Reply #19: Kerry ran as an uber-centrist in 2004.... [View All]

[mike_c]

He refused to condemn the war against Iraq and banished all antiwar sentiment-- the single most hot-button issue for the left-- from the convention and the campaign. He embraced Bush's call for a "war on terror" and a security state in America. He refused to push environmental issues except in the blandest imaginable way. He refused to fight for equal rights without respect to sexual orientation. He did not articulate even one single policy proposal that was significantly different from the issues that the republican party framed-- not one. He never did the equivalent of asking whether we really needed a "war on terror" or whether it was really in the best interests of the U.S. to pursue it. He tried to appeal to all those "swing voters" who vote in the gray area between the dems and repubs. And on and on.

Sure, Kerry had great liberal creds-- right up until the time he began campaigning against the likes of Dean and Kucinich. Then, inexplicably, he veered toward the middle, where the road-kill lays.

on edit-- and besides, your argument ignored the essential point of my response-- that MANY on the left, in the green party, did in fact support the Kerry campaign at considerable cost to their own state organizations. When will the centrist dems return the favor and vote for a liberal green?