The right-wingers all said they wanted to face Dean in November...

[Timahoe]

They all said how much they wanted to face Dean and how much they were rooting for him to be the nominee. That made us hesitate, and even scared. If the right-wingers wanted Dean, then that isn't good.


Then the right-wingers started saying how scared they were of Kerry and how he'd be Bush's most difficult opponent. So we all gravitate towards Kerry.

Folks, has anyone here ever heard of the term "reverse psychology"?


Now the Village Voice reports that Roger Stone, a longtime Republican gun for hire was behind Sharpton's blistering attacks on Dean which were the start of his sharp decline in the polls.


We've been had. I just hope some of you wake up from this bandwagon stampede before it is too late and we have to see a smirking Rove brag about everything turned out the way he had planned.

[KissMyAsscroft]

1. I doubt that...

I dont think that many people were aware of what the Repubs wanted...

I think they voted for Kerry because he positioned himself as the safe choice.

[roguevalley]

6. Go to www.salon.com. There is an article there about Sharpton. Or it is

in Connason's column. It is interesting to read about.

[Gadave]

2. I wonder

The republicans are trying to get court nominees through so maybe they want Kerry so they can get 5 senators in the south. Living now in Georgia and also having lived in Ohio and Florida, people outside of the NE are not keen on voting for people from Massachusetts.

I support Dean, but I think the Republicans fear Edwards the most. If I was voting on electability I would vote Edwards, but I am not, I am voting for whats best, so Dean is my guy.

I can see the Republicans playing us with our own paranoia. That's why I think paranoia is a bad basis to use to direct political activism. It makes you predictable.

[emanymton]

3. We Have NOT Been Had

The Dmocratic Nominee (DN) will defeat the Shrub in November beacuse the DN is who the voters want.

[isbister]

4. I didn't like Dean before

the republicans even knew who he was.

The voters are rejecting Dean, they're tired of misleaders, its as simple as that.

[Gadave]

5. Misleader?

How has he mislead?

Ad hominem attacks on a good man and the reason I am starting to lean very ABK <--- Anybody but Kerry.

Kerry has not been showing the appropriate amount of respect for the others in the race, and his supports seem to parrot that disrespect.

I was looking for a reason to support Kerry, and what I have learned since Iowa is that he is not someone I like very much. If he wins I hope we can win in November, and not lose too much in the Senate. I just ask that he not act as if 10 percent of the delegates has decided the race.

[bornskeptic]

13. When has Kerry shown disrespect for other candidates

With the exception of Dean. Dean started his campaign calling Kerry Bush-lite. What does he expect?

[Gadave]

14. He is acting as if the nomination is a foregone conclusion

I just saw him on CBS talking about focusing on Bush in November, blah blah blah. We all have the goal of getting rid of Bush, but he and his political operatives are acting like they are guarenteed victory in the DN.

It's like a team totally discounting who they are playing in the first round of the playoffs and talking about who they will be facing in the finals. When you refuse to address your current opponent as if they were legitimate competition that is a little insulting.

[Gadave]

15. P.S.

Its one of the reasons I am becoming a John Edwards fan. He seems to show respect for all of his opponents in this race.

[isbister]

21. a bit of that when you're in the lead is good politics

nothing more. Sure, he has to walk a fine line but its just plain smart to feed into the electability issue.

He' has been hammering away at bush the whole time, too by the way.

[Gadave]

22. On this you are right

But I am still to idealistic to accept it, I guess.

[isbister]

23. How

A number of ways, I'll just give two.

1) He misled about both his and Kerry's positions on the IWR as well as the war. He uses the terms "voted for war" and "supported the war" when speaking about Kerry, Edwards, & Lieberman.

a) He's read the resolution and if he hasn't, he should have read it. He knows where the other candidates stand on the issue (having been on the stump with them for soooo long) and if he doesn't, he should. He is misleading to say they voted for war when the IWR was no such thing. He purposely grouped Kerry in with the others when he knows Kerry's position is a lot closer to his than it is to the others. He misled purely for political gain and it was successful while folks weren't really paying attention but failed him when they did.

2) He misleads with his "there were no middle class tax cuts" by using the fact that the states raised other fees thereby eating up any money that came back.

a) He knows the Democrats in Congress fought to get what they could and more for the middle and lower class but were rebuffed by the republicans.

b) He misleads by implying that a Democrat as President would have left the states in crisis, hanging them out to dry as bush did, when he knows that it was the Democrats in Congress that worked hard to get money for those states and that the republicans limited it.

c) He misleads by listing all of the fees that states increased as why there was no cut. He follows with "we're going to recind the bush tax cuts". My state, and a few others I'll bet, won't readily give back any increased fees and will drag its feet in cutting them back, if it ever does. Dean knows how state government works. Even if the Feds gave billions upon billions to all of the states to help them out, the states won't quickly give up their newly found money (if ever).

Those are just two. He's bush-lite. Look at how he speaks, look at the politics he plays, look at the foot in his mouth.... shoot, he even spends money faster than bush can. He's done, the people have and will continue to reject him.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

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

[Gadave]

8. Edit cause I am a moron lol

I didnt see the number of posts the original poster had. oh well.

[Timahoe]

9. I can't tell if I am working for Karl Rove

because if I really was working Rove, and told you, I'd have to kill you.

Leave No Witnesses Behind ;)

[pa28]

10. You give them too much credit

They have about as much strategic foresight as a wrecking ball.

[Timahoe]

11. For the past three years

whenever it seemed like we were about to win, the rug was suddenly pulled out from under us, and Rove was just standing there to brag about his brilliant strategy.

I am inclined to think Rove is a political genius and not to be underestimated. Tell me how else to describe a man who transformed Shrub from a dried out drunk to governor and president in just 8 short years.

[bornskeptic]

12. I figured out the Republicans would rather face Dean than Kerry

long before I heard any of them mention it. It ain't exactly rocket science.

[Piperay]

16. General Clark

is the man they are REALLY scared sh*tless to face in Novemeber. :scared: :evilgrin:

[YouMustBeKiddingMe]

17. The right wing is not picking the winners, and neither is Rove

The Democratic voters are.

Dean is a target because he invites it. His angry style attracts the base but doesn't translate to votes with the rest of the American public. Like it or not, many people simply don't like him.

Kerry is the front runner because more people are voting for him. This should be no surprise as Kerry has some pretty good credentials and a long history of accompplishments.

There is no conspiracy. More people like Kerry than like Dean, that's all there is to it.

[Gadave]

18. The issue is not picking its influencing

It is naive to think the Rove-ing lunatics don't have talking points to prop up the person they think is weakest and hurt the person they think is the strongest.

Certainly they don't pick the winner. But some strategically crafted statements here or there can have significant influence.

[YouMustBeKiddingMe]

20. What statement are those?

What are those talking points that are being used? I'm not hearing anything from the White house about the candidates.

I think it's self serving of Dean supporters to suggest Dean is losing because of some plot or master design by the right wing. He attacks the other candidates and the Democratic party itself, and that is known to turn voters off.

Dean is losing because he made some mistakes and some bad decisions and fell off his pedestal. I don't mean to be insensitive, but Dean blew 40 million in IA and NH and lost, and then didn't even compete in last nights primaries, so what do you expect? That's not a Rovian plot. That was his choice.

Kerry is winning because he busted his ass and is connecting with the voters. He is getting more media coverage because he gained support in the weeks leading up to IA and NH and upset Dean in both. He had to actually get the most votes to get those wins. That's not a Rovian plot either. The voting public actually likes Kerry, whether you do or not.

[Cooley Hurd]

19. Why does he continue to be savaged by them in the media?

Bill Schneider of CNN, an American Enterprise Institute Fellow, has been BRUTAL to Dean in his reporting. So has Fox.

Why would the RW media bash Dean if he's their "preferred" candidate?

[LuminousX]

24. Consider

the GOP have been preparing for a Kerry run for decades. Before the primaries when Kerry was the heir apparent to the DNC nomination, the GOP started their research and testing their attacks.

Their aresenal against Kerry is prepped and primed. Dean was the a complete X factor for them. They needed they DNC to take out Dean so they could be focus on more traditional candidates. The same applies to Clark, though I don't like Clark so I don't like to waste too much time defending him.

This doesn't mean we've just handed the election to Bush. Bush is unelectable. All the Democratic candidate has to do so A)promise and follow through on getting an international coaltion in Iraq and B)get jobs back in this country.

All that has happened with Kerry doing so well is allowing the GOP to return to the scripts they have already prepared. They would rather fight the opponent they know instead of the opponent they don't know.

[THUNDER HANDS]

25. The top-4, in order of who they fear the most

1. Edwards
2. Clark
3. Kerry
4. Dean

[Gadave]

26. I agree for the most part.

Before Dean went way down though, I think he would have been second.

I do back support Edwards (still Dean for me), but if electability is what you are after Edwards is it. I think his recent good fortune is sending shock waves of fear through the Republican camp.

[Zynx]

27. Yep. In 1992 Republicans kept saying how worried they were about Paul Tson

gas and they weren't really worried about him. He would have been crushed and they knew it.

[KFC]

28. How about "double reverse psychology"

If we know that he knows that we know. That way there is no way we get fooled.