Question: Why is it when there are two lack luster candidates,

[nevergiveup]

the Republican always wins? Is it because Democrats expect more or maybe Republicans are in general dull or maybe both or maybe the opposite or maybe neither? I am confused.....perhaps my proposition is wrong....please help as I can't seem to get a handle on this.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. Because lackluster Dems are usually lackluster precisely because

they are concerned with not offending the Republicans.

[Redleg]

2. Your implication that Kerry was lackluster is faulty, IMHO.

Others will disagree with me.

[moondust]

3. May have something to do with

authoritarianism being the default choice of corporate and military officers. :shrug:

[Lostnote03]

6. Well Stated!!!!....n/t

[Lostnote03]

7. Well Stated!!!!....n/t

[bobweaver]

4. Nastiness, offensiveness, piggishness and selfishness are rewarded in

today's U.S. society, especially in politics - how else to explain the success of Schwarzenegger?

[Pushed To The Left]

5. Because the right-wing sticks together

They support their candidate, even if it wasn't the one they wanted in the primaries. If our side stuck together like that, the right wing wouldn't stand a chance.

[sendero]

8. Come on...

... give me a shred of evidence that we didn't "stick together" up until the election.

I was not a Kerry man, but when he was nominated I got behind him. I sent him money several times and talked him up wherever I could.

I'm definitely NOT behind him for 2008, because 1) he lost, one shot to a customer and 2) I think his reticence to challenge the vote fraud issue has more to do with 2008 than anything else, and I'm done with that sort of politics.

I simply see no evidence that the Dems did not close ranks behind Kerry. That doesn't mean we'll do it forever.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. I agree with Sendero

I have never seen an election effort like we had in Minnesota. It seemed as if everyone I knew was doing GOTV activities.

Even among the Kucinich supporters, out of the fifty or so who attended the locaql organizing meetings regularly, there were only two or three who refused to work for or vote for Kerry.

[izzybeans]

10. a simple project

I recently sat in on a seminar on media and persuasion. The professor gave a very compelling presentation. The crux of her argument had to do with the powers of narrative. (If anyone saw the PBS presentation THE PERSUADERS you saw how marketing firms have coopted the notion of narrative and embeddeded it within their operating procedures-it's the final product.) She then downloaded the welcome message from the Ohio Democratic Party homepage went through her analysis of it, did the same for the Ohio Republican Party. I suggest you do the same. The differences between the two websites vary little from state to state. The problems with message control are widespread for the democrats-the answers to why two crumby candidates operate on unequal footing lies here. If we are the last legitimate stronghold for progressive politics we are getting outflanked by a regressive ideology that embraces the very progressive technologies we helped create.

here's the democratic website:

http://www.ohiodems.org/index.php?display=ShowSpecialPage&name=WhatWeRepresent

Then if you go to the issues section, you'll see there is no difference. It's very repetitive and sounds like it took the same amount of time I spent to write this very message (about 5 minutes). So it sounds pretty much like an angry middle schooler designed the webpage-which is probably what I sound like right now. The actual gretting page is a huge advert for donations.--not a very welcoming welcome indeed.

here's the republican website:

http://www.ohiogop.org/Welcome.aspx

If you explore this website you see that it looks like the RNC spent millions of dollars for a professional narrative to be constructed-probably by one firm and a different story for each state. If you compare the issues sections for both websites you'll see why it's easy to fool most of the uninformed people all of the time and anger the informed people pretty much for a similar duration. The issues section presents images of a ruling class who protects the poor-and all the frames for their policies revolve around that theme. "Why do we give tax breaks to the rich? Cause its good for you too."

If I were undecided and went to both websites I would have a hard time not believing the republican attack about the angry democrat, regardless of whatever the truth was. There are numerous other things to say about this comparison but I've rambled on for to long. I think these differences pretty much encompass the problem.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. It's been obvious to me for years that the Republicanites

have a lot of expert marketing types working for them and that the Democrats often seem to have a tin ear for appealing to the public.

[newyawker99]

14. Hi izzybeans!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Kahuna]

11. It's "The Devil You Know," strategy. Bush played that to the hilt..

he demeaned Kerry by successfully labeling him, "a flip flopper." Then the Swift Boat Vets delivered the final blow. That OBL video at the end probably didn't help much either.

[izzybeans]

13. Certainly negative campaigning is important but...

the more mundane things we all must wade through are equally influencing. Common literary devices were used to make it seem like people are voting against their interests--from our perspective-- when in fact those voters believed that they were. That's what I got out of reading the above websites. That's the schtick of the neo-narrative marketing strategists. It gives people stories to tell about their decisions. I voted for x becuase he does y and z. What a wonderful fictional story they weave...we need to start weaving our own stories. Progressive politics needs to be built into everything for it to work widely. That's how the repugs did it, they politicized everything and built their campaigns around their marketing narratives.

Result: I recently just had an argument with a repug who, being of the working class, had every reason to vote democratic, green, or otherwise not republican. He retorted my remarks on class warfare with a fully articulated version of trickle down economics, but could not recall where he learned it, other than to call it "Reagan's thing". It didn't matter to him that "free market" ideologies were debunked during the industrial revolution. He thought wholeheartedly that he was voting his interests. His beet-red face and angry tone told me he actually believed that nonesense. The negative campaign adds were something he just repeats when trying to be funny. He could care less about their being true or not. I suppose this person is not much different then most Bush supporters.

[DaedelusNemo]

15. Yes, you have to give people a narrative of whys /nt

[jswordy]

16. ROFLMAO! So Bush "labeled" Kerry a flip-flopper?

"I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

-- John Kerry

It was these kinds of shades-of-Bush, but really not-like-him (trust me) statements that earned Sen. Kerry the nickname "Bush Lite" AMONG DEMOCRATS!

If the party can't run candidates who strongly contrast the GOP, we need to found a party that will.

[DaedelusNemo]

17. Did you ever see the rest of that quote?

He went on to explain that there had been two different versions of the bill.

But of course, the version we see the most is the one that leaves out the part that makes sense of the rest. That way, he sounds loony, incomprehensible, untrustworthy.

Personal strategy to keep in mind for the Misinformation Age: if they're trying to convince you that the other guy doesn't make sense, they probably are trying pretty hard to keep you from understanding him.

[lojasmo]

18. Personal strategy for the information age....

If you want to lose an election, stay stuff like: "I actually did vote for the 87 billion before I voted against it"

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Lets see.... "I voted for the 87 billion, but the president refused to give our troops body armor and wanted to make your grand-children pay for it, I refused to do that, so I ended up voting against the president's request"

All the money we threw at Kerry, and he couldn't stay on message to save his life.

[DaedelusNemo]

19. It's impossible to say nothing that can't be taken out of context

Especially talking all day every day for months.

The context should have been reaffirmed and the point about misleading made.

[lojasmo]

20. it's possible for a person who can speak plainly to do so. N/T

[DaedelusNemo]

24. It was plain in context ... tho i made same complaint many other times /nt

[Redleg]

22. jswordy ain't going to respond- he did a hit and run

EOM

[Redleg]

21. Nice job taking that statement out of context.

Perhaps you should post the entire paragraph instead of one fucking sentence.

[GreenPartyVoter]

23. Welcome to DU