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Sekhmet, I completely agree. During the primaries, no one was saying, I really like Kerry's policies, or how he handles himself, the reason most people seemed to vote for him was they thought he had the best chance of winning. Why? Because he didn't have the "anger" of Howard Dean, and he had a military background. First, you're not going to top Bush on the military issues, he's the war president, unfortunately that means he had to create wars, but you're not going to empower your base with that. Second, Howard Dean's anger was a good thing, so much of the country was angry, it would have been good to have a candidate who could express that.
The thing that really bothers me about Kerry was that he was such a compromise. The Republicans didn't win by getting the most harmless, mainstream candidate. They brought out the most conservative president since at least the 1920s, and ran with it. Kerry could never be a real contrast to Bush since he had the same stand on most of the big issues. He couldn't really be against the Iraq war, becuase he had voted for it, and even said he would still have voted for it, knowing everything he knew now. That one statement completely fucked him, and may have lost him the election, because when he criticized the Iraq war, the republicans could always just bring out flip flopper, and take the emphasis off criticism of Iraq. They couldn't have done that for Dean.
Also, he was way too weak in attacking Bush, in a meaningful way. Bush supports a ban on gay marriage, come right out and call him a homophobic bigot. He criticized Bush well in the debates, but only on foreign policy. I feel like he could have done so much more on domestic policy, becuase that's where he has policies that actually differ strongly from Bush's.
Obviously there's some bias at work, but I think the reason Kerry failed was becuase he didn't put forth a clear agenda that would inspire liberals. I know very few people who voted for Kerry, but a lot of people who voted against Bush. |
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