The REAL reason Kerry did not fight

[chrisclub]

Late on election night it was already known that the House and Senate would be solid GOP, so other than appointments, Kerry was going to be more neutered than Clinton was after 94.

The country was not screwed up enough for voters to overcome the machine fraud and vote the GOP out, and may not be in 2006 either.

However, with the War/Debt/job loss track Bush has put this country on, we are bound to be in terrible shape come 2008, and Kerry would would have shared much of the blame and the GOP would keep their House/Senate control.

By waiting 4 years for the country to be completely in the dump, there is a good chance we can vote the whole lot of them out, and start cleaning up the GOP mess.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Peace Patriot]

18. Prove it, sandnsea! Prove Bush won. n/t

[Erika]

2. Sorry, Kerry would have been a great leader

leading by consensus. Republicans in Congress will continue running far away from the losing and divisive Bush policies if they have any hope of winning in 2006. Bush is the captain of the Titanic and they are not going down with the ship.

[DanCa]

4. agreed (nt)

[autorank]

7. "and they are not going down with the ship."

Erika, we can always hope, can't we?

No need to panic, this is the greatest ship ever built, run by a brilliant captain and staff. Why, that's just an iceberg. We'll have no problems. Oh, there are problems. Well, we'll be rescued soon. Admiral Karl is just over the horizon steaming toward us in the Love Boat.

They're all going down.

[dchill]

31. It's certainly not their intention ...

to go down with the ship, but their road to hell is paved with bad intentions. Things are falling apart, the center cannot hold.

[DanCa]

3. Interesting theory

But I still belive that the Church emotionally black mailled Kerry into not fighting for the win. Kerry was a good christian going up a nest of vipers and all. I like your vote the whole lot of them out line. It has given me hope. Welcome to DU

[autorank]

5. I'll buy that as a likely scenario. Very interesting (although I'm not

sure you want my endorsement, LOL).

Another reason is probably this: The Republicans had done such a good job of padding the vote, even if Kerry won Ohio (which he surely did), he'd have ended up with everything you list PLUS being a President who :sarcasm: "lost" the popular vote by millions.

We can clean up but DNC needs to get it's head out of it's ass on election fraud. I read their report. It's a compendium of consultant reports, even on consultant letterhead. There is some great stuff in it. What's there that's offensive is their great effort to say, "oh, we lost Ohio" even with all the detail they offer on disenfranchisement. They also failed to come up with a hard hitting list of things for state and local parties to do.

We can't win if a bunch of extremist Republican voting machine companies provide the machines and do the counting.

Thought provoking post!

[chrisclub]

11. They never got the machins?

[Ediacara]

6. Maybe...

But the same exit-polls that showed Kerry taking the election, also showed the Democrats taking the Senate.

[Erika]

9. You mean 2000 & 2004 elections may have been crooked?

I think it's highly probable. But Rove did get his Bible Belters out with the gay amendments in so many states. Rove was masterful in playing them just the way he wanted.

[Ediacara]

12. Well ya...

I'm just pointing out that the logic in the original post isn't very sound. Original poster claimed Kerry didn't fight because he would have had his hands tied with a GOP House and Senate.

The trouble is this: exit polls showed Kerry winning between 5 and 9 "Bush" states (Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, New Mexico, and Nevada, possibly also Florida, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Colorado). Those same exit polls showed the Democrats winning either being one seat shy, or winning the Senate outright (winning in North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, and Alaska, possibly South Dakota, and South Carolina). So.... Why would Kerry believe the exit polls for the presidential election, but not for the Senate?

As for the Bible-Belters.... Bush got between 11 and 13M "new" people since 2000. These people seem to have come out of nowhere, are not indicated by any polling trends, and exceed by 100% the number of born-again Christians in the United States. If this isn't a sign of fraud I'm not sure what is...

[LightningFlash]

14. Oh stop it!

Don't be logical, the fundies don't like that. :crazy: :crazy:

You see, the logical thing is there wasn't enough christian fundies to make those numbers so they duplicated themselves in a genius way, through miscounting machines and fraud!!!

After all if your voice isn't loud enough, what better way to MAKE it be loud enough?

:shrug: :evilgrin: :think:

[Peace Patriot]

20. Yup, that's what the Corporate Rulers would like you to believe--that

"Rove was masterful." It's much like their "invisible" get out the vote campaign. Public relations B.S.--the "Big Lie."

The Dems blew the Repubs away in new voter registration in 2004, nearly 60/40.
New voters voted overwhelmingly for Kerry.
Independent voters voted overwhelmingly for Kerry.
Nader voters voted overwhelmingly for Kerry.
Gore 2000 voters (the winners of the popular vote in '00) voted overwhelmingly for Kerry, and got all their non-voting family members, friends and co-workers to register and vote for the first time (the new voters)--indicating great enthusiasm for ousting Bush.
Switch voters (Gore/Bush 2000) were a wash.

So who does that leave?

The "invisible"--which Rove "masterfully" and magically turned into votes for Bush.

Like everything else the Corporate Rulers would like you to believe, it just doesn't add up.

------------

Re: Kerry's concession. I don't think it was a cynical judgment on Kerry's part to let the country go to hell and then pick up the pieces. But I do think that the complete blockade in Congress by Bush "pod people" against any sort of justice on the election may have been a factor in his decision. He was shark food to the corporate news monopolies. They would have ripped him limb from limb. He had a Bush-packed Supreme Court. He had excessively bad and cowardly advisers--the DNC and its ilk--who wouldn't back him in a challenge (that's my guess), and lobbied hard against it. The forces arrayed against a challenge were overwhelming. All he had was the people who voted for him in overwhelming numbers--which he may not have believed on 11/3 (the exit polls said 3%, but it was very likely a 7% to 10% margin of victory, if everyone who wanted to vote for him had been able to do so, and all the votes had been counted)--and he didn't believe in us and in democracy sufficiently to challenge it with "only" the people in support.

Barring direct threats by the Bush Cartel--and we can't count that out--I think this is more or less what happened. Also, the main part of the fraud was hidden--deliberately so, of course--in the Bush Cartel voting machine companies' secret, proprietary software. It was an invalid, unverifiable election, which the people who were advising Kerry on 11/3 had FAILED TO WARN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ABOUT, probably due to serious corruption at the state/local level associated with the electronic voting systems (corruption that involves both Dems and Repubs), and the DNC's pro-war stance.

See this thread on the state/local corruption:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

I can't judge Kerry's action on 11/3. I think he was in a really bad spot, and we don't know enough about it to make a judgment of him personally. But I DO blame the DNC and the Democratic Party and its leaders in general. They were collusive on Bush's war, and hopelessly corrupt in many ways. They ceased to believe in democracy a long time ago, and detested the grass roots who elected Kerry by a landslide. Though Kerry's stance on the war was weak, as president he would have been beholden to the true majority in the country which has been against the Iraq War from the beginning--as opinion polls have consistently shown--a 60% majority before the invasion; nearly 80% today. I believe that the pro-war Dems advising Kerry did not want a president who was beholden to the anti-war majority in the country.

[Peace Patriot]

23. One other thing, which I think was very, very, very important....

The corporate news monopolies FALSIFIED the exit poll numbers on the everybody's TV screens on election night--"adjusting" the exit polls (Kerry won) to fit the official result (Bush won), thus depriving the American people of major evidence of fraud. I consider this the worst journalistic crimes our news monopolies have ever committed. They thus prevented what would have been a huge protest and calls for investigation.

Let me repeat: they MADE IT APPEAR that Bush had won the exit polls, too. They even fooled me for a couple of hours. And with most people in the country thinking that Bush had won both the official tally AND the exit polls--and thinking that the only problematic area was Ohio--and with DNC types telling him he didn't have enough votes in Ohio (that it would be a bloody knockdown dragout that he didn't have a prayer of winning), he likely felt that he didn't have the support to continue.

It's an unknown whether or not Kerry knew what the news monopolies were doing with the exit poll numbers. If he didn't know they had falsified the numbers, then he had reason to believe that he lost (and/or that proving he had won would be impossible). If he did know that they had falsified the numbers, he was equally screwed, because it meant that the entire news monopoly establishment had conspired to hide and falsify evidence that Bush had lost.

We're talking about 11/3. Not now. Now we know a lot more--that the exit polls showing that Kerry won was just the tip of the iceberg. When you add up all the crimes that Bushite election officials committed that day, to suppress the Kerry vote, it's clear that Kerry's victory went way beyond the exit poll 3%. That's just the voters who made it to the voting booth (and got polled as they left). Many hundreds of thousands of Kerry voters had their names purged from the voter rolls, were given disinformation on where to vote, were threatened with jail, couldn't wait in 6 to 10 hour voting lines (precincts shorted on machines), were refused absentee ballots, had their absentee ballots "lost in the mail," had their voter registration forms shredded by RNC operatives, were unfairly challenged at the polls and were forced to vote provisionally (most of those ballots were not counted), etc., etc.

But what the falsified exit poll numbers did was to kill any national momentum for protest and investigation. And Kerry was facing an increasingly opaque IRON CURTAIN over election fraud news, with every week that went by. By the time the mass slaughter in Falluja was over, the Bush Cartel and their lapdog media had a solid lock on the American peoples' minds, with their brainwashing delusion that Bush had won.

Curious, though. On his inauguration day, Bush's approval rating was a dismal 49%--unprecedented for a recently "re-elected" second term president. Their own polls were telling them the real story, but they didn't say much about it. Odd, that. 49%. (Jeez.)

[elehhhhna]

8. Oh thanks. Let it fall to shit so he can "fix" it? Too late, JK --

skulled & boned, imo.

[shraby]

10. That combined with the planned

Fallujah offense as soon as the election was over. If Kerry had contested without solid proof of election fraud he would have been labeled unpatriotic when all hell was busting out in Fallujah. That's the reason Fallujah was saved for after the election.

[LightningFlash]

13. I don't think so.

I think the reason he didn't fight, is to save his political career.

The evidence is there, its sitting right there in broad daylight. If the DNC had been awake then, they could have FOUGHT everywhere just like in Washington to throw the machines out of the recount, and overturn any fraudulent elections.

There would have been a majority elected to the senate at least if that were the case, but they didn't fight, and they did roll over. Unlike the Washington Governor, who fought tooth and nail and threw Dino Rossi back out of office.

They didn't get it, period, and Kerry's team was full of republicans.

[Old and In the Way]

15. Maybe some truth in that.

Would you want to be the fall guy for the mess put in place by this administration and their rubberstamping beta-monkeys? Kerry-Edwards would get nothing accomplished, but they'd get all of the blame.

Maybe we need to suffer some more...until we get an overwhelming mandate for change that includes Congress as well as the Presidency. I'd rather see the change start in 2006 with a Democratic Congress....this administration deserves the full accountability for their actions (and for 9/11, their inactions).

[zann725]

16. Sorry, not good enough.. Gonna have to come up with more.

A country, and a Presidency "is a terrible thing to waste."

[pox americana]

17. Let's say he called around that night

to his fellow Dems, and said "It looks like there was electronic fraud up the wazoo, but there's absolutely no evidence we can get our hands on without a big, bloody fight. I'll need every one of you standing with me. Will you support me on this?"

Based on their lastest official report, what do you think they said?

[meganmonkey]

19. Heh. Good point

and welcome to DU

:toast:

[pox americana]

28. thanks meganmonkey

delighted to join you!

[Peace Patriot]

21. Yeah, I think you put your finger right on it, pox americana!

And your handle just lightened my heart! Har-har! And welcome!

[pox americana]

29. thanks Peace Patriot

you're very kind :)

[Chi]

22. Being able to Veto anything the GOP tried to get thru ...

was reason enough to fight.
There was spoils to be had, like the likelihood of a Supreme Court Justice resigning, or the winning back of lobbyist funds for the party.
I think there is something else at work here.

My thoughts have drifted to the possibility that the GOP caught the DNC with election improprieties some elections ago, and basically have the DNC between a rock and a hard place.
I can't think of any other leverage that would cause the actions of the DNC to be so docile.

[mod mom]

24. not to mention HE PROMISED EVERY VOTE WOULD COUNT! Wouldn't the Dems

think by not fighting for every vote they would alienate the African Americans who waited in those long lines(and whose mega-churches are being courted by the rethugs with faith based initiative $ and enough voting machines), as well as the progressives like us who stayed around after the election investigating?

Also, if the dems fought to prove election fraud, it would have brought ALL the methods of fraud: electronic machines, caging, registration failures, machine allocation etc, into the spotlight. Yes, these are in our spotlight, but talk to the average dem on the street and they are unaware of the extent of the fraud. I believe the dems blew a big chance to rid the country of many causes of election fraud. Unfortunately, I am beginning to believe this was intentional. :(

[garybeck]

25. lame excuse

if you are right, always fight.

don't give up just because you don't think you can win.

look at what's happening with the downing street memos, all with a GOP congress. Every day they are gaining momentum. Now there is an international investigation.

even if your premise is correct, Kerry still failed us by ignoring the problems with the election irregularities and actually thwarting the efforts of lawyers to expose the fraud.

[byronius]

26. I'm deeply troubled by the mainstream Democratic response.

I still don't understand it. I don't think you're right about this, but I am truly at a loss as to why they just rolled over like they did. Perhaps there is something deep in the 'generally liberal' mindset that eschews internal conflicts like these, when the eyes of the world and history are on them.

I wish a mainstreamer would just effing explain it to me, however stupid and un-american the reason was. Interesting that the GOP seems to be a radical leadership with a primarily moderate base, and the Dems seem to be a middling/muddled leadership with a primarily liberal base. Goddamn it. I'm pissed off. Maybe you're close. Which would be just effing awful.

I need a mocha.

[NoBushSpokenHere]

27. We all know there was more to the reasons

than what we were told. Maybe, someday, the real truth will surface. I had the opportunity to see him speak, and also see John Edwards. Either they are the best actors ever, or there was something drastic that happened or was threatened to happen if they did contest. I have always felt I could "read" people well, I didn't see any falseness or any indication they were not genuine in their convictions.

A few things I felt were odd at the time...

One of the last speaking engagements of Kerry in Cleveland....something just wasn't right. I couldn't and still can't tell you what it was.....just seemed like something was amiss.

The distance there seemed to be between Kerry and Edwards was also concerning.

During the concession speech or just after it, it appeared Teresa shot Kerry a glance as if she were very angry. Like as if she wasn't happy with what he said or didn't say. Did anyone else notice this?

I feel certain there was much more to the concession than what we may ever know. Perhaps he knew the Dems were more corrupt than we ever dreamed. I remember reading a story prior to the election on a board regarding the Kerry investigation into the Iran/Contra affair and reading that there was something bad that was revealed in the investigation about some high ranking Dems that never became public. I can't help but to think this may have had something to do with it.

But.......if we all take a step backward and look at what we now know --- the corruption inside our party from the smallest of Boards to the top.....and in that step backward, lets put ourselves in his shoes.....

Have you ever thought you had something won......acheived an honor of sorts but then someone else was awarded with it.....your gut may tell you......I should have won......but the votes indicated otherwise....you knew the affects of the previous recounts ....and didn't want to be "Gored", you had political advice that you lost because of campaign mistakes, you also realized you had faith in some attorneys that you shouldn't have had faith in, you knew you didn't have the backing of the leadership......remember how critical they were in the days just after the election....and if you did know there was widespread fraud, you also knew that if you stepped forward, you would become the leader of a revolution that could become nasty....all in wartime.....

I don't know, it could of been a combination of several things....but my gut is there is much more to why he conceded than we may ever know.

[YvonneCa]

30. Kerry is fighting...

...just not in the way many here want him to.