We did NOT lose on the issues

and our candidate was better.

While we turn ourselves into pretzels trying to figure out how to communicate better and refine our message - all worthwhile goals by the way, I think we have to come to terms with the fact that the GOP has declared war on the Democratic Party. They will not be content until it is destroyed - totally.

Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and yes - George Bush are intent on destroying the party and its candidates. It is the goal of decades of planning and work. They have built a media that funnels its message to the population on a constant basis. In the case of Kerry, they worked to sow the seeds of doubt and that is what people heard. They were not concerned with the truth or the details like we at DU are, but rather the majority of the population absorbs these ideas subconsciously.

Every candidate will be treated the same as Clinton and Kerry were. Someone will come out of the woodwork to destroy the person and their character. As we have seen, it does not even have to be the truth, and they do not need a guilty verdict or indictment to win. All they have to do is sow the seeds of doubt. That is done through their media machine and think tanks.

As I see it we have taken two huge hits. The first was the White Water attack on Clinton and the other was the Swift Boat Liars on Kerry.
We just want to move on and hope we have a better candidate next time that will be so superior as to be immune to these tactics. It isn't going to happen. There will always be such attacks because they work.

We have to learn to stand together and fight back. Clinton was smeared and Kerry was smeared. Somehow we still have to clean up those messes before we move on.

And, you're 100% correct on Norquist & the gang trying to destroy the Democrats.

It's also not far fetched to say that if we ran Jesus Christ in 2008, he'd get smeared to no end.

I'm not a Hilary supporter or anything, but she's already been dragged through the mud. Can it get worse if she actually does run for president? If Dean runs, will we get endless replays of the Dean Scream and whispers of an even worse scream out there? If Clark runs, we'll get "Generals for Truth" 527 ads.

We just need a person that can fight back against the charges.

First, he didn't keep repeating Clinton's sound bite: "Their way doesn't WORK!!" This wasn't a huge mistake, but continuing to hammer that home would have helped him a lot.

Second, he didn't hit the Smear Boaters with a libel suit the day their book came out, tying up all their resources hiring their own lawyers and giving his team subpoena power to track down each and every tie those bastards had to the Bush cartel, plus where every dime of their multiple millions came from. The DLC told him to ignore them and they'd go away, which has got to be the stupidest advice anyone's gotten since the DLC told Gore not to go after Bush in the debates because somebody might think he was being mean.

Other than that, Kerry ran a clean campaign and won on the issues. He just ran into the massive voting fraud Buscho knew they'd need to win.


(am I the only one who noticed that the Smear Boaters got slicker ads with each new one? I'd love to know where THAT money came from!)

we have to learn to file the lawsuits right away. These "people" fear the discovery phase more than anything. Kerry sure better go through with his suit.