Interesting exit poll data.

More people thought Kerry attacked Bush unfairly (67%) than thought Bush attacked Kerry unfairly (60%). Yet, I read here that Kerry ran a "milquetoast" campaign, when he should have been going after Bush with an axe; that Kerry brought a wet noodle to a gun fight; that Kerry ran a "be nice" campaign, just like all the other Democratic losers did.

So why the misperception on the part of the voting public?

and some of them are just willfully ignorant and/or liars.

and don't forget CNN, ABC, NBC and MSRNC

link?

this sounds like CNN revisionist polling- certainly before the election, i read crfedible polls that showed the opposite- that Kerry's adds were more truthful, and that *'s were more negative

whalerider55

Not any actual reality.

If "the media" says black is white, then it must be true.

and they said he was attacking. remember the conventions. three day before dem convention, they better not attack bush better not. all over news for days

the repug did the biggest slime how ugly can we be and media presented it to the people, look how strong those repugs are. what men they are

Even if you've wounded you opponent, you still need to give voters some good reasons to vote for you -- that can include being just as likable as your opponent. In that sense, Kerry never really closed the deal... He didn't get to the point where he convinced swing voters that they could be just as comfortable with him as they were with Bush... Reagan and Clinton were very good at that...

Personally, I think that's all BS, but you do have to rely on a contingent of the bleating masses to support you, so you have to play the game.

Which is about as swingish as you can get out of these data. So how do we know Kerry didn't close the deal with swing voters?

By the way, twice as many people identified themselves as conservative as identified themselves as liberals. That suggests Kerry won a whole lot of votes in the middle.

There was a time during the summer when the campaign, feeling rather full of themselves due to good polling, let the other side attack without repercussion. It was the dumbest strategic move I've ever seen. Well, I take that back, it was a replay of the Dukakis strategy.

The negative attacks should have come from the campaign fast and furious so that Bush would have gone into the debates looking like a loser. Instead, Kerry squandered the 'inevitability feeling' of his election and Bush went into the debates looking like a sure thing. So, the post debate period, when it's best to have a positive message, Kerry was forced to go negative. I even remember a post by a DUer claiming that 'this was the time for him to go on attack, after winning the debates.' They(you) were wrong as usual.

It's simply the same rant that's unsupported by evidence. You claim Kerry wasn't on the attack; the voters say otherwise.

And while I'm at it, it was the Bush people who went even more viciously on the attack after the debates, so the idea that Kerry's after debate behavior is the reason for this polling data holds no water.

Do you think that Kerry attacked more than Bush? Get a clue.

BECAUSE Kerry was forced to attack at the end of the campaign, the public saw him as the worst offender. Do you believe that? Had Kerry put Bush away when he should have, the end of the campaign would have been positive from Kerry and negative from Bush. Instead he 'benefits' from the short memoried public about who ran the negative campaign.

Which essentially eliminates your hypothesis.

And who says Kerry could have "put Bush away" by attacking him early? You do. Supporting evidence?


































































Not to be found.

You think Kerry ran a good campaign, guess what?

in this thread, and said nothing that indicates you know what's going on. If you want to get revenge for the spanking in the primaries, well, it ain't going to happen, son. :shrug:

I don't know what's going on, but you OTOH have perfect perception. Who is going to be inaugurated on Jan 20th again?

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Lesbian.

People at work thought Kerry was mean to "out" Cheney's daughter.
Didn't matter that it was "common" knowledge, to the clueless average voter, it was a total slap in the face.
And the word itself, they can't stand it.
Say gay, say homo, say "the love which cannot speak it's name".
But don't say lesbian.

I was thinking along two different lines. The first is that Bush's "likeability," along with his status as being the president, made people resent Kerry's attacks more than Bush's attacks.

The second was that Bush's attacks were effective to the point that some people came to believe them, so they stopped seeing them as "unfair."

I hadn't thought about the Mary Cheney thing, but it did happen late, and the polls I saw said people pretty much overwhelmingly thought Kerry was over the line. And of course, the media couldn't let go of it, so it was out there for a week.

makes me think the "Mary Cheney" thing was a big mistake on Kerry's part.

My Mom is 84, votes Democratic now, though she used to vote Republican. I talked to her about a week before the election, and she was really upset with Kerry over the Mary Cheney debate comment.

There are a lot of people out there who think that having a gay or lesbian relative is something to be ashamed of - it's a private matter - and for Kerry to say what he did on national television showed him to be really out of touch with a a huge group of voters.

For him to say that confirmed, in their minds, that he was really out of touch with "mainstream America", and made it easier for them to vote for Bush, despite his obvious failures in foreign policy and the economy, etc. They ended up sicking with Bush because they believed he shared their values, and Kerry didn't.

The more I think about it, especially in light of the conversation I had with my Mom, I think the Mary Cheney comment hurt Kerry a lot more than many people think.


ps. I should mention that we do have a gay relative in our family to put this in better context.

The causes I see would be:

1. Lack of rhetorical sophistication on the part of many Americans, including some college grads--they do not understand the differences between the kinds of attack from each party

2. The culmination of the Republican campaign, begun in the McCarthy era, to associate "the left" with everything from lack of patriotism to incipient insanity

3. The complicity of the media in convincing the average citizen that "both parties do it" and that "they're both as bad."

1. Many Americans now understand any attack on the opponent as being dirty politics, or "negative" campaigning. Distinctions that are not even very fine are needed here, and many Americans can't distinguish between the "flip flopper" accusation and saying the Iraq war is wrong, for these specific reasons. Kerry attacked Bush's policy, his judgment, his knowledge, and a few other perfectly fair points of attack. Bush attacked the personality of his opponent using only lies and distortions big enough to equate to lies.

2. By now, there are Bush true-believers who associate any negative comment on a Republican war president as being: unpatriotic, liberal as a pejorative, close to treason, and betraying unmistakable socialist or communist influences. These people are not necessarily religious, just uninformed about recent history, the constitution, and basic civics in some cases. And prone to righteousness of course.

3. The media's unconscious, unexamined, *wrong* attitudes are perpetuating the myths the Republicans want spread: the media don't make overt, honest, informed judgments themselves before reporting something. They think that if they report "both sides", they have done their jobs. So they report that the Swift Boat Vets say this, and the Kerry campaign says that. Any casual news consumer gets the idea that both sodes "spin" and that it's impossible to get at the truth, which in some cases exists as facts--simple facts. Instead of saying that the Swift Boat Veterans are lying, and repeating that until someone pays attention, the media repeat the SBV charges until some believe there must be something to them.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Thanking you very much newyawker--I am an upstate newyawker myself. That was my second post, which it took me all day to find again. This is a big board, and a complicated one, but I intend to persevere, and I intend to see this flippin election reversed and John Kerry duly sworn in in January 2005. Enough is enough. And eventually I will get the hang of the smilies, and finding my way around.

Cheers,
Carol :hi:

the media often referred to Kerry's criticism of Bush as "attacks" or any other description which made it seem as if it was just political campaign attacks rather than legitimate criticism.

but when Bush attacked Kerry it would just be reported without spinning Bush's motives or even giving facts.another thing is that Bush didn't always attack Kerry himself but others would. it's common among the Bush people to get others to do the dirty work for them.

the media keeps hanging on and pushing non stories like the mary cheney lesbian thing or teresa's comments about whether laura bush ever had a "real job". but they didn't report on how laura bush had a mother of a dead solider in iraq arrested. or Lynne Cheney making fun of Kerry's orange tan which the right wing media pushed and many on DU fell for and which turned out to be a lie.

it's all about how the media spins things. they try to make Bush look like the victim of unfair attacks.

Kerry did best when people saw him in a positive light such as during his convention speech, after the first debate, and when they see his positive pro Kerry ads. this is why he tried to keep it positive. negative atmosphere always drove down Kerry's numbers even though it was about Bush being at fault such as his failure in Iraq.

by the right wing media. The media said Kerry attacked Bush. Catch up.

"...field a candidate. And in an election YEAR!"

Jon Stewart imitating Zell Miller after the RNC. Priceless.

But it's how Republicans think: it was unpatriotic for anyone to run against their boy.

a few other things I thought were interesting about the exit poll

Here's the link

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

1. 78 % of the voters said they chose over a month before the election and Bush had a 7 % lead among them. That made it difficult for Kerry though he closed well as all said he would.

2. Only 4 % of voters didn't graduate high school. Bush gained importantly among this group and almost won it. Usually it's a reliably Democratic voting group.

3. Age wise, Bush gained the most among the oldest voters. That was a surprise to me.

4. Bush gained a lot among hispanics. Since being governor of Texas he always had an eye on the hispanic vote. It will be interesting to see if another Republican can keep those gains, or if it is just a Bush phenomenon.

5. Bush made important gains among catholics, but made no gains among African-Americans or Jewish-Americans.

Other points of interest?

blasting shrub. Kerry's campaign itself overall, was far more positive.

I bet the average voter made no distinction between the 527's and the campaigns.

was the way to go. Every negative add shrub ran, he had to put his name on. Kerry left most of negative stuff to the outside groups. It really was clever.

It's The Media STUPID!!!

Kerry did a very good job and he won this election! To many people seem to forget that around here. The election was stolen. Kerry couldn't help we have a stupid A$$ media that couldn't get it's head out Bush's A$$!

God lord people, this is what we are dealing with.

Run, do not walk, pack only what you can carry, and leave this burning rat infested ship. Go now, yee, do not delay.