How can anyone still believe that bashing our own nominee was a good idea?

[bigtree]

Now we're totally screwed. More and more I have come to blame the carpers and nitpickers who claimed to be against Bush who didn't miss any opportunity to criticize Kerry during the campaign. Solid support would have encouraged more folks to stand with us against Bush. As it stands now, there is nothing Kerry would have done as president that would compare to the disaster that we have on our hands now with the counterfeit loser entrenched in the White House. But some were content to criticize our nominee rather than focus their full fire on Bush. When will we ever learn? Take Bush and multiply his idiocy by the number of lackeys that he let in the door.

I can't be objective in this. Those who refused to fully back our nominee bear a great deal of responsibility for Bush's advancement and the resulting chaos, Diebold not withstanding. ***%%^&*(*(!!!!

[Warpy]

1. what I saw here was constructive criticism

The difference between bashing and constructive criticism is that bashing just says he's awful, and that's that. Constructive criticism points out flaws and suggests ways to correct them.

Nobody's perfect, and perhaps if he'd read these boards and taken the advice presented here instead of the rotten advice from Mary Beth whatsername from the DLC, he would have won a much larger majority and Bush would be packing his bags.

[BattyDem]

2. I agree, Warpy

There's a big difference between saying "Kerry sucks!" and acknowledging the flaws so they can be discussed and corrected. If we're not willing to objectively talk about the weaknesses, we'll never gain any strength. :-)

[question everything]

3. Same here

Sure, he wanted to take the high road, to ignore the Swifties and to concentrate on the issues, but after the networks spread the tapes, many of us urged him to fight back which he eventually did.

Also, it was important to explain, exactly, how he moved from originally voting for the Iraq resolution to criticizing it.

[G_j]

7. "bashing"

I agree with you..

the distinction between what is "constructive criticism" and what is "bashing" is not made or even addressed.

If one wishes to have a CONSTRUCTIVE discussion, then it would be a good idea IMHO to stop using nebulous (and potentially inflammatory)terms.

ed: "Bashing'
1.To strike with a heavy, crushing blow: The thug bashed the hood of the car with a sledgehammer.

2.To beat or assault severely: The police arrested the men who bashed an immigrant in the park.

3.Informal. To criticize (another) harshly, accusatorially, and threateningly: “He bashed the... government unmercifully over the... spy affair” (Lally Weymouth).

v. intr. Informal
To engage in harsh, accusatory, threatening criticism.

[Old and In the Way]

4. I think Kerry got minimal exposure on the broadcast/cable networks.

and Edwards got none.

Really, if they won't give our candidates exposure, it makes it difficult to swing the undecideds. If anything, cable gave the swift boat liars more airtime over the months leading up to the election than they gave Kerry. Almost no discussion of the issues, but they sure made sure that we knew what a traitor Kerry was in Nam.

sadly, many of us seem to believe that Kerry wasn't campaigning hard enough....but it's like that old saying, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound?

We really need to fix the biases in our voting systems and the broadcast media that frames our political news.

[BeFree]

5. Honestly?

Those who bashed Kerry aren't really interested in what's good for everyone. I'd say most of those bashing Kerry were deceivers posing as progressives.

Over in the election forum, we were flat out invaded for awhile with liars seeking to throw us off the Diebold trail. That had some success, sad to say.

Even now, in some of the other forums there are posts saying Kerry took a dive. Those posters are either kooks or trolls, or plain stupid, I dunno. Go figure.

I think the election was stolen. The exit polls alone offer enough proof for me. Kerry won.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Disturbed]

8. Most of us here were real supportive.

I'm a Green Party member and supported the Dem Ticket the best that I could. When Kerry stalled to counter the Swift Boat Liers I felt that the loss was coming. Many of us urged him to fight back immediately. He should have filed a law suit on their asses the next day. His statement that he would've voted the same had he known what he knew a year later was real lame and that sealed his demise in my view.

[bigtree]

12. I'm hurt Nordic. I gave solid support to Kerry. Not a single discouraging

word came from my posts. I've got plenty of blame for the opposition, but for the purposes of this rant I want to make clear that we end up shooting ourselves in the foot when we spend the majority of our time criticizing our nominee instead of focusing the bulk our fire on the opposition. That's the nature of politics. Bush got solid support from his base and they were more than happy to hear the carping from our side about response time, and 'Kerry is PNAC', etc. The carping came from outside of this forum as well as from within, and I had my battles with both entities over the negativity towards Kerry. As for this board, I cannot express enough gratitude for the numbers of excellent, committed folks who did everything in their power to help defeat Bush. But again, for the purposes of this rant I want to give the back of my writing hand to folks who couldn't hold their fire long enough to see our nominee through.

If the shoe fits . . .

[AP]

9. Good old rock. Nothing beats rock. ABB was a silly slogan.

[MisterP]

10. do you have any support for this?

or is this more foot-stomping?

[bigtree]

13. foot stomping, mostly.

Come on everybody, we're gonna' have a good time, yeah,
Gimmie' all the love that's in ya', I'm gonna' give ya' mine.
I wanna' hear some hand clappin', I want you to get in the groove,
We're gonna' play this footstompin' music, everybody get up and groove, yeah.
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Come on right now.
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Everybody.
Oooo-Oooo, Oooo-oooo.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Ooo-Ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo.
Oh, yeah.
Ooo-Ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo.
Yeah.
Ooo-Ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ooo-Ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo.
Ooo-Ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo.
Ooo-Ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo.
Oooooooooooo-ooo.
Ooo-Ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo.
Ooo-Ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo-ooo, Ooo.

Grand Funk Railroad
» Footstompin' Music

[m berst]

11. another view

I focused on converting Republicans, since I thought that was where the votes were, that is what the party needs to be doing, and because that is the hard work. I was a little depressed at having only converted 25 or so, but then I realized that if every Dem had done that.....

Kerry was a much harder sell than Clark, my initial choice. Much. People can argue and argue and argue about that, but I wonder how many people went into the lion's den and listened to Republican voters talk about Kerry as compared with Clark? Most of the enthusiasm for Kerry seemed to be focused on bashing Bush and his supporters - which I don't think was effective - or in screaming at other Democrats who wouldn't get on the unity bandwagon.

Lots of hard work went into GOTV and I don't want to dismiss that. We had probably the most successful GOTV effort ever, and as all long time political observers will tell you, when the Democrats do a good job at GOTV they always win. At least in the universe that I grew up in, Since we had a NOT STOLEN SO DON'T SAY THAT election, that means that we are living in a parallel universe now where anything can happen, and GOTV obviously doesn't mean anything in this universe. And people standing in line for 5-10 hours is not relevant in this universe either. And exit polls? Dead on reliable for 40 years and the best predictor of election fraud, but in this new universe those don't count either.

Here is what I noticed - my willingness to criticize Kerry when talking to Republicans made my criticisms of Bush much more credible. Their vote is what we wanted, not for them to fall in love with John Kerry, yes?

Let's face it - Kerry was the first choice of the hard core Democrats, at least in Iowa. That might not translate into the first choice for the general electorate.

I noticed a trend in the campaign. People acted as though if we are were all really, really, loyal and all cheered in unison, that it would somehow help Kerry. I think the people who have demanded absolute unwavering loyalty to the party and the candidate must be insecure themselves about it. Otherwise why do they need everyone else to be constantly validating their choices for them?

Now a question - does this post constitute "Kerry bashing" in your view?

[bigtree]

15. Insecure? Damn right I am!

No nominee can be everything to everybody. I don't give a whit about appealing to republicans. I couldn't care less how they vote. I believe that we have more than enough potential Democrats that sat on their hands during the election that would far overcome the republican voters. Look at the youth vote, for instance. Our primary job as supporters is to garner support for our candidate. I would focus on the disenfranchised minorities, on the working poor, on the new citizens, on those concerned with the abuse of civil liberties, on those without health care, etc., before I tried to sway GG&G republicans. I didn't see much of the opposition appealing to liberal concerns, they just pushed their agenda and derided ours.

We want so much from our candidate, but we mostly want our candidate to win. That's the ultimate goal. Challenging our nominee does not have to include the public sniping that went on during tha campaign. I can read through your points without any detection of animosity towards Kerry. That was not the case with the chorus of criticism from a good deal of 'supporters' in our 'camp'.


Ah God! the petty fools of rhyme
That shriek and sweat in pigmy wars
Before the stony face of Time,
And look’d at by the silent stars;

Who hate each other for a song,
And do their little best to bite
And pinch their brethren in the throng,
And scratch the very dead for spite;

And strain to make an inch of room
For their sweet selves, and cannot hear
The sullen Lethe rolling doom
On them and theirs and all things here;

When one small touch of Charity
Could lift them nearer Godlike state
Than if the crowded Orb should cry
Like those who cried Diana great.

And I too talk, and lose the touch
I talk of. Surely, after all,
The noblest answer unto such
Is perfect stillness when they brawl.

LITERARY SQUABBLES-Tennyson

[TWiley]

14. I saw the campaign criticized, not the canidate.

And, those who questioned the direction the campaign was headed were proven to be the realists with a grasp on reality.

I did not witness any attacks on our nominee. I witnessed attacks on the dumb asses who ran the campaign and were to concieted to listen to any other viewpoints.

[davidwhite0570]

16. like I posted yesterday

the repugs supported * no matter what....even when they disagreed with him they never criticized him, but the repugs who lurk here saw us criticizing the way the Kerry campaign was run, even constructive criticisms were seen as a Dem weakness and they pounced on it....

[Killarney]

17. It's the crybaby syndrome

some people just can't get over it when their candidate doesn't win the primaries.

My candidate didn't win the primary, either, but I moved on and focused on helping Kerry win rather than beat up Kerry every chance I get because my preferred candidate lost.

Unfortunately, the Republicans are better at unity than we are. Bush is the biggest fucking failure on earth, and going into the election he had a 90% approval rating with Republicans. No matter what, they stand by their candidate. I know that we all can't be happy because in the primaries we're all supporting different people and only one candidate can win the nomination, but honestly some people really need to grow up and understand that you can't always get what you want and that just because your perfect candidate didn't win the nomination, that doesn't mean you should shit on the whole party.

I was hoping that this wouldn't happen in 2008, but that poll here where like 1 in 4 say they are not going to vote Democratic in 2008 boils my blood. This is why progressives lose. They can't see the big picture.