a Democrat's watch. Take a look at history. It's not so much the initial misery that a populace experiences that pushes them over the edge. It's the idea that "now that leadership has changed hands, things will get better." And then, it doesn't. Or the situation get even more dire.

We are cruising right along on that path, my friends.

More dead in Iraq, and so many other things. Things keep getting worse under this GOP administration

Opinions get more consideration when they're worded intelligibly and rooted in reality.

While it is a good thing that we may actually get to see this corrupt administration be held accountable, it would have been better to have the damage Bush has caused repaired now rather than later.

Holy run on sentence batman!

was a good thing. But I have come to the conclusion that this country simply needs to hit bottom with these wingnuts they insist on voting for. We tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen, so now they get to live with the consequences of their actions.

the dems MAIN objective should be taking over the senate and house. that is extremely important and a larger chunk of power than a presidency has. Look at all of the crap clinton went through working above a conservative contreolled house and senate. they did everythign to scar, bruise, batter and run clinton out of dodge. they were rentless rabid pitbulls.

the same thing would have occured if kerry had gotten the presidency in 2004. the republicans would have come out swinging at kery in every which way possible to get him impeached and make him look bad.

taking the house and senate in 2006 we would have the power. more power than the presidency and that is something the dems havent had it in a while.