Kerry 08 -- an argument from a political scientist (USA Today)

Gore pretty much dropped off of the face of the earth after 2000, only occasionally popping up to remind us that he existed. Kerry needs to stay in the public eye if he wants to run again.

It's not so much Kerry himself, because I think he's OK. But he is what he is, and he's from where he's from, and Kerry as the nominee means yet another replay of 2000 and 2004: surrender the South and Plains, and focus everything on holding the Gore states and winning either Florida or Ohio.

Maybe the third time will be the charm, and I do think there's a lot to be said for a candidate who's been through the wringer once. One of the reasons it was hard to make anything stick to Bush was that he was a known quantity, so all the stuff about AWOL and so on was essentially repeating things people have already heard, or weren't interested in because they'd seen him in office. Kerry as the nominee means all the slime has already been thrown. But I don't like the Kerry/Gore electoral map. We start too far behind, and there are a lot of must-win states that were close in both 2000 and 2004. Lose Pennsylvania, and you're done. Lose Wisconsin, and you're done. Kerry 08, or Hillary 08, or anyone else from that mold, is basically a commitment to using a twice-failed election strategy, with the promise of doing it better this time. It reminds me of William Jennings Bryan at the turn of the last century, only running three different candidates to get the same losing results. Enough's enough.

There are a lot of must win states for the GOP as well. If either Florida or Ohio had flipped our way, we'd be treated to footage of President-elect Kerry windsurfing on FOX.

The Bryan analogy doesn't quite hold since he lost by much more significant margins than did Gore or Kerry. We actually are close enough that sticking with the same approach but doing it better could work.

Pandering to the red states is simply not a sound strategy. While I wholeheartedly buy into the notion of compromise as being necessary in politics, we'd be sacrificing too many of our principles if we were to try to cater our positions to satisfy the ill-named "values voters". No matter how much we bend over backwards, such folks are going to trust the GOP more than us.

A blue state strategy makes sense. We need to stay on the offensive. Even though Bush only won by one state, you don't see Karl Rove worrying about appealing to voters in New England. Why should we worry about folks in Alabama?

Your thoughts about Kerry being through the wringer are interesting. If he maintains a positive high profile the next few years, I think he'd make a pretty good candidate in 2008. (and I'm one of those Dean/Kucinich guys.)


(edited for grammar)

I used Bryan as an example of a party that did the same thing over and over, even though it failed. Looking at the electoral map of that time, it was impossible to see a way to Bryan winning. He never got blown out in the popular vote, but he was blown out all three times in the EV vote, with an almost identical electoral map all three times. Bryan could have tied or even won the popular vote and he still would have lost, because the electoral map of that time was unfavorable to him, just as it is to us now.

There are a lot of must win states for the GOP as well. If either Florida or Ohio had flipped our way, we'd be treated to footage of President-elect Kerry windsurfing on FOX.

Actually those are the only Republican must win states that were close in the past two elections. And that's the problem.
We are locked in to fighting a battle in about 6 close states nationwide of which we have to win 4 or even 5: Pennsylvania, Washington, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida. Lose any one of the 4 out of these 6 the Dems carried in 2000 and 2004, and you need breaks in several small swing states to make up for it, and the odds of that happening are not good. For the Republicans, on the other hand, their core states are rock solid. There is no large state Republican equivalent to Pennsylvania, a state they have to campaign in just to hold. The Republicans have the luxury going in to the election of choosing which of the big states above to focus their resources on; the Democrats have no choice but to win in almost all of them.

It isn't impossible to win this map, mind you, (Gore 2000) it just starts out favoring the Republicans, and as we also saw in 2000, we can easily win the popular vote and still lose the election.


Pandering to the red states is simply not a sound strategy. While I wholeheartedly buy into the notion of compromise as being necessary in politics, we'd be sacrificing too many of our principles if we were to try to cater our positions to satisfy the ill-named "values voters". No matter how much we bend over backwards, such folks are going to trust the GOP more than us.

Who talked about "pandering" to the red states? I keep seeing this come up, yet I don't see anyone actually advocating it. I sure didn't. My own desire is to see the Democrats nominate someone with a proven ability to win in a red state, and force the Republicans to defend that state. We are essentially stuck in the Gore/Kerry map, but if we can add a single red state to the blue column (Virginia would be ideal and is in reach), while forcing the Republicans to defend a few others, we aren't on defense any longer.

In these hyper competitive times of smears, personal destruction, vote stealing, corporate bribes....John Kerry is like the honest businessman doing deals with the Gotti Crime Family. His mistake was that he thought everybody would see Bush for the crook he is. He figured decent people would see the Swift Boat Thugs for what they were. Instead, the voters treated the criminals like celebrities.

By contrast, Clinton was also an honest business man....but he knew the tactics of Greedy Republicans, and was ready for them.

If you look at what hurt him the most, ie lack of previous exposure, swift boat vets, etc, he won't be hurt so much by them a second time around. Kerry fought hard, finished strong, and remained respectable. I would happily work and vote for him next time around. I really havn't seen another politician that I believe could do a better job, either, and that is the real heart of the matter, isnt it?

around. He will have had national exposure - which he didn't have much of (due to the front-loaded Dem primary schedule) despite the long campaign, and the usual smears and preposterous lies wouldn't be as effective because his record and persona would have more exposure and context.

Remember it's only the Dems who toss away those candidates who lose. The GOP allows them to keep returning and sometimes they're successful (Nixon, Reagan and even Lincoln lost several elections before he was President).

Kerry is very determined and ambitious and I don't think we've seen the last of him.

Vickie Carter
Redondo Beach, CA

.... "we've now consigned them to political oblivion".

And I'm not so sure it isn't a good reason. Fact is, this race should have been won easily and it wasn't. I'm not necessarily blaming Kerry, but IMHO why should he get another chance? Nobody gave Gore a second chance, and his vote was a lot closer.

Kerry is too nice to be president. He was unwilling to (or perhaps lamely thought that it would be ineffective) get into the dirt and smack Bush* hard.

If we keep running poodles against dobermans, we are going to keep losing. Let's find someone who really is willing to fight, not just talk about it. Americans claim they don't like dirty politics, but it wins almost every time. People need to top paying attention to what people say and watch what they do - if what someone said made them a good person, Bush* wouldn't be that bad :(

but I still don't think there is anybody better for the job. Maybe thats the catch-22, though...would be an awesome president, not so great a campaigner. Sigh.

... I'm not doubting for a second that Kerry would make a great president. But you have to get elected first, and he's not willing to do the dirty work apparently.

Call me irrational, but I feel very let down by Kerry. And so do a lot of other Dems.

You say, "fact is this election should've been won easily."

I say fact is that you're wrong on this one. I don't like Bush, but I feel that too often some in our party fall into the trap of saying, "Bush should've been beaten easily," because they cannot see what he has going for him. Simply put, Bush has a lot going for him. Kerry was a great candidate, and he accomplished a lot by getting this election (predicted to be a 1964 style blow-out in 2002 and 2003) close. George W. Bush, much to my frustration, was one of the strongest candidates in history. Here's a list (by no means exhaustive) of Bush's advantages in this campaign:

A solid Republican base--encouraged by his radical social policies.

A war going on to distract moderates from how conservative he is.

A speaking style, that while annoying, is plain spoken, direct and understandable.

His reaction, which I believe was commendable, to the September 11th attacks (scored a lot of leadership points from that period). Also, it caused the media to be a lot less questioning of his administration's policies.

A happy corporate American. 250 million in primary funds alone; gobs of money in the RNC, state parties, Republican 527s, and the Chamber--which never announced how much it spent on Bush's GOTV effort. Republican leaning groups outraised and outspent Democrats in the last month of the campaign.

This election was never going to be easy. Bush was a strong candidate. Kerry ran a good campaign. Period.

... ain't gonna cut it, period. I'm done with good, there was excellent available but we let Iowa pick "good".

Fuck that.

Dean ran through Wisconsin and never really got above 20 percent of the vote. He raised a lot of money, but it was gone well before it was needed. He has some good points, but I don't think his campaign had as deep of a support base as the media said it did. As for Kucinich, he's a nice guy, but there's no way he ever could be elected to anything higher than his House seat. In some ways, given his district, it's amazing that he's a Congressman.

... especially about Kucinich. As I've said in other posts, I admire Dean alot, he's the first politician I've ever given $$$ to, but I don't think he'd ever win a presidential campaign.

Kerry, Dean and Kucinich were not the only choices. And perhaps my whole point is that we need new blood altogether, the mold has to be broken. Dean did that on some level but still I don't think he could get elected based on several factors.

Through this campaign Kerry has established his creds. He put his heart and soul out there for 2 years. He took all the mud slung at him. His strong voice in the senate now will help the Dems get their issues across. If he gets the spotlight for the next 2 years, speaks up for the middle/lower class of America, continues to speak out on the ineptitude of this incompetent administration, he will be a much stronger candidate in '08. He has national recognition now that he didn't have in the start of this race. It was painful to watch at first, but he did learn to better hone his message and speak directly to common Americans. Many of the attacks the Repugs used on him this time, will not carry as much weight the next time around. I want him to be the voice of our party. He needs to be our spokesperson on the many issues the Repugs will trash in the next 4 years. I want to see him commenting on the evening news, I want to see him on MTP, and other talk shows. I want him out there in the spotlight kicking sand in the Repugs faces whenever he can.

A lot will depend on how well, or how badly the majority of American voters will percieve Bush does in his second term. If things do not go well, and the press grows some b*lls, it just may dawn on those voters that held their noses when they voted for Bush that they let the better man get away.

(God, the thought of that makes me sick) is over and Bush's chickens come home to roost, Kerry will come to be an eloquent reminder of how America got it really wrong, and will be a very strong position to speak out against the horrors of this despicable regime.

He will also be in a strong position to challenge whoever the GOP puts up - including the greatly diminished McCain.

Vickie Carter
Redondo Beach, CA

Plus, we never let these guys use what they learn the first time around. You don't start anew every year with your favorite sports teamn. "Well, they didn't make it. Time for a whole new crop." You build on your strengths, swap out a few team players who didn't perform, and get back in there.

Kerry won't have enought support in 2008 to run for dogcatcher . . . he certainly won't have mine . . .

a sore loser. He cannot go out there tilting at windmills. We all FEEL there was election fraud. The lopsided votes compared to actual party registration, touchscreen screw ups in some voting places, uncounted provisional and undercounts, more votes than voters in some areas. Theories about exit polls etc. But in 4 weeks NO ONE has come up with hard substantial proof. No one has stepped forward and blown the whistle on election fraud.

If Kerry was out there leading the charge all it would do is paint him as a sore loser and diminish his standing with most people. If nothing comes of all these efforts, he has gained nothing, and we have gained nothing. While we in DU may cheer him on, and collectively we are an impressive group, we are an insignificant number.

We are better off having him build on the credibility he established during the campaign and become a leader for the party.

John McCain was basically a little know senator when he ran against Bush. Since then he has become the spokesperson for all issues political. Now he is a serious candidate for '08. We should not throw our best candidate on the trash heap of anonymity just because he lost. Let's not be fair weather suporters.

For many, Kerry was ABB.

The Dems were united, fired up, & worked their hearts out...I think they would have done the same for Dean, Clark, Edwards, Graham, etc.

John Kerry had a lot to work with, yet his campaign was lackluster. I don't think he would change...he's a long-time Senator with a long term record to attack.


I won't be supporting Kerry again. I still don't know what his core principles are, & that's where he lost me.

And the comparison to McCain doesn't hold up. He has always been high profile, active in the Senate, & Kerry is not like that.

....ABB voters. But as the time grew closer to election day alot of those ABB voters had gotten to know Kerry and met him personally at rallies and grew to really love Kerry and still do. So to say all these ABB voters would not vote for Kerry is total garbage. Yes there are several that won't but there are many that will. The one thing I learned when i was working for the campaign was how so many started out ABB but ended up truly respecting and loved John Kerry. And I have heard many of those say they will gladly support him again.

Speak for yourself because you sure as hell don't speak for me and so many others. I worked everyday with people that are just like me and that is if he runs again in 2008 we will be right there working again. If you think Kerry couldn't get enough support to run in 2008 you are very much fooling yoursef. There are already plenty of websites out there getting started on this including independents for Kerry, and Dick Bell (the same man that ran the one at the Kerry/Edwards campaign blog) has started a new blog which are both running full steam with supporters, as well as all of us here at DU that will gladly support and work for him again. There are more blogs than what I mentioned but the point I'm making regardless of what it may seem around here at times Kerry still has a over whelming majority of supporters. So to say he doesn't have enough to win is total garbage and to say the least you and anyone that really believes that are truly fooling yourselves. Don't take my word for it go check the blogs out for youself see how many people are there and still support Kerry but with all the diehard supporters that are there I wouldn't suggest any nasty remarks about the man unless you are ready for a long hard battle. You think Kerry suppoters here at DU are bad well you won't like the Kerry blogs if your intentions are to change their minds that is why they have their own blogs. But you and a few others need to take off the blinders because Kerry is still heavily supported and his supporters could care less what you or the other naysayers have to say they will be there to back Kerry all the way.

I think that all of the Republicans' attacks would come off sounding repetitive and meaningless. Unless the Republicans put forward a very strong campaign in '08, I think that Kerry would take it. He just has to watch the consistency on that Iraq position...

Interesting, and it might just work. I like the arguments made.

Name recognition, after having run a many months long national campaign, would be a significant advantage against any GOP nominee.

Maybe the second time around would be the charm, but he would have to choose a new V.P. choice for variety if nothing else

that are working for a recount in Ohio and Florida, plus Kerry is just so much better than the rest of us to send some money to help in the recount in the Governor's race in Washington State.

LOSER!

If the only choice in 08 were between Kerry and a DINO like Evan Bayh, then it would be a no-brainer to rally around Kerry.

I don't call that "shunning." Quite the opposite, actually.

As much as I love John Edwards, I don't think a repeat of the same ticket would be fruitful. A Kerry/Clark ticket woud be a tough one to beat.

A Kerry/Clark Ticket would be excellent! That's what I had hoped for this last time and he ended up picking Edwards. I really like Edwards to but always thought Clark would have been better.

Just out of curiosity I typed in the address, and someone already has it coming soon!

www.kerryforpresident2008.com

As of right now, at this moment, and having reviewed the likely candidates for 2008, John Kerry, despite the fact I am disappointed in what I perceive as being too early of a concession, has my FULL support for President. I think the guy put up one helluva fight this time around, and now that he has gotten the hang of it, he'll be able to run a spectacular campaign.

Kerry for President in 2008!!!

i think the guy who wrote this might be picking the right horse but offering him the wrong strategy ...

first, let me say that I consider discussions of '08 candidates to be a bit foolish this many miles from the finish line ... we have far more important business to attend to than partaking in such speculation ...

having said that, however, i've seen way too many Kerry bashing threads ... many seem bitter over his response (non-response?) to electoral fraud and his leftover cash ... but one thing's for sure, we need forceful, prominent people to take on the republicans NOW ... Kerry has become one of the most prominent democrats and IF HE'S WILLING TO STAND UP AND FIGHT, and it's a big IF, we need his voice NOW and we should stand with him ... we can't afford the luxury of telling him to get lost just because we don't like things he's done ...

so, my advice to both Kerry and the Democratic Party is to stand up and fight the neo-con agenda on each and every issue ... and to the author of the article cited in the base post, i think he knows by now what he can do with his "atmosphere of reconciliation" and his "cordial message" ... appeasement is a path to disaster for the party ...

It's easy for us to convince ourselves that Bush is the worst President ever. Certainly, I think so. So the natural impulse is "how could Kerry have lost to the worst president ever?"

And certainly most of us thought during the campaign that the country would come around to our way of thinking. I certainly thought so. But I think we may have been overconfident of the chances for a Democratic Victory.

The thing is, however, that the whole country doesn't think that Bush is the worst president ever. The country really is very divided, so the odds were that the election would be quite a close one. And maybe the CW among many political scientists and pollsters (aside from Zogby) was right - Bush had a slight advantage. The fact is that his ratings on the economy were bad but not catastrophic, keeping in line with the general feel of the economy - stagnant and with clear long-term budgetary problems, but currently not outright recessionary.

Moreover, many in America are not clear on how bad the situation in Iraq actually is. And the lack of any good options meant that Kerry's plan for Iraq did look similar to Bush's. Many Americans, however, wanted a magic solution to Iraq and when Kerry didn't offer that, they were inclined to stick with Bush.

Additionally, you have to look at the Bush approval ratings. Carter and Bush I had approval ratings in the 30s when they lost. Bush had approval ratings in the mid-to-high 40s, similar to Truman. Throw in fears of terrorism and the Republicans' advantage on that (something that Kerry tried but couldn't change in just 6 months), and you have to give Bush some extra points in favor of a reelection. At that point, the odds are in favor of a bare reelection, which is what happened.

None of this to say it couldn't have been won. It's especially easy in hindsight to point out specific flaws. But hindsight is 20/20. Campaigning is an art, not a science, and involves a great deal of guesswork. Nor should it take a perfect campaign to win. Kerry clearly made a number of mistakes, but he did a number of things right as well. Against an ordinary mediocre incumbent like Carter or Bush I, Kerry would have won easily. Unfortunately, in this climate, with the odds narrowly favoring a Bush reelection, it would've taken a near-perfect campaign to dislodge Bush. So we could've won, but it was always gonna be an uphill battle and would've taken a near-perfect campaign. Bill Clinton would have been clearly favored - but of course, he's ineligible. I think Kerry, and possibly Edwards and Clark and MAYBE (JUST MAYBE) Dean could have won had they run perfect campaigns. But it's very difficult to run a perfect or even a near-perfect campaign, especially against an incumbent President in wartime.

Is how Kerry came so close to taking out a incumbent president during a war. In past elections when there was a war the incumbment usually won by double digits. That was no where's near the case this time.

believe that people fell for it. The next person who says that the American People are wonderful gets a punch in the mouth from me. They are bigoted, nasty and somewhat evil.

Just as Bush says he got more votes than any Republican in history, the same holds true for Kerry as the Democrat! In fact if you reverse the numbers, as I suspect they should be, Kerry got even more votes! He needs to work on his style a little more. I think we need to overcome the flip-flop issue. Even though it is not true. Everything he does from now on should be documented and emailed to everyone that participated in the campaign efforts so that we can be prepared w/ the answer and the proof to everything they will throw at us!

I had to swallow my pride to vote for Kerry this time because he was ABB. I won't do it again. It was painful enough this time. Never again. Not after that horribly run campaign, not after his complicitness in underminding Dean and especially not after his quick concession in the face of vote fraud. Kerry SOLD US OUT. He is an elitist, Skull and Bones, millionaire who will never have to feel the consequences of what another Bush term will do to this country. Screw him!!!

second in line to gore. or maybe vp candidate to gore?

Msongs
Riverside CA

liberal t shirts at
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

and suggested that their motto be "This time it's personal".

I don't know how well it would play with the general public, but it would be fun to watch!

In reality though, the odds of that are slim, because evidently Kerry and Gore don't get along.

why s Al Gore out of the question, but Kerry the leading contender, when Gore actually did better than Kerry? Kerry didn't even have the ghost of Bill Clinton's scandal hanging over him.

How did Gore do better?

I would have voted for him under any circumstances.

.....if they wasn't they would have voted for Bush to start with. Hell for that matter the people that voted for Nader were voting 100% against Kerry and Bush. As far as all the ABB voters as I said before one thing I learned while working on this campaign is there were alot of people that started out as ABB but in the end when they got to know Kerry and met him at rallies and these people are now diehard Kerry supporters. There are plenty of Kerry supporters out there that will continue to support him all the way. Yes there are those ABB voter that won't vote for him again but there are many of those ABB voters that will along with all his supporters he has had from day one.

contrary to public belief.

That was one of the talking points continually used by the RW from the day Kerry won the primary. Originally there was the ABB movement,(mostly on the Internet, not the general public)and the RW used that insistently to diminish the support Kerry gained throughout the campaign. It was meant to persuade any fence sitting voter that Kerry really didn't deserve their vote.

If you followed the campaign and saw the huge, and I mean huge crowds that were at Kerry campaign stops, those people were enthusiastically behind him. That was not indicative of sheep supporting the flavor of the month, but people committed to an individual. I read many posts on this forum where people were ambivalent about Kerry at the start of the campaign, but at the end they not only supported him, but were committed to him as the candidate and as a person who would be a great president.

There's a fine line between voting against someone and voting for someone. In past elections my vote was usually only for my candidate. But in this election, my vote was not only a resounding NO against Bush, but also a resounding YES for Kerry.

He simply ran an awful campaign. He duplicated the Dukakis campaign of 1988. It was embarrassing.

The Democrats need a candidate who will fight every step of the way. Both Gore and Kerry have shown they don't have the stomach for it when the chips are down. Both conceded way too early. Both refused or were not able to respond effectively to negative attacks. Both failed to use some of the best ammunition available to them. Neither had a coherent, concise message.

We need a fighter who won't mind mixing it up.

NT

...he loses points.

win by a strong margin in 2008.
It really depends on what he does with the next 2-3 years.

The fact is that many people are missing the great accomplishment of this campaign: Kerry brought the Democrats back to even on national security. 40 percent of the country said the number one issue was terrorism or Iraq, and they pretty much split 50/50 (80/20 Bush on terrorism and 78/22 Kerry on Iraq).

We live in a new and global age. Any Democratic presidential candidate that wants to be successful will have to be strong on national security. There are a few besides Kerry (Lieberman, Clark and maybe H. Clinton), but Kerry has already proven himself on this issue.

In my judgment, we'd be wise to run him again. He's proven he can run a smart, effective campaign. 20 years ago, if you said an election would be about national security--people would've assumed a Republican landslide. We had an election about national security, and it was pretty much a 50/50 split. There's a big difference between 1984 and 2004. Kerry's a great leader, and I hope he runs again in 2008.

I don't see why we have to just throw our past candidates away like trash, when there's an exhaustively long list of examples where former 'losers' have come back to win BIG in American politics.

--that he puts serious, and I mean really serious, effort into reforming our electoral process so that it is auditable and so that vote suppression stops.

If he doesn't do that, screw him. He doesn't have a chance, and neither will anyone else.