Naomi Klein on why we lost ... (a must read !!)

[welshTerrier2]

with all apologies to those who focus on election fraud, here are some of Naomi Klein's observations of things Kerry, his consultants, and the Democratic Party did wrong in the last election ...

the goal of this post is NOT to start a parade of Kerry bashing ... i think we've had more than enough of that and it's not the least bit productive ... the purpose of this post is to discuss the best possible campaign strategy both for the Party and for future candidates ... the focus is "forward-looking" ... we're looking back ONLY TO LEARN FROM MISTAKES ...

the first half of the linked article talks about the campaign; the second part talks about the anti-war movement and Iraq ... there's lots of "meat" to sift through in this article ... it's a really important read for all Democrats ...

source: http://www.alternet.org/story/21099/

So what the Republican Party has done is that it has co-branded with other powerful brands — like country music, and NASCAR, and church going, and this larger proud-to-be-a-redneck identity. Policy is pretty low on the agenda, in terms of why people identify as Republicans. They identify with these packets of attributes. This means a couple of things. One, it means people are not swayed by policy debates. But more importantly, when George Bush's policies are attacked, rather than being dissuaded from being Republicans, Republicans feel attacked personally — because it's your politics. Republicanism has merged with their identity. That has happened because of the successful application of the principles of identity branding.

<skip>

When you have genuine conviction standing next to extremely expert and successful marketing, it exposes the latter as marketing. Whereas when you have bad marketing next to expert marketing, it actually makes the other person look good. The more Kerry tried to be a third-rate John Wayne, the more believable Bush looked as John Wayne.

<skip>

Another part of the failure has to do with the way you answer the language of faith. You don't answer the language of faith with the language of more effective bureaucracy, which is the image that John Kerry's campaign presented: more effective administrators, more effective bureaucrats of war. You have to answer the language of faith with the language of morality. You can speak in powerful moral terms about the violence of war and the violence of an economic system that's excluding ever more people.

<skip>

I think there was a lot of disdain in the Kerry campaign. The disdain that bothered me more was the disdain that they showed for the Iraqi people in their total unwillingness to condemn the basic violations of human rights and international law. He didn't mention Abu Ghraib. He didn't ever mention civilian deaths as one of the problems in Iraq. He was too busy showing how tough he was. They clearly made a decision that speaking about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo would seem to be critical of the troops. And to speak about Iraqi civilians and international law would be to appear soft on the war on terror.

[shraby]

1. Problem is.....Kerry DID win.

Bush is the one who lost.

[welshTerrier2]

2. why not address some of the points in the article

i'm not dismissing the importance of dealing with election fraud ... but even if we solved the fraud problem, we still need to run an effective campaign ...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Very true--with the Republicanites running the worst candidate in

living memory, this election should not have been close enough to steal. It should have been Johnson whomping Goldwater all over again.

[davidwparker]

7. Amen.

[spooked911]

3. Yes-- I COMPLETELY AGREE Kerry made a huge blunder by not

making Abu Ghraib more of an issue. He had the chance to take a strong moral stand and blew it.

Otherwise though, I think Kerry did as well as could be expected for being a Massachusetts liberal-- which did work against him, no doubt.

[Warpy]

9. That should have been done, but his two biggest blunders

were in not running a campaign based on economic populism that Clinton had run. Clinton even gave him the line to us "Their way doesn't work!"
Now, we all know Clinton was no economic populist when he got into office, but he did run that way, and he WON. Handily.

The second blunder was in not hitting Regenery Publishing with a libel suit the day that book came out. The point was NOT to win that suit. The point was to tie up their resources fighting it while gaining suppoena power to trace where all their funding was coming from. My guess is that the power of the subpoena would have sunk the Bush crime gang completely. When he took DLC advice to ignore them, he just let them use all their resources to keep attacking him, and more. Did you notice how much slicker their ads got toward the end? That wasn't private donations from crooked Houston contractors funding those.

Yes, there was massive fraud. Yes, people were manipulated with frequent terror warnings which stopped dead after the election, only to surface as a totally bogus warning against Boston the day Kerry voted against Ms. Rice. Had Kerry not made these two blunders in his campaign, thanks in large part to the DLC hacks controlling it, he might have won such a large margin that the fraud would have been so obvious that even ordinary people would figure it out in the absence of honest TV news.

[welshTerrier2]

12. good points, Warpy ...

not sure what to make of the subpoena but he certainly should have responded agressively to the attacks and he didn't ...

he based so much of his campaign on his military service ... it's inconceivable that a direct attack on that service was ignored by the campaign for so long ... i mean, if someone's shooting at you, at least duck ...

btw, just for speculation about the bogus Boston terror warning, my theory is someone was throwing Romney a bone for '08 ... he got to go on national TV and show as how calm he was ...

[Hippo_Tron]

17. My feelings EXACTLY

When Republicans control a state government, they can easily change a one point race. They can't chage a 5 point race.

[spooked911]

37. I don't know--- I doubt a populist economic theme would have made

a difference so soon after 9/11. The Regnery lawsuit idea is nice, in theory. You may well be right but I'm sure they were not even close to thinking like you are about uncovering the funding.

[elsiesummers]

63. She frames the debate in Bush terms (Iraq) when Economics would have won

She starts off the article by saying how Bush marketed well and Kerry not as well - which is true. (I personally think Kerry was better than his marketing.)

But, she still frames the debate on Bush's terms - on Iraq/terrorism.

You are right that the answer was to not allow Bush to frame the debate - take it away from Iraq and Terrorism and focus on Economics and Populism.

Each time I read one of these articles that suggests that anti-war rather than pro-war or the waffle approach would have been "the answer" I think they miss the point that Democrats were divided on War and united on Econmics.

Kerry spent a lot of publicity effort publicizing his military credentials.

I think Kerry wasted publicity - he missed the opportunity to shift the focus back to the United States - to domestic issues.

Perhaps in three years things will be different - war news saturation might cause a shift in political focus. We no longer watch any evening news because it's all about Iraq (yes I know people are dying but it's the same thing every day) and we don't live there and would like to hear about the US, or hell, even Mexico or Canada, or somewhere other than the Middle East, (maybe the Chinese or Indian or Japanese economies) for a change.

I think the real reason that Bush ever became president, and still is president, is that the press loves to cover war - and they knew this is what they'd get with Bush, so the press promoted both "election" (I use that term loosely) outcomes because they wanted to cover war.

[KissMeKate]

40. yes, he could have backed up Al Gore on that

instead of staying silent and letting him be made to look like an ass.

[Northern Perspective]

5. MUCH more important than just another electoral post-mortem

The things that Naomi Klein is addressing are about thre heart and soul of social democracy and the advance of American democratic values in the world.

An exceptional piece!

[welshTerrier2]

8. not enough flash for the masses ....

welcome to DU, Northern Perspective !!

you know, unless you use a headline like "Read this ... Kerry gets ripped apart and deserves it" you get very few responses to a critically important article ...

i worry about the quality of our discourse here ...

thanks for taking the time to read the article ... i think Klein is the best journalist we have ... i couldn't agree with you more ... an exceptional piece !!

[davidwparker]

6. As wise as she is beautiful.

"I believe that Kerry's campaign was utterly morally bankrupt and I blame the Kerry campaign for the total impunity that the Bush administration is now enjoying."

This is the line that stood out to me. Go along to get along fat cats who are out of touch with the rest of the party. Unwilling to call attention to election fraud. Unwilling to criticize Bush from jump street.

Your silence speaks volumes.

[welshTerrier2]

11. the fat cats ...

that's really the thing isn't it ... it's not at all clear to me who was calling the shots ...

the whole campaign felt stifled and scripted ... i wonder if we (and Kerry) just got consultanted ...

you've picked a great line out of the interview ... the Democratic Party's education of voters is a full-time job ... it doesn't start and end with each campaign ...

the Party is a disjointed, inconsistent "big tent" that flip-flops from one candidate to the next ... there's "no there there" ... there is NO business more important than developing the core values and themes so that all policy eminates from the Democratic Party's "story" ...

when people know your story, then the variety of policy offerings makes more sense ... you're selling your ideas to an electorate who pretty much understands where you're coming from in the first place ... right now what we do is re-invent the wheel every 2 or 4 years ...

you'd think this would be obvious to "sophisticated campaign operatives", wouldn't you ???

[ginnyinWI]

48. yes that is what I have been saying,too--

The Democrats have such a fuzzy national identity. An brand that nobody is really sure about--so they fall back on old distorted stereotypes of "liberals" who are "weak and wobbly". We need some new themes, fresh causes.

A candidate needs a strong party identity to stand on, and shouldn't have to go around defining what it means to be a Democrat from the ground up!

Bush had an elephant to ride--Kerry had to carry the donkey on his back the whole way!

[DemDogs]

10. Looking backward, she is more instructive

than looking forward. Reading the whole pieve, some of the forward looking analysis is either a given (Americans ALL winced at Abu Ghraib) or not helpful.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

13. she has some very powerful points.

another thread on this here
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3036153

of course much of this is hindsight being 20 20.

That point she made about people saying "I dont want another tax dollar going to the Iraqis", when none of this money has gone to Iraqis - is brilliantly contemplated and worded.


also "If you truly want to be the unilateral administration then you must bear the burden of your unilateralism."

this is good stuff and definitely a must read.

[welshTerrier2]

14. the Party should hire her !!!

i think her message on identity branding is just devastating ... she really "gets it" ... and her pitch goes way beyond mere marketing gimmicks ...

btw, i did see the other thread on this article but it seemed the primary focus of that thread was Iraq and the anti-war movement ... i wanted to add a separate focus on the political issues ... that interview really could have been two totally separate interviews ...

[SlavesandBulldozers]

16. part of me says youre right

part of me thinks that what she is really talking about is cleaning house in the democratic party. there are issues she mentions, and approaches she suggests, that are not within the DNA of the "democratic" leadership of this country. its like asking a rat to complete a complex physics equation.

[seabeyond]

15. why kerry lost, lets see what bush did to lose

so many things i cannot remember. hm, faith oath to listen to him. only went after those guarenteed votes. did poorly on three debates. losing iraq, hateful convention, hateful commercials. aproval rating down. his own side didnt like him

what were all the things bush did wrong during his campaign. we cld go over every inch of kerry's errors and wouldnt amount to a hill of beans what bush did wrong.

the reality the fix was in. the media gave it to bush and kerry could have been perfection and that wouldnt have mattered.

[Hippo_Tron]

18. Comparing apples to oranges, Bush's presidency was (is) a failure

His campaign was brilliant. He managed to get millions of people to vote in direct contrast to their own economic interests with the whole "family values" and national security platforms. He attacked ruthlessly and almost every thing that he said in public was candid planned well enough that the media and the Kerry campaign couldn't pick up any judicy soundbytes. Kerry didn't have a presidency so he couldn't possibly have had so many failures. His campaign, however, had far more blunders than Bush's did.

He did loose the debates (the only thing that Rove couldn't do anything about) but he very effectively destroyed Kerry's post debate support by yelling Terra again.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

20. his own side didnt like him?

youre kidding right? Sure he did shitty in three debates, lost iraq, had a hateful convention, hateful commercials and lower approval rating. but his own side LOVES him. he embodies their own lntellectual, moral, and rational void.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

30. Well that is it in a nutshell

They embrace the intellectual, moral, and rational void of Bush. Because Bush represents God and guns and other shit like that- Americana, apple pie, etc.... it's a losing proposition from the word go.

BTW this woman Naomi Klein is full of shit. Kerry could have been God himself and lost.

[LittleClarkie]

23. I still remember when Bush's mommie had to come out and defend him

"You leave my precious baby alone, you nasty Democrat."

Bush couldn't even defend himself properly, let alone the country.

But now, we could have a beer with Bush. And all Kerry and TerRAHsa were going to do is throw ketsup bottles at the Iraqis (someone actually said this to me at a late night diner. What an ass.) Better than spit balls, I suppose. Them ketsup bottle could hurt somebody.

[welshTerrier2]

29. very interesting response

my first reaction was to think that maybe anyone could cite a laundry list of errors made by either side and maybe i shouldn't put as much creedence into the points raised in the article ...

i dismissed the "fix was in" part because, whether i agree with it or not, we still need to run with the best possible strategy ... i mean, if we're going to run a candidate at all, we should at least try to understand what it will take to win ... i also don't agree that the right wing media make it impossible for Democrats to win ... many Democrats did win ...

and then i came full circle to the original points raised in the article ... i guess where i landed was to think that in spite of all the faults bush had with his campaign, Kerry, or his consultants make numerous critical mistakes ... and i think these mistakes are deeply ingrained in the Party's approach to getting out its message ...

as a bottom line, i think we continue to have the Party's message adjust to whatever our most recent candidate says it is ... that is not often going to be effective ...

thanks for the response though ... i think you raised some points very worth considering ....

[Just Me]

72. Yes. She fails to acknowledge/address the corruption/deception and,...

,...the intentional division waged in neo-fascist-style.

I want to study this article and chew on it for awhile before drawing my own conclusions. On a brief scan, however, I do believe she has some impactful contributions with respect to our failure to identify and market values/convictions common to all Americans. What I did not find in her proffer were the common values/convictions pertaining to honesty, integrity and personal responsibility (all of which this neoCONspirator-possessed administration FAIL TO POSSESS).

I'll give this a more careful read,...and chew on it.

[Wrinkle_In_Time]

19. Naomi Klein is a lightweight hypocrite...

... she made her name with the book "No Logo". If you can't see the irony in her branding herself with the "No Logo" logo, then I can't help you.

Even her (mercifully) rare Globe & Mail columns reveal her to be nothing more than a superficial windmill-tilter. She works for the Globe & Mail FFS (it's a brand in Canada).

Before you idolise her and promote her to U.S. Democratic Oracle, check her trash for Starbucks bags and McDonalds wrappers.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

22. check her trash?

im just judging her on what i read in the article. idolise?

[marcologico]

21. Naomi Klein dreamed up a new Kerry-bash every freakin day of the campaign.

Glad to see she's still getting mileage out of them.

Incidentally they're all bullshit, and no Deaniacs, I'm not going to "prove" it because I don't feel like wasting my time helping the career of a Bush enabler.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

24. im sorry i missed it how did she enable Bush?

im genuinely curious.

[marcologico]

27. Think about it, it'll come to you. n/t

[SlavesandBulldozers]

31. ok

ill think about it rather than you tell me, which is what i asked. dick.

[kerrygoddess]

62. I'll tell you!

She spouted Rovian talking points like the rest of the hardened anti-war folks did. Not too helpful for the campaign. :eyes:

[LittleClarkie]

25. Dem pundits confuse me

Hate Bush but don't like Kerry either. Dontcha kinda have to pick one and run with it? Are they as much to blame as anyone for the "loss"? Why should anyone vote for Kerry when half our own people didn't really like him either, and said so quite loudly?

[marcologico]

26. Right, the Vermont half. n/t

[SlavesandBulldozers]

28. i think its because they are still grounded in passe shit like

ethics and journalistic integrity. they seem to think that the old rules of balance and openness atill apply. dem pundits really ought to unify and start pounding on 2 issues.

[marcologico]

32. Oh please. Klein isn't a journalist, she's just another RW tool. n/t

[SlavesandBulldozers]

34. yeah you already mentioned that.

thanks for piping in again to remind me i had almost forgotten your opinion.

[welshTerrier2]

35. you know ...

this was not a Kerry bashing thread ... it was not my intent to bash Kerry ... the base post made this as clear as i was able to ... the article contains serious criticisms of Kerry and his campaign ... it's here to be analyzed and discussed ... it is not here to provide anyone with material for a flame-fest ...

but you have to come into a thread like this and resort immediately to counter-productive name calling ...

if you don't like the article or the analysis it provided, no problem ... i posted the article here so that we could discuss it ... but noooooooooo ... you are just not willing to discuss anything ...

you're non-answers just blow a bunch of smoke around with no added value ...

if you have something useful to say, say it ... what you've offered so far does nothing to move the Party forward ... we either accept the ideas we discover and use them in the next campaign or we don't ... what guidance have you provided on that ???

[marcologico]

38. Okay here's what I really think: Alternet and it's crappy writers are on

somebody's payroll, and it's probably not Rove's. Who does that leave?

[welshTerrier2]

41. ad hominem again ...

even if Rove was the author of the article and even if he disclosed he was, it wouldn't matter ... the point is, go ahead and assume whoever paid to get the article written is the very essence of evil ... so what ???

at issue here, regardless of whatever evil motivations you might ascribe to the author, are the points raised in the article ...

if the arguments Klein made are so obviously deficient, you should have no trouble convincing others of that fact ... so far, unless people think Klein is a right-winger or Alternet has crappy writers with suspicious motives, you haven't offered anything of substance ...

[marcologico]

43. I said I DON'T think they're on Rove's payroll, which leaves the payola

king. Another "consulting" fee I'd imagine. Yawn, I figured that one out a while ago.

[welshTerrier2]

44. yes, i understood what you said ...

the point i was making is that the points in the article can be discussed on their own merits regardless of the source ...

[marcologico]

47. Well to be honest, putting stuff in italics makes it difficult to read,

at least on my monitor, and I've read enough of her crap in various places to know exactly what dead horse she's kicking, but if it'll make you happy I'll click your link and check to see if she's learned any new tricks.

[marcologico]

49. Nope, same old clueless baloney, reported straight from the TV set, Fox no

doubt. "The more Kerry tried to be a third-rate John Wayne"? If she ever got up off her couch it would improve her writing considerably.

[welshTerrier2]

50. i'd appreciate that ...

i'm not looking for agreement ... i'm looking for honest analysis ...

i've read some of your stuff before ... i'm sure you can offer something of value ...

[marcologico]

51. I don't see much there at all For one thing the facts are pretty iffy

(polite for wrong, way wrong, like "He didn't mention Abu Ghraib. He didn't ever mention civilian deaths as one of the problems in Iraq. He was too busy showing how tough he was," which is unbelievably inaccurate), and for another, it seems completely third-hand, like it's compiled out of articles she read on NewsMax. Worse than usual, if you ask me, but maybe because it's an interview and she didn't get a chance to polish it up.

[welshTerrier2]

52. did Kerry mention Abu Ghraib during the campaign ??

did he mention civilian deaths ?? i don't remember his putting much if any focus on these issues ... of course, my memory is, ummmm, what was i saying ...

as for the "tough" business, and I make these remarks beyond just Kerry, i think there is a "macho" philosophy driving the Democrats' political strategy ...

it seems to me some in the Party are hyper-sensitive to be branded by the republicans as soft on defense ... so issues like incarceration without access to lawyers, dead Iraqi civilians and some of the Abu Ghraib abuses take a back seat to increasing troop strength ...

again, my focus is not just on Kerry ... Senator Reid is calling for an increase in military headcount of 40,000 ... no thanks ... we don't need more troops ... we need fewer military escapades ...

[marcologico]

53. Of course, and the civilian deaths, in several speeches I heard in the

summer, mostly on the radio. Not in the debates, no, but he was saying this stuff, even if the New York Times (and low-life liars at Alternet) weren't splashing it all over the front page.

[tishaLA]

55. I may be wrong

But I believe her argument about civilian deaths is specious at best. I doubt you can make Americans care about foreign deaths, unfortunately. Obviously, the tsunami thing is different, but I think the "support the troops" thing is so ingrained as an unquestioning loyalty to our military actions that an argument about unnecessary deaths in Iraq is almost impossible. Or, rather, the groundwork for this argument needed to be laid LONG before now by everyone from McKinney to Lieberman; it wasn't.

[Tigress DEM]

57. Actually, I think her argument about civilian deaths does matter

I care that civillians were killed and the US tried to cover it up. I think it's even worse that they went after the doctors and hospitals. It also goes to "war crimes" - civillians who can't leave an area without being shot and are denied access to food and water are the victims of war crimes.

It's one more example of how dishonorable the Bush administration runs this war. Many people in this country, repubs included still believe that the US needs to be the example for the rest of the world. Killing civillians and covering up their deaths isn't honorable and in the end will undo them.

[tishaLA]

60. I didn't say it didn't matter

I said that it is difficult now, after we have allowed the opportunity to discuss why civilian deaths are important, to highlight it as a campaign issue. This is a discussion that has to occur alongside our support the troops arguments and it needs to be a constant refrain in the party's discourse about the war.

I thought my post was clear that I found the lack of caring deplorable--apparently it did not. I didn't feel like I had to type obvious statements about george's administration's dishonorable behavior throughout this war or that killing civilians and covering up their deaths isn't honorable. That is precisely why I said it needed to be addressed at every juncture by everyone in the party.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

45. here's what i think.

you dont dedicate more than 2 minutes to any post you make and don't really contribute to the spirit of the original thread. the original poster was trying to come up with some constructive conversation. what is your fucking point please im begging you? no more cryptic bullshit what is your goddamn point?

[sendero]

71. Try to follow this..

.... "don't like Bush**"

"Liked Kerry"

"Had enough of failed approaches"

"Want a new nominee with a new approach"


Really not that complicated. Where are all those "Kerry is working behind the scenes" people anyway? I know who the deludinoids are around here, that is for sure.

And BTW, Dean and/or Clark may not save the party - but at least they won't try the same old failed shit that will never get us anywhere. The same ridiculous "Iraq war is good but I could do it better" bullshit that couldn't sell ice in hell.

There is a reason that some of us are PISSED, and it is because we LOST to the worst president in our lifetimes and there simply IS NO FUCKING EXCUSE for it. And you can't cry ELECTION FRAUD when the man who was defauded bent over and lubed it up. No sorry, ain't buying it.

Now, any more questions?

[robbedvoter]

33. Naomi dear, we won. In spite of all those things.

[welshTerrier2]

36. can't you do a little better than that ??

the point of this thread was to discuss, as i pointed out in the very first words in the base post, issues raised about how Kerry campaigned and how the Democratic Party always seems to campaign ...

it is NOT A THREAD ABOUT FUCKING ELECTION FRAUD ... even if Kerry won, the point being made in the article is that he could have done much better with a different strategy ... even if we could totally fix the fraud problems before the next election, there are other things we may need to consider ...

to just go flying around to every thread that wants to analyze political strategies and drop you little gem and nothing but your little gem is a bit vacuous ...

the point is i agree with the importance you give to election fraud but it is NOT the only issue ... it just isn't ... and if you think it is, i think there an election forum, or should be, just for this issue ... how about offering a response to the discussion at hand or is that expecting too much ???

[SlavesandBulldozers]

39. its expecting too much.

the great irony is that the article addresses the overall attitude we often see on display.

[welshTerrier2]

42. tell me about it ...

it just kills me ...

it seems we have lost any ability whatsoever to analyze anything and have any sort of constructive conversation ... it's like everyone has on their own little uniform and is out cheerleading for their very own team ...

the point isn't that we have to agree on outcomes; the point is that we're not even having discussions about what the outcomes could be or should be ...

[SlavesandBulldozers]

46. i agree

and in all fairness, I'm just now getting to a point where i can begin to address these things constructively. So i can understand the position of some of our fellow DUers who are, at this point, burying their heads in the sand rather than look at some of these truths in the face.

[tishaLA]

54. Klein makes some important points here

especially the stuff about brand identification. I think it's true that most voters aren't interested in the minutiae of policy but in identifying with a candidate. I think she's also right about the way the republiCONS have managed to co-opt various symbols, like NASCAR and country music, as synonyms to political affiliation; that's one of the reasons those who step away from hegemony in those groups--the Dixie Chicks against the war or Earnhart Jr. talking his crew to see Fahrenheit 9/11--pose such a threat to the brand and have to be contained.

I wonder whether she is right about her conclusion, though. She certainly is right that the derision heaped on Sen. Kerry after his hunting trip (Hughes, McClellan, and Rove dressing as Kerry on Halloween or Dick's snide commentary designed to emasculate Kerry) made george look more masculine and perhaps resolute to his target demographic. But I am not sure she is right that the response to the language of faith is the language of morality, which is faith's sister (or at least in the same family). It might be on a different register altogether. Why isn't the response to the language of faith a shift in discourse?

[eridani]

65. Morality has no necessary relation to faith

Some ground their morality in some traditional faith, and others have the very same moral code without any particular faith. The morals and ethics are important, not faith.

[Tigress DEM]

56. Sigh,,,,

I've read some articles by Naomi that I thought were good, but if her other articles have these kind of factual misrepresentations, maybe she isn't credible either.

It's hard to be the one to bring up faith when the Pope is telling people not to vote for you and your opponent rewrites the rules so preachers can campaign for him without losing their 501c status. Even so, I thought he spoke well on faith in the 3rd debate.

However, America is about seperation of church and state and talking about getting the job done in America without bringing the church into that process was more to the point to me.

Kerry took heat for saying he would have supported the war for the very reason Naomi gave, Saddam's abuse of power, with the caveats of working with the UN and our allies, instead of marching in there <sp> by ourselves.

[Tigress DEM]

58. Let's talk about faith then...

Jesus said, "Feed my Sheep".

Who would you trust to get the job done? Kerry or Bush?

Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Who do you think is a better example -

Bush who promises everything to everyone and is an equal opportunity back stabber once he gets his photo op?

Or Kerry who was actually in a swift boat and went to battle after he came back to see that others didn't have to be involved in a war that was unjust?

[sandnsea]

59. Another deaf Kerry hater

fuck 'em. He could say something right to her face and she wouldn't hear it. It's just like the MTP interview Sunday. wsws.org said Kerry supports Bush's war plan. Tweety said Kerry supported Kennedy's withdrawal timeline.

Neither one of them are right, but neither of them gave a shit about being accurate in the first place. Just like Ms. Klein. Just another bomb tosser who can't admit how much her own distortions hurt the election.

[kerrygoddess]

61. I'll read the whole thing tomorrow...

But as someone who was deeply involved with the Kerry campaign from summer '03 I disagree with most of what I read hear from Naomi Klien and I do like her work.

Frankly I feel that one of the biggest problems we faced was the dissention among Dems towards Kerry for his Iraq vote and that transmuted into a lot of ABB voters complaining constantly about every little thing. That sort of dissention did not help the campaign and it's it evident from what Klein said here that her focus is to complain more about the same old stuff that the hardened anti-war folks could not see their way past.

[progressiveright]

64. interesting

first she says that we should support democracy Iraq, and who cares if it makes it look like the war was justified, then she says that we should support anti-bush sentiments around the world so that other countries withdraw help from us to make our military hurt.

[eridani]

67. She means REAL democracy

The invasion can't be taken back, and we should attempt to ally with Iraqis who want the occupation ended and a voice for everyone there in determining Iraq's future.

http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000193.php

Referencing both figures, Ayar then added, “Percentages and numbers come only after counting and will be announced when it's over ... It's too soon to say that those were the official numbers.”

But this isn’t the most important misrepresentation the mainstream media committed.

What they also didn’t tell you was that of those who voted, whether they be 35% or even 60% of registered voters, were not voting in support of an ongoing US occupation of their country. In fact, they were voting for precisely the opposite reason. Every Iraqi I have spoken with who voted explained that they believe the National Assembly which will be formed soon will signal an end to the occupation.

And they expect the call for a withdrawing of foreign forces in their country to come sooner rather than later.

[progressiveright]

69. that's true

it just doesn't seem like people in iraq know what the hell they are actually voting for, many candidates are too scared to campaign openly. the very least we could do is make a flier which would outline basic economic and political positions of each political party, as well as answers to simple questions like do they want all american troops to leave the country right now, what's their views on the role of islam in relation to government, their views on sunni vs shiites vs kurds; and try to disseminate that flier to every single iraqi to use as a point of reference.

still, it doesn't make much sense when Naomi says that we should support those abroad that want to hurt our military efforts, I guess her idea is to keep doing that until us is forced to adopt the right policies, but who the hell is going to administer the test to see if we are doing the 'right thing' in the future and are worthy to support, her ?

[eridani]

66. Wotthehell does she mean, the left didn't oppose Saddam?

Whothehell did she think wrote all those letters to congresscritters in the 80s demanding that aid and loan guarantees be blocked on humanitarian grounds? Guess it's like the Abraham Lincoln brigade in 30s Spain, with their 'premature antifascism.'

[rman]

68. how about a combination of factors caused Dems to lose?

Each factor on its own would not be enough to make a difference.

1. a weak campaign by Kerry, allowing much of the RW media lies to stand (though those are hard to counter at any rate)
this would reduce the number of people voting for Kerry, but not enough to make him lose.

2. insufficient voting capacity at poll locations in Dem areas
this would further reduce the number of votes for Kerry, but not enough to lose

3. fudging the numbers, which is easy to do and near impossible to prove given the proprietary nature of the privatized voting system (though it's apparent from the discrepancies between exit polls and election results)
this combined with the other two points would guarantee a victory for Bush

[Hidden Stillness]

70. A Few Kerry Thoughts

There are two sets of reasons why Kerry/Democrats lost, one having to do with what Kerry etc. did, and the other having to do with how voters/people are. Most of this, everybody knows, of course.

Kerry did not attack the Swift Boat Liars for a long time, and their media presented it as the truth, and therefore Kerry's silence "had to mean" that they had hit the nail on the head and Kerry was guilty. You do not have a media full of reporters anymore. Kerry used too many slogans, like "..opening firehouses in Baghdad and closing them in..." blah, which no one could cheer for, rather than a real, hard-hitting attack on corporate greed and downsizing, which all of us suffer from and are angry about; especially after I heard that Kerry had refused to cross a picket line. This is a great, "old-timey" Democratic thing that would've been hugely popular in the Midwest, but I never heard it from them. Kerry's background as a prosecutor for victims' rights was never referred to, and that would've been very popular; both tough on crime, and caring for victims. I only realized a little while ago that the Senator who was uncovering all this shocking information on Reagan's CIA selling cocaine to support the Contras, illegal on two counts after the Congressional ban on supports for those--what?--terrorists?, but whose investigations were suddenly shut down by Republicans was--Kerry! Why was that, and the rest of Kerry's Congressional career, never referred to, as a way of establishing competence and courage? Kerry's occasional stumbling phraseology, everybody knows about.

The other part of the equation is how people think of these things. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they are all "stupid" or "afraid." I heard many comments from people I knew to be intelligent, and the things they said were not merely stupid, they were stupid exactly the way the media told them. Most people don't have the time or interest to really pursue things, so they will only pay attention to one quote or "news" story, then flip to something else. If the bullshit they tell you is "Republicans are trying to give seniors prescription drug benefits, but Democrats are blocking it"--a total lie about the whole situation--then whose fault is that? Also, a family member told me about talking to someone during the election, and this other person actually said, about voting for Bush, "you don't change horses in the middle of a stream," and this was an intelligent person. People actually think that way during war. Also, if Republicans pass out flyers at churches, as they did, (West Virginia and Arkansas, and both Sen. Robert Byrd and Sen. Blanche Lincoln demanded an apology from the Floor of the Senate), that if Democrats won they would "Ban the Bible," then what is it that these people "agree with"?

I consider myself very religious--NOT like THEM--and posted a message, under a different name at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/USDemocrat-National/message/24425 called "Real Christians, Fake Christians," (which you would not post as an Article here), that sums up my attitude toward hypocritical Repubs and what I think religion is. We have many ways of telling our own spiritual/moral story. Listen to their agenda, then listen to ours, and if you think they have "moral values" and we don't, then you are insane. This case is easily made if we would just take shots at them as they deserve it, and stop worrying about the response of "the voters," as people always get when they are over-consulted; and that, of course, was the last problem with Kerry. From suddenly appearing, out of nowhere, with the gun on the hunting trip, very phony, to using weird expressions like, "we will hunt down and kill the terrorists"--I mean, who talks like that--there was a general appearance of phoniness to much of the campaign. Very depressing, because I eventually came to believe that Kerry would have been a great President, and none of that was conveyed during the campaign, because of the cheesy ad-campaign that politics has become, because of media.

[Disturbed]

73. Democratic Convention and Rove strategy.

The major weak point of Kerry in the polls was War On Terror. To get rid of that weakness the Kerry consultants went with Kerry the War Hero. Rove's main thrust is always attack the opponents strong points. That's what the Rethugs did and with full out frontal assult: Swift Boat Liars.

When Kerry didn't come out fighting against them for over a week that weakened him. His confusing statements about the $83 Billion and "if he knew there were no WMDs" along with Usama appearance sunk the Kerry bid. Also, Kerry just doesn't have charisma. Voters mostly do not vote on nuance or complicated issues. It's about image, perception and simplicity.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

74. i agree

:thumbsup: