"What A Party - What A Hypocrite." (McAuliffe)

[ProSense]

From http://blog.johnkerry.com/2007/01/jk_on_the_blogs_9.html#more">JohnKerry.com:

Snip...

Pamela Leavey at The Democratic Daily takes on the publicity splash that Terry McAuliffe is chasing in "What A Party - What A Hypocrite".

Elsewhere a blogger referenced this comment from Terry McAuliffe with the question, "Which Terry McAuliffe do you believe?"

McAuliffe lavished praise on Kerry himself. "John Kerry ran a great race," he said. "We had every player on the field. We had more money. We had the largest field operation. We got close. We got to the 1-yard line. But we didn't win. John Kerry gave it all he had."

Well, this article from The Hill may clear up any confusion you may have about Terry McAuliffe's motivation and as Terry himself said, “This is my book and I’ve done my best to make myself look good”.

http://blog.johnkerry.com/2007/01/jk_on_the_blogs_9.html#more">more...

Dear Terry McAwful

[mtnsnake]

1. "John Kerry ran a great race,"

Who the heck is McAuliffe kidding?

[blm]

2. And with LAST Dem president so PUBLICLY supportive of Bush's major decsions throughout

his first term.
And with a DNC that had refused to secure the election process as they were cgarged for four years.

And with bigname Dems refusing to counter their GOP counterparts on national news programs throughout 2004.

[mtnsnake]

4. haha, say that stuff long enough like you do and even you'll start believing

your own spin. Oh wait, some poster on some blog told you that. I forgot. lol

[blm]

9. Oh - Bill Clinton DIDN't support Bush on major policies from 2001-2005?

You better erase all those interviews from Larry King Live then before you revise the record.

[mtnsnake]

13. He sure didn't support anything the way YOU say he supported it

Bill Clinton could say the sky was blue in California and you could make it sound like he lied about the weather in NY.

[blm]

16. No, I wouldn't. My posting history shows I have always defended Clinton when

he is being lied about by the GOP or when defending the GOOD that he has done.

I also will call him out when he FAILS to do the right thing, especially if it proves harmful for the country and for the party.

[Kerry fan]

14. How many politicians do you think

could raise almost a million dollars in just 48 hours, just by sending a request to his e-mail address list?

[ProSense]

3. So you were for McAwful before you were against

him?

[mtnsnake]

5. Now THAT is a good one!

:toast:

[MH1]

6. Well, others in the party agreed with that statement.

Here's an analysis:

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/001333.php

excerpt:

There are any number of simple empirical arguments that may be made in defense of the presidential candidacy of John Kerry. Among them are these:

• He took a Party totally demoralized by 9-11 and Bush’s foreign policy dominance and came within one state of dethroning the incumbent war-time president.

• In that state of Ohio – with a Democratic Party organization in name only - he ran the best Democratic campaign in four election cycles, since Clinton carried the state in 1996. No Democratic candidate since 1996 got as much as the 48.7% Kerry gathered. The last statewide Ohio Democrat who carried the state was John Glenn in 1992.

• Unlike Gore in 2000, Kerry left no doubt by any objective, and most subjective, criteria about who won the 3 debates with Bush.

• According to candidate trait data from the 2004 American national Election Study data, Kerry matched Clinton’s 1992 performance on each attribute measured among Democratic identifiers (cares about people like me, provides strong leadership, knowledgeable). In short, Kerry appealed effectively to the Democratic base.

• Contrary to the conventional wisdom, my multivariate analysis of the 2004 election indicates that a sizeable chunk of Kerry voters voted for him precisely because they admired Kerry’s personal traits, not despite them. Controlling for all other voter predispositions, Kerry’s persona, no matter what the pundits suggest, was a plus – not a minus.

[blm]

8. This is why Clinton/McAuliffe/Carville team went to work blaming Kerry immediately after

the election.


The DNC meeting I went to in Dec 2004 featured Dem strategist speaker pointing all blame away from Dem party and the election security issues.

I wish that strategist would have given that same speech in the back of the floral shop where the Dem party actually HAD Their headquarters, instead of at the hotel meeting room. THAT would have shown how full of shit he was.

[mtnsnake]

10. Im sure if you did enough searching, you'd find blogs saying Dukakis ran a great race

Really, the 2004 election was all about ABB, and Kerry still blew it.

[ProSense]

11. But you wouldn't find any saying he won. n/t

[MissMarple]

7. Charlie Cook from the Cook Report said it was a terrible campaign.

I'll take Charlie's opinion over McAuliffe's. McAuliffe is pathetic, his 15 minutes are so last century. I don't think he has a truly progressive bone in his body. He just comes off as a shallow twit. Someone, please, lead him to a palapa and give him a tray of umbrella drinks.

[stillcool]

12. my goodness....the things one has to do..

just to sell a book. Especially if you're a know-nothing-wannabe who's influence has long been eclipsed. Whatever he's selling I'm not buying...I'd rather read my stack of advertising circulars from various supermarkets.

[wisteria]

15. Great post. They are trying to make Kerry the scapegoat and blame him for everything

negative that ever happened to the party. McAuliffe's book deserves to go straight to the discount rack. It is trash, just like him. I am surprised the Clinton's would want to be so closely associated with him. He makes them look bad.

[Alexander]

17. You don't need to like McAuliffe to know that Kerry did not run "a great race".

Despite all the Kerry apologists have to say, Kerry LOST. And folded immediately instead of making good on his promise to count every vote.

What really got me was Kerry's impressive Senate track record, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, yet the conversation always ended up going back to Vietnam. Gore served in Vietnam, too, but you didn't see him staging "reporting for duty" cheesiness and inviting everyone who ever served with him to be front-and-center at the convention.

Many voters, myself included, were really quite sick of rehashing the events of a war that ended years before we were born. Particularly with the one we've got going on now.

I did lots of canvassing around ASU and Tempe in '04, and 9 times out of 10 when talking with a layperson (ie, NOT a political junkie) about why Kerry/Edwards was so much better, they would say "Well, I don't necessarily like Kerry, but he's got to be better than Bush."

Kerry got as many votes as he did because of ABB. I heard plenty of Kerry voters say rather unflattering things about him, but would end their tirade by saying "But he's better than Bush, so I'll vote for him."

When a large contingent of a candidate's supporters argue that "at least he's not X", that tells me the candidate has some difficulty informing people of his strengths.

BTW, McAuliffe is irrelevant. He just wants to cash in. But I'm sure that won't stop the Kerrybots from assuming I like or support the DLC.

[blm]

18. I don't think McAuliffe is a DLC issue - I see him as a failed DNC head who

may have purposely kept the party infrastructure weak and, in too many states, collapsed. A stronger party infrastructure would have secured the votes earned by the Dem candidates in 2000, 2002, and 2004.

McAuliffe took over after the hearings on 2000 election fraud and he STILL did nothing to secure the process for 2002 and 2004. He promised he would and was supposed to spend his four years making that a priority. He did not, and the Office of Voter Integrity did not work to counter the four year effort of the RNC to further suppress and purge Dem voters, while gaining operational control of 80% of the electronic voting machines, their input and output.

No nominee is supposed to play catch up to the RNC in 6 months time. That is the DNC's job and they are given 4 years to do it. Dean and every 2004 primary candidate saw exactly what the weakest part of the 2004 election, and that was the weak party INFRASTRUCTURE that was incapable of supporting any national nominee when it came time for them to tap into it.

[AtomicKitten]

19. I like Terry McAuliffe.

I think he gets dumped on here quite a bit for the most part undeservedly.