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Did John Kerry lose the 2004 election behind the Swiftboat ads? It's clear that that thesis has taken on the status of a sacred cow among some Democrats, if only to justify their non-stop attacks as a supposed "testing vehicle," and to warrant all manner of collaboration with right wing stupidity.
It could be, rather, that Kerry lost because he was a bad candidate and because the timing was just wrong, that the thin slice of people who decided the race just weren't ready to change ships mid-course (however disastrous that decision), and that the "Swiftboating" barely affected that decision. But this is the typical anti-democratic tendency of many "professional" and "centrist" and "progressive" Democrats: they take the public for fools, and think they know better; they take the public for an easily manipulable herd that is always subject to the sway of bad arguments. It must be that the decision to vote for Bush instead of Kerry stemmed from the "success" of "Swiftboating." It couldn't possibly be because, for that slice of the electorate, Bush just made a better argument for the position. I know this idea is so far outside of most DUers capacity to imagine that it seems absurd, but that's the problem right there. Your inability to see where the argument was even located or how it worked is the real and root cause for the loss. It's much easier to just dismiss the audience as idiots than it is to figure out a better argument, so that's what many people do: the myth of the Swiftboat, which is always also the myth of the credulous public.
It shows in the approach of some Democrats and DUers, which is condescending to a fault, arrogant without limitation, and very manifestly contrary to their supposed progressive messages. It shows on these boards, where the term sheeple is congratulated rather than critiqued, where opponents are portrayed as slack-jawed imbeciles (I won't even comment on the destructive and self-defeating class-based rhetoric of such portrayals, though it is clearly a big problem). If only the dumb public weren't so stupid, weren't so easily led by demagogues, this theory goes, we would win every time. Because we're just right, harrummph. It couldn't possibly be that people simply - and for good reasons of their own - disagree with the platform or candidate, right? It's because they're stupid sheep. That's the underlying philosophy of all these "But Kerry got Swiftboated" posts. And it is despicable elitist nonsense. The GOP has made good use of it, and will continue to do so as long as Democrats shit on the public at every opportunity, or when faced with any counterargument.
What's devastatingly clear is that the Swiftboating has turned some Democrats into a pack of craven cowards and cringing wimps, deathly afraid of any media story, because deathly afraid of the supposedly credulous "masses." In that sense, it has served its purpose well by removing from a significant portion of Democrats the only thing that really wins elections: courage, heart, boldness, confidence, strength in one's convictions, and clarity of message - paired with compassion, vision, and a capacity to find common ground.
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