We passed on a great labor candidate (Gephardt) and a new hopeful (Dean) to pick a Yankee Senator

[Czolgosz]

(Kerry) who lost.

HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING FROM 2004?

[wyldwolf]

1. So your suggestion is Dean or Gephardt would have won?

[Tejanocrat]

16. It's hard to say. Dean was bringing enthusiastic new participants to the process (like Obama does)

and who is to say how those new voters and their participation would have played out?

Gephardt was standing up for workers and middle class (like Edwards does), and it is easy to see that the general election would have been about whether the middle class faces a greater threat from falling wages, diminishing access to health care, and job insecurity than any "threat" from Al Qaeda. Who is to say how that dynamic would have played out.

We do know that an establishment candidate who is a sitting Senator representing a blue state in New England has weaknesses.

[wyldwolf]

20. Kerry got more votes than any Democratic candidate in history..

I imagine a few of them had to have been "enthusiastic new participants."

[Tejanocrat]

22. Kerry has served the last four years in the Senate instead of the White House.

I can't help but think Dean was a more attractive candidate to the "enthusiastic new participants."

FWIW, I jumped from Kucinich to Kerry before the Iowa caucus in 2004 so I'm not a Kerry hater. I'm just trying not to lose this one.

[wyldwolf]

24. which doesn't mean Dean or Gephardt would have won, and the numbers Kerry got...

...shows that.

[Tejanocrat]

26. Well, we know where the Kerry nomination got him (the Senate); whether candidates standing for labor

and the middle class or standing for hope and bringing new voices to the party would have fared better is a matter we will never know, but we know that they would not have spent fewer days in the White House than Kerry.

[wyldwolf]

32. yes, but you're essentially claiming that candidates the Dems rejected would have done better...

...for no other reason than you like them better.

[Tejanocrat]

39. No. If you look up thread, I said that "it's hard to say." Plus, I don't "like them better" because,

as I said, I supported Kucinich and then Kerry, and did not support Gephardt or Dean.

I wonder how Dean or Gephardt would have done.

In retrospect, I think I undervalued how many new and enthusiastic participants Dean may have brought to the party and I undervalued the fact that Gephardt stood for well-defined pro-labor/pro-middle class principles.

[karynnj]

34. Kerry had an extraordinary number of new participants

I assume Dean would have had them as well.

The people that also needed winning over were those that had approved of Bush even in late 2003 (when he was often near 60%), who had to be convinced that they would be safer. These people were why the SBVT dishonestly attacked Kerry's service - not his protests. Remember the video of the Rassman reunion - what was the feeling seeing a Republican cop, ex-marine, weeping as he was hugged by the tall Senator from MA who had saved his life. I remember a Daily Kos thread in the wake of the convention when the story of Kerry saving the life of NV Senator, Hetch (sp?) who was choking amid a group of Republicans with no idea what to do. It was euphoric - Kerry had saved Rassman, Kerry had saved his crew and the crew of 2 other boats, Kerry saved 40 some Vietnamese villagers when he took them from the free fire zone to get them out of danger and to medical care and food - against orders, Kerry saved Del Sandowsky in recent years when he had a reoccurance of PTSD - by keeping him on the phone for hours, finding him a VA unit to help and then because Del had no one else, acting as his mentor. Remember Davis Alston, the AA crew member, now a minister at the convention speaking of how Kerry spoke to all of them to make sure they were ok after battles. This was further reinforced by Vanessa and Alexandra speaking of how he was always there for them - even if it meant jumping into water to rescue the pet hamster of an obviously adored little daughter.

A traumatized person has difficulty reaching for change, even when they accept that they are in a bad situation. There is enormous fear that it could be worse - and that would be unbearable. Though none of these things were directly related to any actions a President would take, thing what they showed. Kerry was a strong man physically, emotionally and mentally - he cared and he acted. If you were writing fiction, you might reject giving so many heroic events to a character, but this would be the type of fictional character you would create as one that people could trust to look out for them.

This was the framing that the Republicans, media and the SBVT worked to destroy. It was almost enough to make him the first man to defeat a sitting President in a time of war, which is more remarkable as the country was far more fearful than we were in the Vietnam War (we were angry, wanted it to end, but there was no fear).

Consider too that Kerry's debates were incredible - and, from there primary debates, likely better than either Gephardt or Dean could have done.

[slick8790]

37. To be fair, Bush also got the most votes for any candidate ever.

The amount of votes isn't exactly a measure of quality. Also, I think a lot of Kerry's votes were anti-bush votes, which is all well and good, but it obviously wasn't enough.

[wyldwolf]

48. completely beside the point

There simply is no case to be made that had the nominee been Howard Dean, he would have gotten more.

[karynnj]

33. Changing the Democratic candidate would not have

unilaterally changed the general election to being about the middle class - not to mention Kerry had what was considered the best healthcare plan of all 2004 candidates.

In 2004, when a majority of people were thrown into fear by terror alerts and events like Breslin, national; security was going to be the top issue. Kerry was more than "a NE Senator", he was one of the few Democrats with real national security credentials - not from being a genuine war hero in Vietnam - but because of his work on dealing with international crime and non-state terrorism. He was one of the people genuinely concerned and putting together solutions in the 1990s. His international money laundering bills written in the 1990s were enacted as part of the Patriot act. He did mention it - and people like Lake and Richard Clarke praised him on being one of few who understood the threat - but it was hard to make a campaign issue because it dealt with the time before Bush was President.

PS Vermont is Yankee too.

[yardwork]

2. Kerry did not lose. The 2004 election was stolen.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. And 2008 will be stolen too

just watch.

[cali]

14. Didn't you also predict that 2006 would be stolen?

Why yes, I'm quite sure you did.

[still_one]

6. no, Kerry lost. He was a terrible candidate. However, in 2000, the election was stolen

and I remember clearly Kerry saying that they had all the people on the ground, and what happened in 2000, would not happen in 2004.

Well, when 2004 rolled around, HE DID NOTHING TO INSURE ANYTHING CHANGED

Kerry lost because he did nothing about the vote counting, even though he said he would

What they did to Dean was outrageous. Someone got to the media to insure they would continuously paint him as a "crazy" man because of the "scream". I saw that speech live, and the lies and distortions that the media presented were outrageous

There was talk at the time, that people in the Kerry camp were responsible for that, I hope that isn't true
but either way Dean wasn't even given a chance, and he was right about the war, and almost everything else, before ite became "popular"

As far as Gephardt, he was the most pro-war on Iraq of all the candidates at the time. No way would I want him as our nominee in 2004 because of that

[yardwork]

8. I agree with you about both Dean and Gephardt, but disagree about 2004.

The 2004 election was stolen. I witnessed it in Ohio. Kerry ran a lousy campaign, too, which helped the White House get within shouting distance. I was also disappointed with the way that Kerry folded so quickly.

The OP is trying to scare Democrats away from nominating someone from the northeast. Maybe that is a bad strategy, but Kerry is not an example of a northeasterner losing because of demographics.

Anyway, the two Republican front-runners are from Massachusetts and New York, so the northeastern bugaboo is stale this year.

[still_one]

10. The point I was making is that Kerry was, should have been well aware of what was happening

In fact, he even assured his supporters, that he wouldn't let it happen. Someone didn't do their job, and what is unfortunate, very little has been done to address it even today

If the OP is trying to scare Democrats away from nominating someone from the northeast, the odds our it won't work

I will support WHOEVER the DEMOCRATIC candidate is in 2008, and work to get the vote out, because if we have the people out in numbers, it will be much more difficult for them to fix the election

[yardwork]

11. I agree on all points.

[PATRICK]

19. I was going to disagree too but

what he meant was that the campaign had no range of response to the fraud and therefore "lost", sometimes in ways before the votes even made it to tally. There was an effort(that Dean seems to want to improve on THIS time) to guard the polls and fight the suppression. Yet the GOP increases its cheating and does not give up easily any of it. Then running silent on the dirt and the fraud as if it wasn't there. Not to discourage voters? If it takes an extra ten per cent to shut out GOP fraud why run with the left hand tied behind your back and acting as if GOP electionland is fair?

So while there is every bit of evidence that Bush acted to steal the election, there is matching evidence that Kerry did not effectively oppose it or even make it an issue much less create any possibility at all for a challenge. Winning and losing in this rigged system has only one meaning. First, beat the fraud and get a fair shake. Then we win with just about ANYONE, like the GOP proved it could do.

So long as we are not given Dems who confront the fraud effectively and surrender millions of votes before the polls open we'll never know. NO stigma or common sense effects the GOP. Only if they have decent Dem incumbent they can't bullhorn away or they simply self-destruct. The Northeast thing this year is different, but I think the poster is saying we are not thinking strategically to win but thinking, like our candidate, that we can win with half measures, caution, avoidance, lousy demographics. Hillary's one demographic is the female voter, notably new, the GOP woman voter. This may prove to be as tenuous as the significance of Joe Lieberman delivering the Jewish vote. Of course that would spell doom.

On the other hand, if we can help Hillary really win despite our forebodings, we must. Then instead of blaming her after, we should finally purge the leadership in some way to find people better engaged with a fascist reality other than accepting and even admiring its game. It will be late in the twilight by then. Maybe this is also due to OUR terrible campaigning?

[still_one]

38. My wording was not good. Sure there was election fraud

but since 2000 we should have known what we were up against, and done more to fight it

[PATRICK]

49. Damn right

Instead we faced the utter horror of seeing a grand GOP initiative to increase fraud to the max when that might well have been the most justified and only issue the Dems needed to concentrate on. Instead they slid off to the side like slickly conned, embarrassed rubes in denial. Instead they let themselves be suckered by lobbyists and bi-partisan frauds like HAVA. In five minutes or less one could be educated enough about any part of the electronic voting fraud and instead SOS Dems took the sales pitch of GOP corporations and money under the table. Not even cynical enough to get any benefit, even a crooked one, out of anything.

A big demonstration of the lack of leadership and basic survival instincts right at the top. Dean showed that their meek acceptance of the INABILITY of the Dem rank and file to donate like the GOP was bunk. It certainly is a losing profile no matter how you look at it: media helplessness, permanent second place in corporate money(but will sell soul and serve faithfully), permanent mild behavior, bi-partisan, defensive of the liberal tag, total faith in focus group navel gazing, bean counting when the beans are rigged, intellectual tour de forces of impotent legislation, too many rich legislators out of touch with their constituents in so many physically basic ways. Too unruffled to worry about the people dying under their polite counterpoint to the shrill fascists.

[proud2BlibKansan]

21. They stole 2004 too

Kerry (and the party) could have fought back but chose not to. Yes, Kerry was not the best candidate. But he DID win in 2004.

Read ARMED MADHOUSE. Best reporting on what actually happened.

[2rth2pwr]

29. "Someone got to the media.."

How does that happen?

[karynnj]

35. He had lawyers and they stopped many things

It is impossible to guard against everything. As Dean has said when he took over the DNC after Kerry lost, many of the state parties were a mess.

There is no way that starting in March 2004 when he for all purposes won the nominations, that he could have changed any state laws and practices that needed changing and rebuilt each of the state parties in addition to the huge task that a candidate really has of being the candidate and creating a huge organization pulling people together that were fighting against you only the week before.

Any talk that Kerry people got the media to focus on the Dean scream is ludicrous. First off, if they had so much influence on the media wouldn't they have used it in December and January to get media coverage for Kerry that did not focus on when he would be pulling out? I'm sure that Kerry would have preferred the main story of Iowa to be his incredible win - he got 38% to Dean's 18%. Even had there been no "scream", the story out of the Dean camp would have been why the person thought to be a likely first or at worse a very close second to Gephardt was a poor third to Kerry. Kerry likely would have preferred more coverage of his victory speech surrounded by firemen and veterans. (In NH, Dean had already been losing support to Clark. Kerry surged after he won Iowa, mostly gaining from Clark and undecided adding to those already for him.)

Dean and Kerry were not that far apart on the war - in the fall of 2002 or in 2003. Kerry had to vote and should have voted against the IWR, but there was never a time where he spoke in favor of going to war - he continued to argue against going to war arguing that more diplomacy was possible. On other issues, Kerry had the better environmental credentials and surprisingly, a better healthcare plan than Dr. Dean and as Senator Kennedy said, Kerry had written much of what passed as SCHIP in a bill the he and Kerry co-sponsored in 1996. Kerry's stand on how to address the war on terror was more thought out than any other candidate and he had led the investigation that closed OBL's bank. So, what issues was Kerry wrong on that Dean was right on?

[Tejanocrat]

18. It would be harder to steal an election where the candidate is competitive in all 50 states instead

of running a race where the candidate wins the blue states, virtually concedes the red states, and then puts all our hope on winning a few steal-able elections in a couple of swing states.

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. I really like Dean...

...but he came across as pretty damn Yankee also. Less of a "patrician" vaneer than Kerry, but Yankee.

[still_one]

9. Someone screwed Dean, most likely he would have been the nominee

if "they" had got to the media to paint him as unstable

It was at that momement, and during the swift boating of Kerry that I cancelled all my U.S. MSM subscriptions, and stopped watching the MSM on the idiot box

[karynnj]

36. He got only 18% before the scream, Kerry got 38%

It wasn't the scream. Not to mention Trippi spent most of the $40 million raised in Iowa - for that result.

[sandnsea]

5. Oooh, is bashing Kerry supposed to help Edwards or Obama?

cuz I really wasn't getting the point of it 'til now.

[Adelante]

17. It's Edwards

Maybe now we can hear that "case" we've been asking for, the one Edwards didn't make.

[Stop Cornyn]

28. Which part is bashing Kerry: calling him a Yankee, a calling him a Senator, or saying that he lost?

[Virginia Dare]

7. I could NOT support Gephardt after his support of the IWR...

I just couldn't forgive him for that. It was a VERY serious mistake on his part.

[zulchzulu]

12. What's your point?

Could you add a little bit more about what you're trying to say if possible. A "Yankee" senator? Is Grant running too?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I'm Not A Big Fan Of Counterfactual History

But a Gephardt candidacy is intrigueing...

[cobalt1999]

13. I've learned from 2004.

If Gephardt, Dean, and Kerry were running in 2008, I'd be all for Dean (actually I was in 2004 anyway). Since they are not, I don't see your point.

[NoPasaran]

15. Resolved: We should not nominate Chris Dodd

Sorry, Chris, you're a good guy but New Englanders don't come across well in the Dolt Belt.

[Clark2008]

30. And New Englanders who use the term "Dolt Belt" are

exactly why they aren't accepted easily in the South and mid-West.

:eyes:

P.S. My husband is from New England. Is in Heaven because of the Red Sox's win... is rooting against Peyton Manning (we live in Tennessee and my son and I are Colts fans) for the Patriots and would NEVER call me or anyone else from Tennessee a "dolt." That name is reserved for people who act like it - not simply people who live in a particular region.

[Clark2008]

23. Pssst.... Dean is a Yankee, too.

:hi:

[question everything]

25. Labor power is in decline

despite the wishful thinking of DUers.

Had Gephardt been the candidate, we would have had another 1972-McGovern like meltdown.

We cannot win unless we attract the center, the moderates, the "Reagan Democrats."

Politics is the art of compromise. You can always start a third party that will be strong on labor. And if we had a parliamentary government, where different parties form a coalition, this would make sense.

[Mass]

27. Dean is a Yankee as well. At least for him, your point is void.

If there is point, that is.

[cascadiance]

31. Yes, avoid BOTH Gephardt and Obama who are in the pockets of the coal industry...

... and are pushing liquified coal now instead of other non-carbon based energy sources.

[Little Star]

40. Excuse me ! But, the Yankee comment was bull Shit!

[Stop Cornyn]

41. When did "Yankee" become a slur?

[Bluebear]

42. It certainly is framed as a negative in this OP, don't you agree?

[Stop Cornyn]

44. I read it as a geographical frame, but what do I know? I'm just a New Yorker living in Texas.

[cobalt1999]

43. Well here in the south it's been a slur since oh about 1861

Call someone a Yankee down here and I doubt they'll consider it a compliment.

[Stop Cornyn]

45. Call someone from theSouth a Yankee and it's an insult. Call a Texan an "Okie" and he'll punch you.

But calling a guy from Oklahoma an "Okie" isn't a slur.

Likewise, calling the junior Senators from New York or Massachusetts a "Yankee" hardly seems like a slur.

[Czolgosz]

50. FYI, I'm a Yankee. It is not an insult, but the fact that you think it is an insult is part of why

having a candidate from the North East is a ballot handicap.

[IronLionZion]

46. So we should encourage the Repubs to choose Giuliani and Romney

sounds good since yankees are so bad.

I think Biden and Richardson would be good since they have experience.

[Alexander]

47. Gephardt never even won a statewide election...

Dean and Kerry won their home states many times in a row.

As far as I know Gephardt's popularity didn't extend very far outside St. Louis.

In hindsight I think Dean and Clark should've made a silent agreement like Kerry and Edwards did not to attack each other. They would've been a great Pres/VP team.

[beachmom]

51. Wow, that's all you know about Kerry? That he's from New England?

The uninformed who cling to media perceptions may see Kerry only as a Yankee Senator, but those informed citizens who have paid attention to our nation's governance the last few decades knew Kerry to be the lawmaker with the best record in DC of uncovering and exposing serious government corruption and tracking global terror networks and their financiers.

So - is being uninformed about the 2004 nominee your way of being a responsible citizen?

By the way, last I looked, Vermont is part of New England, and confederates would most likely call people from Vermont Yankees.