John Kerry's Campaign was well run and other Dem Myths

This post is offered simply as another opinion in regard to the Will Pitt "Where are they now? John Kerry Edition" post.

Kerry's past is laudable and his current largess is greatly needed, but that does not mean his campaign in '04 understood what they were facing on a host of issues.


Kerry failed miserably to fully understand and deal with the media problem. The corporate media relentlessly ran the Rove playbook and they were never directly challenged or marginalized in any way. A good example of this was allowing the Swiftboat Assholes to go unchallenged for weeks while cable news and right wing radio ran their story 24hrs a day. The upcoming elections will undoubtedly offer Joe Centrist the same tidal wave of RNC propaganda, misdirection and smear. I still have yet to see any coherent strategy to deal with this part of the BushCo machine. Without it, Joe Centrist will be easy pickings for the highly skilled Madison Avenue advertising and psyops gurus to work their magic vilifying all things Democrat and Liberal. I, for one, would have advocated SPENDING the money people sent in '04 to elect Kerry IN 2004. Taking into account the lock BushCo had on the media megaphone, Kerry's unspent funds stand as a monument to his failed candidacy.

I like John Kerry and he would have made an infinitely better leader for America, but the Democrats should not offer another candidate that does not understand the ground they occupy in the upcoming battle.

mismanagement and tone deafness have ruined the last two presidential campaigns. Keep Mary Beth Cahill on K Street where she belongs, in other words.

The party will have to connect with its working class base to win, and another DLC led campaign is just not going to do it. The party needs a decisive win to overcome the 4% vote flip in GOP voting machines. Another slim victory will mean another GOP takeover.

Kerry was not a bad candidate. Gore was not a bad candidate. However, their campaigns were torpedoed by the DLC, people who ignore the base and squabble over the mythical swing voter. Pay attention to the base, folks, because that's where the votes are.

I still feel strongly that the DLC robbed Ohio of its chance at taking Mike DeWine's Senate seat away, thanks to the number they pulled on Paul Hackett. But we'll still see about that.

I also feel strongly that we need to keep our candidates far, far away from Tim Russert, the grown man who reads impossibly long "excerpts" to grown men and women in his ever-evolving and self-amusing game of "GOTCHA."

We have learned many lessons since 2000. Will we prove that in 2006? 2008?

Shrum must really talk a good fight. He kept getting hired.

http://www.chelseagreen.com/2005/items/crashingthegate

Here is the thread where we discussed this book

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=209&topic_id=3479&mesg_id=3479

in winning more elections than i assume you have. Leahy, Frank, Pell, Dukakas, A guy in Oregon who got sandbagged by disinformation. So you must be mistaken. By the way Kerry won the gd election. When are you people going to realize it? I hope he runs again and I will proudly work my butt off for him. I will also make sure that the election results are real.

Your wrote:

"By the way Kerry won the gd election."

In most of your reply, I think you are defending Mary Beth Cahill and maybe Shrum. Do you think Ms Cahill would join you in claiming Kerry 'won' the election?

I take it i can't delete a post, oops.

ran things and on their platform, but Clinton had a policy of slapping down the nonsense as soon as it was aired, so the RW never got the traction with smears on him. That was the way HE did things, not the DLC. The DLC handlers have been trying to run a Clinton campaign ever since, except without the rapid-response team they always fuck it up.

or he would have won and Kerry's own polls proved it.

The second he walked out on stage , saluted and said 'John Kerry reporting for duty', it was over. Trying to highlight his military service was sheer stupidity. He was known not for his service but for his reasoned opposition to the war. Embracing the 'hero' thing made him look like a hypocrite and made him easy fodder for the swift-boaters.

I found it absolutely maddening that the 2004 Election seemed to be about the Vietnam War, and not the current, Iraq War.

I thought Kerry made a crucial error when he chose to go down that path, and the Rovians were more than happy to follow right along, lest they talk about current issues and problems that were facing America.

it because the people running the campaign refused or couldn't figure out how to present that side of Kerry. Vietnam was not a topic until the SBV made their appearance. They were taken care of once, but came back stronger with funds contributed by Rove's friend in TX. A little arm twisting by Rove to the media to play this smear piece and sure enough, the anti- war past of Senator Kerry was played over and over in a slanted, slanderous and distorted way. They countered it with the truth, but at the same time the truth was spoken, the political commercial was playing over the truth.

Even during the primary here in Ohio, he had ads on television showing himself as a young sailor. He absolutely made his service in Vietnam a centerpiece of his campaign. Nobody did that to him, he did it to himself.

At the time, I thought it was a good idea... until, say, September, when it became obvious he had boxed himself in, and they were going to take advantage of that.

Classic Rove. The fact the Kerry camp didnt see it coming was pure retardation, because they did it to McCain, too.

He was proud of his service even if it was for a wrong war. He has served his country proudly and he had every right to present that side of himself. It was those who ran the campaign that couldn't figure out how to present the proud soldier who loves his country and the anti-war demonstrator who also loves his country and instead decided to ignore a large part of who Senator Kerry is.
I do not agree at all with your assessment of his campaign being bad. I think in many ways we learned from it and we gained many new voters.

It really could have been a stark comparison to chimpie's conduct regarding the VietNam War. Both Kerry and Bush are children of privilege. One put himself in harm's, and served admirable, the other used Daddy's pull to get in a safe position. It could have been a way to keep asking the question even of chimpie's missing ANG time.
I really think Kerry was politically tone deaf. The 'I voted for it, before I voted against it' was just plain dumb. He indeed had a principled position of the financing of the war, but who the fuck cares, but a small bunch of beltway reporters. For most of the campaign, I think Kerry was more interested in pleasing a select few reporters than he was being a good candidate. Any politician has to be a good candidate, before he is a good elected official.
Would Kerry have been a better President than chimpie, shit yes, beyond question. Was he a better candidate than chimpie? Shit no!.

He couldn't offer them perks or scare them with no admittance. The media is bought and sold by corporations. Corporations have much to gain when Republicans occupy the White House as opposed to Democrats.
Turn on many news channels, read many newspapers and the sway to the right is obvious. Last time I checked, Dem's were still having a hard time getting the message out.
The Bin Laden tape was conveniently aired a couple of days before the election. Wasn't he rolled out every time Bush's numbers went down?

Some mistakes were made in the campaign and Kerry has taken responsibility for the loss. I still contend it was a good campaign that excited many people to get out and vote and got them interested in politics for the first time. I take exception with your suggestion that he was out of touch with what was going on. I do not believe that to be the case at all. What he did was not play to one base or another. What he did was present himself as a Presidential candidate for all the people- not just the anti-war left.

What mistakes were made will not be repeated if he is given the opportunity to prove himself again. Many of our greatest Presidents and other leaders did not win all of their elections the first time around. I think it would be very unfair to discredit Senator Kerry for one tough loss. The past is the past. The Dem's future looks brighter and Senator Kerry has proven himself to be a leader and role model. Give him credit for sucking up the loss, swallowing his pride, learning from his mistakes and stepping up and leading a charge to do what is right for our country.

...Kerry isn't to blame for the lamestream media and the corprat/gov't ownership and control of them. Democrats-at-large are to blame for that problem because they sat on their hands for 20+ years and let the neocons/fascists/religious wrong and big corprats take over the media such that the media are naught but a mouthpiece for the lot of them under the guise of "balanced". Bullshit. The ONLY one - Faux sNewz - gets kudos for being blatantly UNbalanced -- and there is no damn good reason (except lack of $$$ and I'm not sure even about that) that the Center and Left in this country, who ARE THE MAJORITY should not have their own media outlets to present news from the OTHER side of that spectrum had we been paying attention. But Democrats and Progressives sat there and allowed the domination of media by and for the Wrong Wing. So here we sit with seemingly no voice except the internet and the GOPigs and the corprats they represent are trying to choke us out of that, too.

Gone are the days when the media had the integrity and devotion to public service to know when to report truth about power and when to speak truth to power. This problem is bigger and way beyond John Kerry. The lack of control or ability or willingness to deal with that issue happened long before 2004 and a whole lot more people are to blame for it besides Kerry. You're missing the bigger picture and trying to pin the blame on one man when the problem is much bigger, wider, and longer lived than just that.

the reality of the corrupt corporate media during his campaign. He could have certainly taken better counter measures and developed alternative strategies to deal with the problem. His biggest sin was not firing all the bullets in his gun when they would have mattered.

and it worked pretty well -- in otherwords, both kerry and edwards spent a fair amount of time giving interviews to Local papers and TV stations when they were campaigning. And they got good press. This was a strategy. They did this.

As opposed to national cable, which left the best Kerry soundbites on the cutting room floor, while cherrypicking the best Bush soundbites.

their spin as it related to Senator Kerry.

It is really rather interesting to see it all laid out like this.

http://www.eriposte.com/media/bias/media_bias_kerry.htm

So...

Must have been too many fruit loops this morning. Massive sugar buzz! My Bad!

On edit:
The link is the money. The money Kerry is using to support Democrats is a wonderful thing, but I felt it needed to be said that the money was given to Kerry in '04 to be used in '04 and not '06 or '08. Not spending that money highlights perfectly why Kerry ran a bad campaign. Also, I am not just taking shots because I like another candidate. I went to Ohio from Indianapolis to work for the Kerry campaign in '04 and I worked in some of the roughest precincts in Cincinnati in the rain on election day.

2nd edit:

My point is not to bash Kerry. I would hope that if he does run again that he will understand better how to fight because of our discussions here at the DU.

Ya gotta cut that shit with Cap'n Crunch or you'll be bouncing off the walls.

:P

eom

Some caused by the candidate and/or his team; less caused by the other side.
If you cannot counter the other side's points, don't run. If you can't sufficiently present your own points, don't run.
The unexpainably slow and late start Kerry got in the primaries should have been the only hint we needed that he was going to encounter propaganda problems. And, oh boy, did he ever!

...O...

(sp.)

Worse than Dukakis, Mondale, or Carter 1980? Worse than Gore in 2000?

Kerry by no means ran a perfect campaign, but it was hardly the disaster people like to think. Kerry's favorability ratings were as good as Clinton's in 1992 and never during the course of the campaign dipped below 50%. for all of his mistakes in August, he mercilessly attacked Bush over the war and over several other issues from September through November, closing a five-to-ten point Bush lead and winning all 3 debates. There was incredible intensity in the days leading up to the election; nothing like 1980, 1984, 1988 or even 2000. For all the "Against_Bush_Not_Against_Kerry"-talk, his approval ratings about Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters were as high as Clinton's in 1992 and his overall approval rating never dipped below 50% during the campaign.

Moreover, while we like to think that Bush infinitely beatable, his approval ratings were consistently around the upper 40s and his final approval rating before the election was 51%; he was running in a climate of fear and plenty of people felt that "we shouldn't switch horses in midstream." Bush could have been beaten in '04 (and many would say that he was) but it was never going to be an easy race and there's the possibility that given the partisan polarization, even had Kerry or whoever run a perfect campaign Bush still would have won (or stolen the election if you believe that).

convention.

They refused to directly challenge Bush's disasterous policy. The entire campaign seemed to everyone to be a line of: "We can do everythign they're doing, but better."

Thats not what a lot of people were looking for. Some of us wanted an opposition party.

especially in Kerry's speech.

Carter's speech was merciless on Bush foreign policy.

So this sounds to me like wishful revisionism.

The Carter speech got a lot of press at the time around the fact that Carter refused to have it screened by Kerry's handlers, and as an ex-President he was able to get away with that. The Carter speech was the exception and he had to pull rank to say what he wanted unedited.

Of course Bush was "mentioned", he was President of the United States, but the media at the time was counting how many times Bush was mentioned at the Democratic Convention compared to how often Kerry was mentioned at the Republican Convention, and it was a very very lop sided comparison. I can go dig up old posts that I wrote here at the time where I was really upset about the way the Democratic Convention was then being stage managed.

was absolutely a testament to how poorly run his campaign was. Good observation. It makes their decision to pull out of so many states before election day, like Missouri, look even more foolish.

Also Ohio could have used a piece of that million bucks too.

Missouri was not ignored for many months until a few weeks before election day when volunteers showed up one day to a closed headqaurters office after the staff were sent to Ohio. Kerry got 46% in Missouri. There's no doubt that a full push can make up for a 5% point loss.

And yes, we needed all the help we could get. Won it for Kerry, but not by much.

It would make more sense if you were talking about a different Dem who could have benefitted from the money Kerry couldn't use in his own campaign. Kerry said he gave out all that was asked for, and more than had ever been given out before, but perhaps more could have been given to help other Dems even still.

But to say that he could use what was left over from the primary run in his general election race is wrong. He couldn't.

And still, I always ask someone who comments on the "millions" two things: 1. how much do you think it was and 2. where did you get the info.

I remember the info coming from Donna Brazille right after the election. I don't particularly trust her perspective, esp. since GORE had money left over as well, roughly the same as Kerry iirc what I saw on www.opensecrets.org

when the campaign was almost immobile and was very slow to transition to nominee-mode. A lot of primary money could have been spent but was wasted because the organization was not prepared to move forward aggressively as the primaries were winding down.

Thank the DNC for scheduling the convention so early. Once Kerry got the nomination, he could only spend the 75 million limit.

Did the thought of a thread that highlights all Kerry is doing to win us a majority in this year's election piss you off or something? Does it piss you off that he's busting his ass to get a Democratic majority? Your timing is curious at best.

Also, the link of this post to Will's post is the money Kerry is using to elect Democrats in '06. That left over Kerry money highlights the huge media problem that Democrats are going to have to deal with this election cycle. It is vital that Democrats understand not only on how to raise money, but how and when to spend it. If realistically discussing the failures of Kerry's campaign can help Democrats in the fall, we should endeavor to do it.

Scapegoating Kerry for everything that went wrong in 2004 is not productive nor honest. I'm not saying you're trying to do that, but I see it a lot around here - people who think that all our problems could just be instantly solved by a bright shiny new face who would magically make none of the mistakes Kerry made and do everything right the first time. That's so ridiculously unrealistic it's laughable.

Did Kerry make mistakes? Sure, and he admits it. But the biggest problem the Dems had in 2004 was an absolute lack of infrastructure and an absolutely worthless set of pundits who did NOTHING to help Kerry/Edwards in 2004. Terry McAuliffe was next to worthless, and he blames ALL of 2004's mistakes on Kerry, conveniently ignoring that his DNC utterly failed to support Kerry when he most needed it. McAuliffe's refusal to acknowledge his culpability in what went wrong is hypocritical and dishonest, and dare I say it, calculating, as he has already pledged his support to Hillary in 2008. Frankly, if she wants such bumbling ineptitude on her campaign, she's welcome to it.

Yes, Kerry could have done some things better. He knows that. ANY candidate will make mistakes in a campaign of that magnitude, especially with a deck stacked utterly against you as he faced in 2004. But to blame Kerry for everything in 2004 is unfair and shortsighted, as it ignores that he could not POSSIBLY have been aware of every single level of the campaign in every state, nor could he change the absolute clusterfuck that was the DNC. Kerry's biggest mistake, IMO? Hiring worthless advisors. Kerry is a strong, articulate, courageous liberal and muffling him was the WORST thing that his advisors could have done. He definitely erred in trusting them, but his action since the election shows he learned that lesson very well. Again, Hillary is welcome to those bumbling advisors if she wants them.

I agree with you on several points. My post could have been clearer on several issues. Kerry himself admitted to many failure which is one of the reasons I like him. He is smart enough to learn from his mistakes.

attack, instead point out that Rove is attacking, and why, and how, and then attack Rove.

I honestly felt then, and now, that that is the ONLY way to defuse Rovian swiftboating, expose the swiftboaters and why they're doing it.

too bad I wasn't a DLC strategist.

be used after the convention. Kerry warned about that as early as Spring 2004 and proposed to find a way to use this money, either by not accepting public financing or by not accepting the nomination at Boston.

If you do not remember the screams good Democrats pushed when he said that, you were not paying attention.

We can say Kerry listened to his staff and the Democratic strategists too much. This is a very warranted reproach IMO, but who else would have not done the same?

What we need is to be sure that our next candidate is somebody who will not use the DC strategists because they are too careful and not ready to act quickly. (It is obvious these days with the Democratic plan for 06).

Saying it was not the worst campaign in the history of the United States is not to say it was the bestest run campaign ever either.

Gore's campaign was flawed as well, but he almost won. Kerry's campaign came on strong mostly at the end, started to build momentum perhaps too late. He came close enough and made the Republicans nervous enough that they thought they'd have to cheat to win. Kerry was far from being a Dukakis, Mondale or McGovern in terms of votes.

joe conservative. I frequent a lot of 2nd ammendment boards and they're in open revlot over the neocons wholesale threading of the BoR.

Jesus H. Christ, some of you are still so BLIND. I don't know whether to laugh or cry reading after reading the OP, or the ignorance in the posts that follow it. My GODS. Learn to read. Go read real history. No, the propaganda doesn't count. If you immerse yourself in the facts long enough, you might start to absorb some of them, and recognize that Kerry's dance with the whorish, shark-laden corporate media in '03-'04 (which was, among other things, trying to literally kill him) was a delicate and skillful enterprise few could have topped, especially considering that basically no one in media (including that allegedly on the "left" or on the Internets) was in his corner.

The Party isn't perceived to be "in trouble" because of the so-called image problem being bred by the MSM. It's in trouble because of idiots like you.

just because they posted something you disagree with?

The OP laid out an opinion. Disagree with it, if you will, but ad hominems just make others recoil from your hostility and completely invalidate your post.

Clearly there were errors--and Kerry admits there were errors and is demonstrating he has learned from them. This does not mean it was not a good campaign. After the fact it is easy to criticize. It is much harder to come up with the right decision every time something happens during a campaign.

It is easy to call the campaign a failure as they did not win, but running against an incumbent President during time of war is difficult. Most likely other candidates would have done worse than Kerry did under these circumstances. Consider races such as McGovern versus Nixon.

While obviously we would have preferred a victory, Kerry left the race with Democrats in good position to pick up support this year. A really bad campaign could have actually given the Republicans that "permanent majority" they claimed to have won despite an extrememly narrow victory.

Any Democratic candidate would have lost due to BBVs and the lazy MSM. This armchair analysis you've waged is tired and pedestrian.

He's my man in '08, though!

and you will get flamed non stop by the we-want-to-keep-losing crowd.

and scared the American public. The media went along for the ride.

from jail.

I can dream, right?

Kerry should have immediately challenged Bush to a special debate focused solely on their military service.
Bush would have refused the challenge.
Case closed.
I sure don't want to see Donna Brazile anywhere near our 2008 candidate.