KERRY SHOULDA' BEEN THERE

[poe]

i haven't any axe to grind with john kerry. despite my ambivalence about his candidacy and outright disdain for some of the people he surrounded himself with (or did they swoop in?) i voted for the man. as a registered green living in a state where kerry had zero chance of losing i still voted for him thinking a landslide would be necessary to prevent THE MADNESS from keeping their hold on power. even a kinder, gentler form of imperialism a.k.a. clintonites, would have sufficed for the moment. it certainly would have eased the pain of many brown skinned children around the world, even in iraq i like to think, perhaps i am delusional as his rhetoric didn't indicate any compassion for the iraqi people.
my belief based on copious research and my post election experience in ohio as a recount monitor is that kerry won the election not only in ohio but also won the popular vote.
so many people were disenfranchised and so many people gave so much energy to support the kerry campaign. john kerry should have stood side by side with barbara boxer and aggressively challenged the ohio vote. not for any political purposes, not for any other reason than to shine a bright light on the massive fraud and as a demand for social justice that should transcend any political motives.

[elshiva]

1. How would this have helped us, anyway?

If Kerry was there with Boxer, would it have helped. NO. We, democrats, know he won, but if we didn't just want to preach to the choir, we didn't need Kerry to be there. Those who don't share our beliefs, for the most part, see Kerry as a power hungry preppy elitist. His testimony, no matter how sincere, would seem to republicans a shameless self-promotion.

[poe]

2. ya' never know

forget for a moment how it would have helped. every senator who believes in the right to vote, especially for those whose rights are consistently abused (i.e."minorities"), should have challenged as a matter of principle.
as to how it would have helped one can only conjecture. perhaps more senators and house members would have jumped on board. perhaps this would have brought more media attention (even if to say sour grapes) and more folk in suburbia would have raised an eyebrow. but just think about this- what if john kerry got up there and vociferously demanded an honest recount and ardently recited the numerous "irregularities" etc., before the senate. how about that huh? you think for a second the republofascists and their troops wouldn't have been hollerin' and shuttin' stuff down. ya' gotta get in their face and fight these bastards.
you can't know how it would have helped, everybody stop takin' it.

[jrthin]

5. I agree.

The simple act of actively getting involved "could" have changed the dynamics. And, to those who say that if Kerry had gotten involved, nothing would have changed, they don't know that to be true.

[Senior citizen]

3. The Democratic Party needs leadership.

The pukes have leadership, and they have plenty of shameless self-promotion.

Anyone who wants to be the next Democratic candidate for president, would know that it takes leadership. No senator came forward in 2000, and all Democratic senators, including Kerry, had four years in which to prepare to assume the leadership of the party by standing up for Democratic voters. Only Boxer did it.

It helps to have a leader who represents us, who listens to our concerns and stands up for us. Are the pukes happy that Kerry wasn't there? Sure. Are they angry that Boxer was? Of course. But they're the problem and unless we stand up to them, we become collaborators.

In 2000, all Democratic senators were collaborators in a stolen election. In 2004, except for Boxer, they did it again. Had Kerry cared about voting rights, and about all the people who worked for him, donated to his campaign, and voted for him, he'd have been there. There's plenty of time to visit Iraq--the war is endless. But the electoral vote count only happens every four years.

[elshiva]

4. Shameless Self-Promotion is not

something democrats are good at period. Which is why we are in the minority in government now.

[poe]

6. democratic voters not leaders

the democratic voters need to: A) demand that all public policy be written for the poor; B) demand a radical turnabout in renewable energy policy for this nation; C) demand that mccauliffe and co. take a permanent vacation; D) stop supporting candidates who acquiesce to the corporate machine; E) get downright dirty and spirited in direct economic actions which could be a little messy; F) get out of their funk and yes out from their chat rooms and engage directly with folks they might not always agree with, or ever agree with; G) get out of the politics of comfort.
tell your politicians what you want, do not go meekly into the house of wolves. the democratic voters need to remove themselves from the abstract world of liberal identity politics and get to the politics of survival. the world is waiting.