My final post on Kerry

[rpannier]

There are those who love to wax philosophic about how Kerry was doing things behind the scenes in Ohio. That we are better off with him not having made an issue out of voter fraud. And my favorite...concession speeches are not legally binding.
But let's be honest. The man wouldn't even stand up for himself. He wouldn't go to the mat when there was strong evidence of massive voting irregularities. Hell...he wasn't even in the Senate to defend those who voted for him and those who's votes got stolen -- That was left to Barbara Boxer.
I haven't read or heard on substantial report on what his people were doing in Ohio. So, to those who said he was doing things behind the scenes please show me one SUBSTANTIVE thing his people were doing. Please show me how he stood up for himself and his supporters.
The words of Homer Simpson ring out (Homer to Milhouse), "Come on stand up for yourself Poindexter." Because the rest of us did with our time and money.

[smurfygirl]

1. well said

I have to agree at this point.

It's sad that most in our party are sticking their tails between their legs. It's sad they will vote the gonzalez in without the bat of an eye. I said this yesterday and I'll keep saying it. It's time to find their replacements.

[Warpy]

2. The DNC and DLC have been just as silent

and instead of initiating lawsuits to protect the rights of American citizens, they're just rolling over for another 4 years of fascism and horror.

One might be tempted to think those rich men are just fine with another four years of fattening the rich and looting the working and middle classes.

On the other hand, deprived of an external enemy, the right never fails to destroy itself with purges.

Personally, I think both things can be done, protecting the voters while allowing the right to run amok in Congress, the White House and the courts. The silence from party leadership, though, is speaking very loudly to me.

[rpannier]

3. I agree

And I find them just as aggravating. Thank you for your post. It's a good reminder that it's not just Kerry.

[Mira]

7. Yes!

I was patiently waiting this one out til the end. I really trusted that there was support brewing in the wings. I expected they would show up and stand with us, their supporters, their workers, their base.

Just so don't look like sore losers. Or that it may not reflect badly on them some other way.

Well, I am done waiting. All done. During the most horrendous couple of months after the election I did not feel supported, understood, recognized by those I spent my money and time on. I felt like we were left flapping in the wind, all by ourselves, by possibly people who were more indebted to forces that had nothing at all to do with "us", but their own agendas we were never let in on to understand.

My most serious problem personally is that I do not see how I can ever vote again.
Why bother?

[marcologico]

4. Folks, look at this way for a second:

Kerry's situation was a whole lot different from Gore's. Gore won a popular majority, the tally in Florida hung by a thread, the recount was worth doing, he fought like a dog to the end, and he's a hero for doing it.

Kerry's situation was different. He DIDN'T win a popular majority, probably because the votes were stolen, and it WASN'T close in Ohio. Also, the damage was done long before November 2, and the stolen votes are either permanently lost or nearly so.

See? Gore set up the expectation of "fight til the bitter end." but his fight was winnable by recounting. Kerry's wasn't. Kerry has to win through lawsuits and investigations, which is why he wants us to write to Hastert and Frist. If he can get Congressional hearings going, eventually the whole crooked business will come to light.

But he didn't "quit." He did what politicians have to do--count the votes, figure out if it's close enough to contest, and if it isn't, fold up the tent and go home. It was the only thing to do.

[AgadorSparticus]

6. the fact that he lost the popular vote is also an area of contention, no?

didn't they pad the numbers for asswipe?

[marcologico]

8. Absolutely, but they're smart crooks, and they got rid of the evidence

The beauty of paperless electronic voting machines and tabulators is that there's no way to audit or accurately recount the vote. It sucks.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

9. You're right

I had visions of all sorts of legal maneuvers that could have taken place in Ohio and Florida and even New Mexico, and Kerry did the right thing by keeping away and out of sight during the interregnum.

Apparently, his people couldn't uncover substantive proof of fraud, and that was that.

I'm so hideously discouraged, I'm not sure I'll ever vote again, knowing how easily it can be stolen.

But, then I read about Oregon, where voting by mail, with all the attendant checks and re-checks, looks like the system of the future. I daresay the neocons would rather nuke Oregon than let that ever happen in the other forty-nine plus.

It's just so fucking sad....................

[AgadorSparticus]

17. hey OLL! how are you? haven't seen you in awhile. hope you are

well. :hi:

[OldLeftieLawyer]

23. Happy New Year, Agador

It's a hell of a start to a new year, don't you think?

But, I guess we've got to keep on pushin' -----------

:toast:

[AgadorSparticus]

29. yea, it is crazy. we certainly have our work cut out for us.

hope you are well stocked in chocolate. i know i am. we'll need it. ;)

[InvisibleTouch]

18. Don't be discouraged, OldLeftieLawyer

Yours were among the posts that I read with great interest during the whole horrible post-election mess. They always imparted a trust, confidence, and insight that I wish more people had shared. When I hear you say "I'm not sure I'll ever vote again," I just cringe.

I know a lot of people here feel let down by Kerry, but I have to say, I don't. I'm not going to allow my respect for him to be eroded by the bashers and defeatists. I still believe that he was working on things behind the scenes, probably far more so than we will ever know. He knows he was robbed, maybe in even more detail than anybody, and can't prove it. That's why he can't come out and say it. What's he going to do - wave his hands and say "We know so-and-so many votes were manufactured or disappeared into thin air, but since there's no paper trail, you'll have to take our word for it"? Not only would this not change the outcome of the election (since there's no hard evidence that remains), but it would undermine Kerry's effectiveness for anything else he wants to do for us from that moment onward.

Every post-election e-mail and message that I've seen from him, has included a subtle message to us, to hang together and keep fighting. Direct frontal assault may not be the most effective means of fighting at this moment. But there's still a hell of a lot we can do. I keep pounding the drum of economic activism, because that's a big one, and an area where we our power can't be stolen. But I'm also looking forward to the next round of elections, in the hope that our party leaders have finally learned something about BBV and the importance of an unmistakable paper trail. Given Thursday's events, I think they have. I think it was one of your own posts, if I recall correctly, that said "Watch what happens on December 13, and on January 6." Well, you were right - things happened on both days. Maybe not earth-shattering things - maybe not election-overturning, righteously retributional events, but events of great historical significance none the less. That tells me the Dems are aware and engaged. Think of it as the opening volley of the next phase, not the end of the war. Don't go away....

[OldLeftieLawyer]

24. Ah, Touch............

Thank you for your thoughtful and remarkably insightful words.

Yes, I'm discouraged. Yes, I'm outraged. Yes, we know what happened.

Yes, Kerry handled himself and the situation quite well. But, I do have some reservations about what wasn't done. I also know that I don't know anything about what went on behind the scenes. What I hoped for was the big, fat, substantive legal challenge that would have recapitulated and surpassed Watergate.

I am not sanguine that anything even remotely like that will happen now. The Congress is so contaminated and saturated with rightwingnuts, and they have the power. It's that simple: they have the power.

Unlike you, I do not believe that the Democrats are in any way organized or engaged. I watched them behave stupidly during this last election, and I see them making empty, symbolic gestures now, even as they appear to be rolling over and offering up their soft, white underbellies to the doms in the House and the Senate.

Just the fact that Gonzales has gotten this far without a whimper from anyone leaves me grief-stricken. Imagine - we are going to have as our Attorney General someone who eschewed the Geneva Convention! He's worse than Ashcroft, in my estimation. And no one's making a sound or doing a thing about this.

All of Fuckface's nominations will sail through. That's what scares me. He's beyond Teflon at this point, because the Democrats know only how to play dead.

Your kind words, though, give me hope for the next generation, and that, my friend, is priceless. Thanks very much.

[AgadorSparticus]

5. sadly, i'm having to come to accept the same conclusions as you.

but it's not a popular opinion here on this board.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

10. I agree

There sure is a lot of Kerrybashing going on. I'm not sure people understood what happened and why it was simply correct that Kerry not be there on January 6.

Remember how Al Gore had to preside over his own defeat in 2001? That would have sent me into a much bigger depression than he apparently fell into after that. Kerry did the right thing by going to Iraq.

It still sucks so bad..............

[IndianaGreen]

11. And Kerry said he would have voted for IWR even had he known what he knows

today about Iraq: no link to 9/11, no WMDs, no threat to US.

[marcologico]

12. Indiangreen, I'm guessing you voted for Kerry.

That's what he was guessing anyway. The IWR vote and get-tough convention were for the benefit of your swing-voting neighbors, not you.

And yeah, he knew all that shit when he voted for it, but it wouldn't have made any practical difference if he HADN'T voted for it, except that he would have lost Iowa to Edwards (who also voted for it).

[IndianaGreen]

13. It would have been better had Kerry lost Iowa to Edwards

Edwards never apologized for his IWR vote and never pretended that it was anything other than what it was, a war vote. At least Edwards gets kudos for respecting our intelligence. Edwards would not have thrown the towel as Kerry did about Ohio.

Edwards would have fought for every vote, unlike Kerry who seemed more concerned about his image than our voting rights.

[marcologico]

14. Seems like semantics.

They both voted for IWR, they were both unapologetic.

They both said every vote would be counted, and every vote was. There were just a few missing.

How would Edwards have handled it any differently?

EDIT to add "un"

[Wiley50]

22. No difference anymore

Edwards attended the Bilderberg conference the last two years. Our real enemies, and those who really wield the power are the ones BEHIND the candidates.

[hfojvt]

15. What difference does it make?

Kerry was not my first choice in the primary, although in the end it was over before the primary ever got to my state, which is what I expected.
Fraud, or no fraud, I have to say that Kerry lost. There is no way I would support him in 2008. No way. If he could not win against the worst President in American history, then he is simply not a viable candidate. This election should not have been close enough to steal. The Democrat should have beaten Bush worse than Clinton beat Dole, worse than FDR beat Hoover and Landon. All you have to do is show the people his record.

[marcologico]

16. ah. Another Clarniac.

Why am I not surprised. Well, you have a right to your opinion. But look at it this way: Clinton had Perot, FDR had the depression, and Bush had electronic voting. Kerry had 47 primaries. What did Edwards/ Clark/ Gephardt/ Sharpton/ Kucinich/ Dean have?

[Lexingtonian]

19. Why not accept that he's more of a man than you?

And about six tiers smarter as a politician, to boot?

Considering that Ohio was one of the half dozen or so states on which this election turned, he had sharper and more expert opinion and analysis of what happened there in the three days after Election Day than any of you, no offense intended, have had since.

For purposes of claiming the Presidency, the official popular vote tally (59m vs 62m) and the 120k margin in Ohio, 300k in Florida, may be off by a bit- say 30k in Ohio, 50k in Florida- but the result is politically unambiguous. The exit polling of why people voted as they did is also politically clear, even if it's not all that intelligible in detail.

As for the problems with the voting process...well, there's no magic to it. Ohio has a reputation for decent effort but stupid errors and a certain amount of bungling from inattention (that's the basis of the Drew Carey Show, wasn't it?). The Ohio state government is all Republican, including SoS Blackwell, and the courts of the land everywhere are filled with judges selected a long time ago for inability to understand the plain language of the statute guaranteeing equal participation in public life to all, i.e. the 14th Amendment- which was explicitly ratified to bring fair election practices to the Reconstruction South.

If you're Kerry, there are a couple of different ways to go. Focussing on the technical problems of the election is politically stupid and a waste. For one thing it's not clear whether the stacked courts and the partisan SoS's really allow much progress there anyway prior to a nationwide large Democratic majority being there to force it and a Congress and federal judiciary to enforce it. In e.g. Ohio it's a years-long job for a group of patient specialists and surrogates and trench warriors in county elections offices to get the basics down- enough machines, the right kinds, on time, in repair, etc.

There is a need to clean up the Party of its conservative weaknesses, an need beat up the obstructors and regressives and incompetents and obsoletes, a need to get the whole unified and Modern- which was a persistent frustration he had with the Party and the campaign people throughout 2004. Anyone remember the Florida state Democratic Party of 2000.... But that's very intricate to do- some of it has to happen in the DNC, voters have to do part of it, activists have to do part of it, and people like Kerry and Clinton and Reid and Pelosi have to do certain small parts of it. Basically, the Party's think tank people or other outside talent have to come up with the concept and consultants/temporary managers have to do a good amount of the dirty work inside the organization. There isn't much of a role for Kerry in it except to point out what he observed and finds objectionable.

The other job that needs doing is to collapse the Bush Administration and Republican Congress's swing vote support, which basically boils down to the break up of the Middle East 'policy'/arrangements and taking the mantle from them in foreign affairs. That requires a Democrat to spearhead the critique and PR-wise punish and outclass Team Bush. A Democrat who can credibly explain the way Iraq is an almost exact rerun of the Vietnam failure, among other things.

In short, if you were Kerry and had decided to destroy the remaining Republican hold on national power decisively ASAP, and all the polling says Democrats own domestic issues but are behind on foreign policy, you might very well pursue designs to demonstrate the Administration's abject hypocrisy, lies, and failures in the Middle East in unimpeachable fashion. A narrow election win with a gross minority in Congress and a popular minority isn't worth it, arguing all the usual policy positions with peers who actually don't care too deeply about them in particulars is also a waste of time. Only taking apart the Republican moderate support for the GOP based on a misassessment of the Middle East really changes anything.

Funny, just today Kerry is reported to be in Iraq. Buddying it up with the grunts, listening to the three star liar brigade trying to sell him the pig with lipstick the situation is, and telling people that it's a remarkable recapitulation of Vietnam.

He's miles ahead of you in assessment of what needs doing, and he's already getting it done. In short, his campaign to reduce Republican power didn't end on November 2. It ends with Republicans manouvered out of their last major hold on swing voters. Which is rather a lot more than all the defeatist and selfrighteous cant going on around here can admit.

[sendero]

20. You are a good writer....

... but you are completely inconsistent.

>>>In short, if you were Kerry and had decided to destroy the remaining Republican hold on national power decisively ASAP, and all the polling says Democrats own domestic issues but are behind on foreign policy, you might very well pursue designs to demonstrate the Administration's abject hypocrisy, lies, and failures in the Middle East in unimpeachable fashion......


Kerry had a freaking year to make this case, and he failed MISERABLY. He failed because his IWR vote limited what he could actually say.

So while I agree largely with you have have said here, I totally and vehemently disagree with your conclusion, which seems to be "now Kerry gets it".

Too little, too late. You cannot unwind a failure, and his campaign was a failure because he wouldn't/couldn't effectively attack Bush on his most obvious weakness, and it was his own damn fault.

[The Flaming Red Head]

21. Kerry took a dive with his early concession

he let US down and he didn't have our backs except to stab US.
He was rich before the election and he's still rich after the election (probably richer.) He lost nothing. We lost everything. He can go home now and stay there.

[Deja Q]

25. Actually, he went to Iraq to praise the troops for their sacrifice.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=kerry+iraq+visit&btnG=Search

[marcologico]

26. What are you talking about? Kerry was the first NOT to concede the night

before, at least in recent memory. Even Gore conceded the night before. Presidential elections are normally not two-months affairs, and Bush won (okay "won") by 3.5 million votes, even if they were bogus votes. Those were the facts and Kerry figured them out and called it a day.

[NYCGirl]

27. Gore unconceded an hour and a half later. NT

[marcologico]

28. Sure but the point is that the election was decided, fairly or not, so

Kerry did the only sane thing, which was to end the campaign and start the investigations. And he's been supplying legal support and money for the recounts in Ohio and other states.

p.s. even if Kerry thought, "shit, now everybody expects a two-month cliff-hanger like in 2000," it just wasn't close enough. Rove and his rats hid the evidence better this time.