We can all say thanks to the Swift Boat Liars

Those bastards hurt Kerry a great deal in August and were instrumental in electing AWOL for a second term. After the democratic convention, Kerry had positive poll numbers and was doing a good job of introducing himself to the country. Many pundits were claiming it was Kerry's race to lose -- the country had already decided that Bush had to go. Then the Swift Boat Liars started their deceitful campaign of lies and smears and Kerry had to spend the month of August and early Sept defending himself. His poll numbers dropped and didn't pick up again until after the first debate. Imagine how the political landscape would have changed if Kerry was up by 5% going into the first debate. He would have been up by 10% or more after the debate and AWOL would have been toast.

We can thank the Swift Boat Liars and Faux news for doing the dirty work for Rove and AWOL. Unfortunately, we are the ones who have to pay over the next 4 years.

The percentage numbers changed very little during the whole campaign.

It took Kerry nearly 6 weeks for his campaign to devise a strategy to beat back these guys. Kerry was a war hero before the SBV's appeared -- remember his "reporting for duty" line at the convention. After the swiftees started the smear, Kerry never really mentioned his military service.

of when Kerry's numbers began to slide. There IS a direct correlation.

And that O'Neill asshole better pray that he never meets me. I don't know what I would do.

Rove had a plan from day one, Jan 2001 to push Bush to govern far to the right so he could pick up the millions of Christian conservatives who stayed home in 2000, who really didn't like Bush Daddy all that much and weren't about to get on board with Jr.

He threw in the cultural wedge issue of gay marriage (Dixie flag thing worked well on Max Cleland in 2002) for good measure, and that and shitload of lies from the Bush campaign worked.

That's my analysis of it anyway.

Though I had nothing to do with Swift Boats, I was in aviation. As far as I'm concerned they are co-conspiritors right along with all the other assholes that helped Smirky along. I will never figure out how they could side with this AWOL ANG truant and spread lies on a Navy officer and a decorated combat veteran. They are as low as low can be.

against all the gay marriage referendums. Had the gay marriage referendum not been on the Ohio ballot, my guess is Kerry would have won the state.

"gay marriage" picked the worst possible time to bring that to national attention. I thought at the time that progressives were shooting themselves in the foot.

It was one of the recurring things in "man on the street" interviews and in casual conversations.

supported the swift boaters. quit sending money to the cable companies, boycott Sinclair, clear channel and pax, don't go to home depot and so on and so on.

help spread the SBL's crap and air their commercials for free.

Kerry not only had to fight the Rove machine he had to fight the Cheneyin media whores as well.

Some of the biggest mistakes I think were made in the campaign were:

1 - Holding the DNC convention to early while the RNC held theirs so damn late - it was that gap where Kerry went dark where the SBL's pulled their sneak attack.

2 - Kerry not attacking the SBL's immediately

3 - Kerry opting for the 75 million federal funding following the convention - he should've trusted us to have his back and fund him - I think we'd have provided him with more than enough. That period when he went dark killed his momentum and allowed character doubts to grow. Also he should've responded better to the flip-flopper label.

who want to be heroes. JK and the truth are just too big a threat to their coverup.