|
My very rambling rant to a friend who wrote that Democrats never offered a better choice than Bush. It's a reply to an email, which detailed what my friend thought were the Kerry campaign's failures. He mentioned moral values and our inability to connect to red state concerns (He is a Republican who did vote for Kerry, but never felt good about it.):
I'm just as angry because of statements like "the Democrats never offered a better choice than Bush."
Bullshit! Kerry was many times over the better choice than Bush. I could write a great post-mortem about what Kerry should have done better. But that isn't the point, at least to me. Kerry wasn't perfect, he made mistakes, but he ran a very good campaign overall against a bunch of heartless liars. You have repeatedly written that you don't know what Kerry stood for, so Kerry must not be a good choice. I would counter that perhaps it's the fault of many Americans that they weren't sufficiently ready to hear what Kerry stood for. I paid attention. I knew what Kerry stood for. Kerry ran on the mainstream American traditions of international cooperation and domestic investment, and transparency and rationality as essential to democratic government. Bush, judging by the actions of his administration in the first term, ran against these ideas.
Instead of hearing Kerry's message, people preferred to accept the smears. The lies. The snide jokes. Kerry lost partly because of RNC backed Swiftboat attacks. Those were lies. Kerry lost partly because of the direct attacks by the Bush campaign. Those were lies.
So why wasn't Kerry strong enough to counter the lies? Two answers: One was his fault. Kerry listened to his first campaign crew too long. It was only after he listened to others that he began surging again, but it was too late. The other problem for Kerry was the media. The television media did very little about debunking the vicious smears against Kerry. They did nothing but spin the Bush line that Kerry wasn't clear about the issues. The telling point for me was when the media concentrated on the non-issue of Kerry mentioning Cheney's gay daughter in debate three and paid no attention to Kerry catching Bush in the lie that Bush never said he wasn't concerned about Osama bin Laden.
When I talk to Bush supporters, I hear that Kerry is a baby killer, but I hear nothing about the rise in abortions during Bush's term. I hear that Kerry would let terrorists bomb us, but I hear nothing about the thousands of bombs of explosives delivered into the hands of terrorists by the failed Bush strategy in Iraq. I hear that Kerry is a traitor who shot himself to get his medals, but nothing about Bush's dubious service record and his avoiding service in Vietnam. Why do people feel this way about Kerry? Over and over again, television media let Bush lies about Kerry be broadcast without challenge. It's hard for anyone to win against that. McCain couldn't and McCain is much more the man and the leader that Bush could ever be. No, Kerry did pretty well. If you don't like him, that's one thing, but if you were caught by the smears, that's another.
Instead of worrying about who the Democrats will run, I worry about why people support a man whose campaign is known for cut-throat lies, whose administration is known for secretive, inept actions that undermine what our nation has stood for centuries, and who manufactures ruthless smears against anybody who stands in its way. With the Bush team's willingness to play dirty, to manipulate the electoral process, and with their grip on the media I don't know if any Democrat stood a chance. Dean? The media killed him. Clark? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Nobody else had anywhere near a chance. Not Gephart, not Edwards, and certainly not Lieberman.
Barring election fraud, it's safe to say that the Kerry smears and misrepresentation of Kerry's positions helped defeat Kerry. But I will give credit to Rove. While all the people who make up the anti-Bush crowd were watching for an October surprise, Rove engineered one of the most masterful (and legal) campaign strategies I've seen - bringing the wedge issue of gay marriage to play on ballots across the heartland, which brought out the religious right in droves. Genius. Most of us didn't even see it coming.
So now the media is twisting all over itself to spin that Bush won this election on "morals," all of which is based on exit polls, while at the same time denying election fraud because most of the exit polls were wrong. Besides, nobody apparently sees the lack of morals in what Bush has accomplished so far. The dead and maimed children in Iraq, the torture, the lies. Oh, well.
Our liberal or progressive anger isn't against the balance of the solid values of the people in the Midwest and the South, even though Bush supporters would have the country believe that. We're certainly not against religion, for example. We're against religion in government and against anybody forcing their religion on us. Many, like me, have great respect for conservative philosophy. We're for reason and cooperation, for justice and fair play and that is the problem. We're too nice. We can't fight as dirty as the Bush administration. Right now, we would have to be as dirty to beat Bush. We see all sides of arguments and the Bush administration has turned that into a nasty trait. We admit mistakes and the Bush administration pounds us for it.
Now, after the years of being told we're traitors for opposing the war in Iraq, after enduring smear after smear, after being locked out of Senate proceeding, after being lied to over and over by the Bush administration, we're being asked to compromise, to play nice, because Bush has the mandate. Even Bill Clinton has asked us to quit whining and hinted that we should drop our support for gay equality.
I can tell you that many of us are just saying no to that. We won't compromise and we won't give up just to appeal to whatever it is that middle America feels. If our stance on gay and women's rights goes against middle America's values it doesn't mean our stances are wrong. If our support for progressive causes somehow offends America's values, we're sorry, but we're going to keep fighting for what is right. Morals? Arnold's sexual adventures and misanthropy make Clinton look like a high school kid. That doesn't stop the right from supporting him. Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, William Bennett, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly? Oh, yeah, the right loves them and forgives them, mixed up morals and all. Morals?
It ain't about morals and it ain't about right or wrong for many in our country. It ain't about running the best person for the job. It's certainly not about truth. It's about image and spinning image and polishing image and maintaining image. It's about who has the "Elvis quality." It's about who is the rock star.
Damn it, if America has become so shallow that we run the rock stars instead of leaders, if we Americans buy into the political dirty tricks and condemn the candidates that get trashed by the ruthless cheaters, then perhaps we deserve what we get. Because in that game we get the phonies and we get the liars and we get the cheaters.
By the same token, If Democrats feel they have to lean center and compromise their progressive ideals so they're not perceived as traitorous liberals by those on the right (who will always belittle us and call us traitors no matter what we do), if they're afraid to stand up and fight back lest the be called uncooperative, than perhaps the Democrats deserve what they get.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
