Oh the

[ProSense]

bullshit! Time to start insulting voters to make a friggin point!

So here's a radical thought: Maybe there's nothing wrong with the Democrats, politically speaking.

They've won the popular vote in three of the past four presidential elections. Their one outright loser was Sen. John F. Kerry, who had the liberal voting record that moderates warn about and the inability to take a stand that liberals warn about. Voters -- even his supporters -- told pollsters they didn't like him. But they weren't turned off by his entire party; Democrats won Senate races in red states such as Colorado and Arkansas in 2004, and ran far ahead of Kerry in South Dakota and Kentucky.

So how did Kerry become the party's standard-bearer? Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire, liberal and moderate, thought a military veteran had the best chance to beat Bush. They analyzed the political landscape, tried to imagine what the American people wanted in a president and voted accordingly. Their analysis just happened to be wrong.

They voted, in other words, like pundits.

Maybe that's what's wrong with the Democrats.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/09/AR2006060901977_2.html

[JohnKleeb]

1. Fuck that shit

Yeah we nominated Kerry even though most people didn't like him. If people just wanted a candidate with military credentials they would have nominated Clark. So to hell with that argument, it doesn't make any sense. I am sick of this blatant revisionism that Democrats really didn't like Kerry when they decided to vote for him. Goddamn it pisses me off.

[karynnj]

2. I'm getting very sick of their need to remind people that

they don't like Kerry. Kerry won the nomination easily and it wasn't because people suddenly decided to become pundits - that's stupid. If the only selling point people voted on was military veteran, Clark would have won. So, now Kerry's a liberal again.

I suspect they worry about him speaking the truth. I do find it weird that a year and a half after a reasonably close election where the WP was part of the biased press tilting the playing field that they think we might have forgotten that we don't like Kerry. (Even though even here, when pushed most will say he is a good, decent man and that he's very intelligent and is pushing the right things. The negatives cited are that he didn't win or that he can't win. Pretty positive for a guy that no one likes.)

[JohnKleeb]

3. Yeah after all Clark was career military

Kerry was a citizen soldier, and he was not the only one who was one. It was never brought up really but Gephardt was in the Air National Guard, never active duty but served none the less.

[karynnj]

6. Not to mention that Kerry's anti-war activities and his incredible

testimony were far better known. I know in 2003, that was the first thing I thought of. Obviously I knew he was a vet, but I don't think I ever realized how highly decorated he was.

[JohnKleeb]

7. Silver Star I believe is third from a congressional medal of honor

That's pretty impressive.

[Mass]

5. For the Post, Kerry has always been liberal. The Post has been

sliding slowly towards a right-center, hawkish stance that is close to TNR, and they have not changed. They would have been happy with Lieberman (or eventually Edwards, who was enough hawkish for them), but Kerry was never what they wanted (Dean and Kucinich excepted, may be).

Their endorsement of Kerry against Bush was certainly not a vibrant one, on the contrary.

[Mass]

4. A pundit telling others not to be pundit. And also another not liberal

Democrat not wanting a liberal democrat.

There is no question that the Washington Post did not want Kerry to run. Too liberal for them. They wanted Lieberman. So dont be surprised to see that type of BS. At least, they called that an opinion, and, as for most opinion, who cares.

Kerry has the same pb at the Post he has at TNR: he is NOT AN AWK (I know, when you read DU, you wonder). He is somebody who has a real experience in foreign policy, and stands for values the Post disagrees with (remember how many times they said they disagreed with Kerry on Iraq during the campaign, and not, like others, because he was pro-war, but because he wanted to involve other countries.

[ProSense]

8. I posted some thoughts

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2673571&mesg_id=2673571

[fedupinBushcountry]

9. The SOB'S

how quickly they forget that Kerry got 10 million more votes then Clinton and almost 9 million more then Gore. How did they forget to mention that he came closest to outing a wartime pResident. Pure fucking lazy reporting. I am so sick of this. The MSM needs a good kick in the ass.

[JohnKleeb]

10. Was one state away from beating Bush too

Yet the fucking morons on our side act like he lost in a McGovernsque landslide and that "anyone" could have beat Bush. Sick of the fucking ignorance and naiveness of our armchair stragetists who know as much about politics as they know about anyhting else.

[wisteria]

11. This outraged me enough, that I e-mailed him. These jerks have

to be told that people do not agree with them. He is so obvious in his choices and loyalties it is obnoxious.

Now, has this guy ever said anything good about Senator Kerry? I recall another smear piece a few months ago.

[Dr Ron]

12. Started out so good

"They've won the popular vote in three of the past four presidential elections..."

Now that was a good start. I'd take it from there to say that even the one who lost came awfully close for running against an incumbent during war--closer than anyone else in memory has under this situation.

Then I'd note that more people have voted for Democrats for the Senate than Republicans. Republicans have more seats only because of the fact that smaller states get as many Senators as Republicans.

Next I'd note that the Republicans would have a much narrower margin in the House if not for the shady Texas redistricting.

In other words, the country is very closely divided.

It could have been a good article if they took it in this direction instead of all the BS they wrote. There are many weak attacks an Kerry going around. One of them is to deny him credit for winning the nomination so decisively by claiming people didn't really support Kerry. They just voted for the one they thought others would vote for. Everybody thought everybody else would vote for Kerry so they voted for him for the nomination.

Strange argument. Personally I think they voted for Kerry because they found him to be the best candidate.

[ProSense]

13. Just checked

Kerry also won the primaries with nearly 7 million votes. Edwards was second with nearly 3 million; and Dean came in third with about 750,000. Delegates were 2162, 534 and 170, respectively.

[Mass]

14. Another view of Kerry by the same man, in 2004

http://www.slate.com/id/2096540/

John Kerry's Waffles
If you don't like the Democratic nominee's views, just wait a week.
By Michael Grunwald

The man was writing from Slate, and they did all they could to kill Kerry (we all remember kaus (no, not kos) and William Saletan.

No reason the man has changed - Lieberman would have been such a great nominee.

[Dr Ron]

15. Good find

Thanks--you posted just in time for me to add this to my post on Democratic Daily:

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=3277

I had mixed opinions on even commenting on this as doing so means giving his article a link. I decided to do so because of sites like Memeorandum and Megite. People will see both a link to his column and a link to my post on it, rather than just his column alone. Washington Post also includes links to blogs discussing an article and Democratic Daily often comes up high on their lists.

[Dr Ron]

16. It worked

Memeorandum http://www.memeorandum.com/ now lists my response first after their listing of the article. Hopefully many of the people who follow the link to the article and see the Kerry bashing will also read my rebuttal.

Megite links to the Washingoton Post article slightly differently. I just revised my post to increase the chances of Megit picking it also.

It typically takes a bit longer than this to get a link directly from Washington Post.

[karynnj]

18. Does this explain it?

"During the 1996 campaign, when I was a Globe reporter, "

That is one nasty article.

[wisteria]

20. Thank you for finding this. I knew I recognized the name Grunwald

from somewhere.

[ProSense]

22. That's despicable!

This is why the MSM was successful in confusing voters. There was no safe place for objectivity.

[ProSense]

17. OMG!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2673702&mesg_id=2673702

[JI7]

19. Clinton did things like execute a mentally ill guy and support DOMA

Clinton ran ads in conservative areas bragging about singing the anti gay bill. and of course the sista soulja thing. this made him more appealing to certain white voters who are afraid the liberals are going to let the minorities take over and other things.

[karynnj]

21. Not to mention that Clinton advised Kerry to endorse

all the nasty anti-gay referendums. This would likely have LOST the election as it would have been contrary to everything Kerry had ever said. I liked that he mentioned those referendums in his FMA statement that Mass posted -

"When similar State amendments were adopted in Ohio, Michigan, and Utah, domestic violence laws and health care plans for couples--gay and straight--were taken away."

I am glad that Kerry's immediate response was that he would never do that.

(By the way, I wonder why no one pointed to Kerry's removal of the Kos link after his reprehensible comments as a Sistah Sojah moment. Clinton took no real risk attacking gangstah rap, Kerry did take a risk in taking a principled stand against an article by Kos. )

[ProSense]

23. You now see the

full effect of the Clinton people, From and Reed, trying to distort reality. They are in force trying to paint Kerry as centrist!

[Dr Ron]

24. It's all relative

Considering the ambiguity in the terms I don't care if someone wants to call Kerry a centrist (although obvioulsy left of center centrist). In a general election this could be helpful. By European standards our liberals are pretty centrist, perhaps even right of center (while Bush would really be far right).

However, if you call Kerry a centrist, you can't consider Clinton, Dean, Edwards, Warner, and others more conservative than Kerry a liberal.

[ProSense]

25. Exactly!

Europeans are Socialist, and Democrat never pretended to be Socialist. Dealing with Republicans, Democrats and a center in American politics, Kerry is more left than most. Kerry is unique in that he does appeal to the center and stays true to liberal values. The problem is the constant portrayal of Kerry as centrist by those who want others to believe the real centrist are more liberal!

[Dr Ron]

26. They also forget any candidate will move towards the center

Elections are win in the center and any nominee in 2004 would have likley moved towards the center considering the Reupblicans were running a far right candidate.

I recall back on Dean's blog in mid 2003 that they thought Dean would win the nomination as the anti-war candidate, and then move towards the center (with his moderate record in Vermont) to win the general election campaign.

The problem is that many people with no knowlege of Kerry see his appeals to moderates during the campaign as meaning Kerry is more conservative than he is.

[karynnj]

27. I think this actually helped him in 2004

Kerry is not a scary radical leftist liberal. I liked his answer that he didn't like labels. It's clear to me that he simply considers each issue on its merits. I suspect many people respected the freshness of his positions and the obvious thought he gave them. This, however, is why Grumwald was able to create the chart that he did in the 2004 article. Grumwald sees through an ideological prism and sees comments or votes that do not follow lockstep from a rigid position as deviations or flip flops. What they do show is a person willing to consider whether a bill, as a whole, makes things better or worse. Only in the floor speech can he say what he would choose to do. So, some flip flops are really only small shifts magnified by the yes/no nature of votes.

To use a more recent example, I see enormous overlap between what he said in various CAFTA speeches and his NAFTA speech - although he voted no in one case and yes in the other. The speeches though both showed he understood the economy was global, their were major problems and huge shifts in the economy. The difference in the votes reflect seeing the impact of NAFTA and the fact that CAFTA was actually worse. Personally, I am far more comfortable with Kerry's full explanation than with someone who says free trade is the answer or who is a knee jerk protectionist, which won't work in the world of 2006. The key point is that Kerry did not go from free trade to protectionist, he always was in the middle.

It takes far more effort, intelligence and insight to actually think about each issue and many people take the easy way out by choosing the standard position for their side.