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Four more years?
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Dog 3000
Dog 3000
4611 posts

Re: Kerry's fault? - pt1
Nov 04, 2004, 17:53
First of all, I didn't mean my comments to be aimed personally at you Grufty, it's a general-purpose diatribe aimed at those wandering around this week mumbling "i can't believe it . . . i don't understand . . . how can people be so stupid!" My town went for Kerry by a 35%+ margin, so I literally feel surrounded by this attitude.

I'd also like to make it clear that everything I'm talking about here is purely in terms of TACTICS & STRATEGY . . . not "positions on the issues" or "who's right or wrong."

>And just what the hell kind of person thinks "well, I
>*was* going to vote for John Kerry, but that Michael
>Moore guy really pisses me off, so I'll vote for Dubya
>instead"? I'll tell you what kind... a Bush voter.

What kind of analysis is that? It's almost a tautology -- yes, people who voted for Bush are "Bush voters." But the point is there were 7 million more Bush voters in 2004 than in 2000. Who are these NEW Bush voters? Women, Catholics and Hispanics are three traditionally democratics voting blocks where Bush picked up a lot of support vs. the last election (or one could argue the flipside that Bush didn't win these voters, "Kerry lost them.")

Overall Bush got a higher % of the popular vote in 45 out of 50 states. Bush also won among every age group over 30. The evangelical vote is significant, but not sufficient to win an election (and they're one of those solid blocks that isn't going to shift loyalties anyway -- a known quantity.)

As always, it was the party that did the better job of peeling off moderate swing voters won. Have you noticed that for the past week or two Bush has been making direct overtures to moderate dems? It appears to be working . . . meanwhile Kerry never made an appeal to moderate republicans. How could he when surrounded by the likes of Susan Sarandon and Al Franken? Those guys are anathema to republicans. It's like if Bush went around campaigning for dem votes with Rush Limbaugh in tow . . .

My point is, if you want to understand what happened start by looking at the actual results of the election, don't start with your personal animus against Bush. Do you (plural) want to beat the republicans next time, or do just want to continue the "fuck bush circle jerk" for four more years?

IN SPITE of having an approval rating under 50% . . .

IN SPITE of the vast majority of Americans saying they think we're "on the wrong track" . . .

Bush still GAINED support vs. 2000 across the board. HOW could Kerry fail to beat such an unpopular president?

I think Kerry himself (and his campaign team) get about half the blame. The rest I assign to the Michael Moore / "Fuck Bush" crowd, who poisened the well for the democrats by reducing a very serious debate to a stream of epithets and punk rock compilations.
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Kerry's fault? - pt1 (grufty jim)
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