An important perspective on Dean-v-Kerry threads...

[regnaD kciN]

I'll be up-front: I was a Dean supporter during the primary season, and wish he was the nominee. Not because Kerry was a bad choice (he isn't), but because Gov. Dean spoke to my concerns more than Kerry or any other candidate.

However, that's irrelevant. There's only one candidate who can liberate the White House from the Bush Occupation, and that's John Forbes Kerry. Each of us should be doing what we can to bring that about.

Lots of us have taken quite a blow from the post-RNC Bush "bounce." For the first time, many of us have realized that we might well lose, and that Bush might get his "mandate" that will allow him to further press his far-right agenda. And that's scary. :scared:

I've seen a lot of elections, and I'm seeing a common tendency: when the first fear of losing hits people, they insulate and distance themselves from that fear by a variant of the "sour grapes" argument -- that they really didn't back this candidate, and that some other candidate would do a better job. So, in 1972, I had to sit through a lot of grousing among senior (nominally) "McGovern" campaign staff in my state that, really, Muskie would have been a better choice. Likewise, 1984 brought a "wish we had chosen Gary Hart (or Mario Cuomo) instead of Mondale" sentiment, and 1988's fall was filled with wishes for Gore or Jackson instead of Dukakis. "Blame-the-nominee" is an old technique to avoid being associated with a loser. And it does no good. The only way to get Bush out of office is by giving our all for Kerry, not wishing we could nominate someone else.

By the same token, this "wishful thinking" approach generates a second, dangerous tendency to split loyalists versus second-guessers. We've seen that happen here, where all of a sudden old wounds become opened in last winter's Dean and Kerry camps, and the nominee's loyalists start spending lots of energy "smaking down" the second-guessers and their former favorite, energy that could be put to better use convincing voters to go with Kerry instead of Bush.

There's nothing that the Republicans would like more than to have DUers and the like lose focus on the race ahead and spend their time tearing each other apart over which of the primary candidates might have been a better choice -- preferably, if the animosity generated in those feuds prevents us from working together effectively to re-defeat Bush. Please, don't give them the satisfaction!

[A_Possum]

1. Haven't been reading those threads, but

You certainly make some good points about the common, and very human, reactions to a scare.

My take: It ain't over till it's over. Period.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Also, I would like to remind people that

polls in the fall of 2000 had Bush winning the popular vote and possibly losing the Electoral vote. In fact, that's one of the scenarios that the Bushies were preparing for: they were ready to argue either way.