Bush, Kerry aides (Mehlman & Cahill) reflect on '04 election

[truthpusher]

(I have included two articles on the same event. Below this Houston Chronicle article is a longer article from the New York Times)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3011421

Jan. 26, 2005, 11:32PM

Bush, Kerry aides reflect on '04 election
Swift Boat ads, 9/11 dominated the race, they say

By ROBERT CROWE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

COLLEGE STATION - An advertisement that questioned John Kerry's Vietnam War military service would capture a nation's attention during the 2004 presidential election, but the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had a greater impact during the race, the manager for the Kerry-Edwards campaign said Wednesday.

"This was an election, from my point of view, that was completely overshadowed by 9/11," Mary Beth Cahill said at an election postmortem session at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University.

Ken Mehlman, who managed the Bush-Cheney campaign, emphasized how the "new media" of the Internet and cable TV networks, like Fox News, changed how people gather and disseminate information about candidates.

"Instead of having one place where everyone gets information, there are thousands of places," Mehlman said at the forum moderated by former President Bush. "Technology has broken the monopoly of the three (TV) networks."

more:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3011421



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also, this, from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/politics/27elect.html

For a Day, Campaign Bosses Play Nice and Talk Politics

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: January 27, 2005

COLLEGE STATION, Tex., Jan. 26 - The two panelists at an Election 2004 forum here on Wednesday, offering presumably behind-the-scenes insights on the presidential election, were familiar faces to anyone who followed last year's presidential contest: Mary Beth Cahill, the manager of Senator John Kerry's campaign, and Ken Mehlman, who ran President Bush's campaign.

But the moderator, lounging back in a stuffed red leather chair on a stage at Texas A&M University, smilingly amiably at his two guests, was something of a ringer.

"Your question related to concession speeches," the moderator, former President George Bush, smiling wryly, said to a student before passing a question on to Ms. Cahill. "I'm an expert on that."

(snip)

Still, there were moments. Ms. Cahill, addressing a concern voiced by a student who sounded a bit frustrated with one of Mr. Kerry's tactical decisions, allowed that perhaps the campaign should have moved more quickly in responding to attacks on Mr. Kerry's war record by a group of Vietnam veterans.

'"Looking back, should we have gone out two days earlier?" she said. "Very possibly."

more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/politics/27elect.html

[blue northern]

1. This is EXACTLY the kind of goofy doublespeak from Cahill ....

That crippled Kerry's campaign.

"Looking back, should we have gone out two days earlier?" she said. "Very possibly"

[w4rma]

2. Yup. (nt)

[w13rd0]

3. It's not goofy doublespeak...

...it's RUMSFERATUSFARIAN!

[calimary]

8. I have a nice stockade with her name on it.

What a PISSANT statement. "Very possibly" my ASS. It DID YOU IN, my little chickadee. And you sat out, thinking we'll just take the high road like nice little nice people, and we'll be nice. And it, in turn, will be nice and just fade away after a few days. And everything'll be nice again.

FUCKER.

She should be taken to the woodshed. And LEFT there.

[Mend]

4. If you really want to cry

read the article by Dave Johnson on the Smirking Chimp site, called "Why Republicans Win". We are a tee-ball team playing against the New York Yankees....and he definitely blamed her lack of response to the swiftliars for a huge loss of popularity for Kerry.

[ernstbass]

5. Thanks alot Mary Beth

Do us a favor and get out of managing campaigns.

[Straight Shooter]

6. Two days? Give me a break. Kerry wanted to come out swinging.

But nooooo, Ms. Cahill wanted to take the high road.

There is no high road against the bushes. They play to win, and they don't care if they have to lie, cheat and steal to do it. It's all about power. Cahill was waaaay over her head. I could have done a better job. Most of us on DU could have done a better job. Even BuzzFlash had its hair on fire over the SB Liars and exhorted Kerry to fight back immediately.

With friends like Cahill on your team, who needs enemies? :shrug:

[calimary]

10. Tell me about it. You could have done a SPLENDID job, Straight Shooter.

You're BEYOND correct. And yes, most of us here at DU ABSOLUTELY could also have done a better job. The guy who runs the deli in my neighborhood (a die-hard Dem) could have done a better job.

Remember how we were almost crying, begging, screaming, pleading, for the campaign to come out swinging, to fight hard, to hit back, to body-slam 'em, to shut up about taking the high road for once. For ONCE! Just ONCE! We called, we wrote letters, we emailed, we tore our hair (when it wasn't on fire). And nothing. No, we're going to be nice. We're going to take the high road. Ignore it and it'll go away. Is that what you advise women when they get pregnant, Mary Beth?

I guess the one consolation I get is that Ms. Mary Brilliant Cahill will go down in history the way Donna PowderPuff Brazile will - as GOATS. They will always be remembered as pansies who blew their campaigns because they just couldn't see fighting back hard. Oh yeah, them. They were the ones who thought you could send mice out to fight against Dobermans. Because mice know how to be NICE.

[demgrrrll]

12. What really steams me is that even now she weasels out and does

not fully admit that she made a huge tactical error. If you go back through the archives I think I was one of those who desperately wanted to believe that they had some kind of grand plan to make the swift boat liars irrelevant. There was a part of me that just could not believe they would have taken all those body blows without a plan.

[calimary]

16. No kidding. I anguished over that one, also.

I could NOT believe that they would just decide to sit it out and hope it blew over in a few days. I could NOT believe that. You ALWAYS respond. ALWAYS. You NEVER EVER EVER EVER let something sit there and just fester. For Christ's sakes! She got to THAT level of prominence and authority and didn't realize this? She didn't learn ANYTHING from the rapid response team that James Carville put together for Clinton in 1992 - I mean JEEZ! It made headlines all by itself. Clinton's rapid response team was FAMOUS. Then, in the primaries, Howard Dean made quite a bit of headway with his own. What the hell was she doing - sitting there with her thumb up her ass?

I could NOT believe they'd just leave it to chance and assume it'd just blow over. I could NOT believe it. There were OTHER ways to deal with the money business. There were 527s on our side that could have been harnessed BIGTIME if they didn't want to spend their own general election money. For Christ's SAKES!

And what a cardinal sin - to assume anything with enemies like theirs - would just blow over in a few days. CARDINAL SIN. That she deserves to go to Hell for.

Or maybe Mary Beth Cahill REALLY was just born yesterday. Because anybody with even half a horse sense and even the tiniest bit of observational skills, or memory of past campaigns, or an ability to google some of the people involved (maybe she didn't understand the internet - CHRIST! I'm a complete cyber-idiot and even I know how to do THAT) should have known. DID know. Just think back to how many of us were screaming and writhing and venting about this day after day. WE KNEW, too. NO EXCUSE. NO EXCUSE.

[TahitiNut]

7. The failure to slam-dunk the Swift Liars ...

... was largely due to a campaign decision to withhold spending during the time between the Democratic and Republican conventions. It was seen as a strategic disadvantage that the Republicans were spending 'primaries money' and the Democrats were spending 'general elections money.' They even announced this. Once it was presented, the SwiftLiar attacks began in earnest, using money that was conveniently neither 'primary' nor 'general election' money. Kerry was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. He was forced into the position of having to spend campaign money to respond to 527 money, on top of the money disadvantage already seen.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Kerry lost the election when he voted on the Iraq War Resolution. At that point, it was all over except for the spending and campaigning. A pResident that should have gotten no more than 20% of the vote was able, based on LIES, FRAUD, and CRIMINAL behavior, to "win" an election.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

13. IWR vote was not a factor in the general

and your math makse no sense- Bush was guaranteed 42% of the vote no matter what.
What "did Kerry in" was the wartime mentality that pervaded the environment and that change in presidents was not needed.
The economy was also not bad.

[TahitiNut]

14. "The economy was also not bad."??? Total horseshit!

The economy is in the sewer for all but the top 5%.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

18. apparently not bad enough

what are the historical markers? I saw where unemployment was simply not bad enough to turn Bush out.

[emulatorloo]

15. "TERRA TERRA TERRA" won and "John Kerry won't Keep You Safe" won

and then there was that whole Blackwell cheating thing in Ohio.

[gratuitous]

9. Do us a favor, Mary Beth

Disappear.

I thought that the Kerry campaign wasn't doing much against the Swift Boat Liars in August because they were keeping their powder dry and carefully husbanding their financial resources for when the campaign geared up in earnest after the Republican convention in September. With "only" $75 million to spend, the Democrats had to be careful not to be caught in a financial bind at crunch time in late October, when media ad buys could be crucial.

Imagine my utter astonishment to find out after the November election that Kerry still had $15 million in his campaign coffers! The campaign's silence in the face of the Swifties is absolutely baffling, and the "genius" who didn't face them down immediately and forcefully in August would probably be much better served to just go away quietly.

[EFerrari]

11. They stole it . She may be an idiot but he won. n/t

[Rockerdem]

17. Kerry lost because he attracted fewer women than Dems normally do

They were worried about terror.

The mid-August to first week in September period was one of terrible performance by the campaign. They dawdled answering the SwiftLiars. And by the time they got on message respons-wise, the slaughter in the Russian school took center stage, drowning the response. But it was the latter act that got married women to lean Bush. Kerry had no tasteful way to immediately counteract Bush's perceived advantage on the issue.