They must like his name.

[ProSense]

From Hotline:

-- The presumptive frontrunner due to establishment backing, superior org. and a "war hero" persona, Kerry ambled through '03 with limp support from Dem activists. Questions about his liberal creds paved the way for Howard Dean on the Left. Four years later, another war hero can't catch fire with his party's base. Questions about his conservative creds have opened the door for Romney and Giuliani on the Right.

[wisteria]

1. For good and bad, I am telling you, people are missing JK. n/t

[JI7]

2. people are fucking morons

Kerry had no support from the establishment. the other Senators didn't support him. Governors, House officials and others were spread out in their support among many of the candidates. others had more support than Kerry did.

Kerry mostly got the support of the "establishment" after he already started winning.

he did have a very good organization thanks to people like Max Cleland and other good friends and DEM ACTIVISTS. and he also used the war protestor persona to win. it's one of the things that helped him when he was attacked for being pro war.

and LIEBERMAN was the front runner, not Kerry. in Iowa it was Gephardt and later Dean. but Kerry was never even expected to win in Iowa.

[karynnj]

3. Very true - they repeat things like that because

when you state the truth - that he had little establishment support and almost NO media championing, it leads to a conclusion that they don't want you to reach.

Kerry had the authentic grassroots campaign of 2004. It was people in NH and Iowa meeting them face to face who gave them those victories. That gave him two big chances to speak and be covered when he made the victory speeches.

The good media that he did get in January in Iowa was about the Rassman reunion. That was NOT a media creation. It was an old fashioned storybook hero story - very simple, easy to get. It is hard to get more appealing than the Senator's natural reaction was. It said everything you needed to know about him as a person. The debates (even the primary ones) showed that, in addition to the person he was, he was brilliant. What more could anyone want.

Had the media liked him, this and other nice Kerry stories - that we've seen crept up everywhere would have been told. Not to mention Teresa - who marched against Appartheid in South Africa and all her good work. They had two genuinely nice, serious, complex people. Covering them as such would have been extremely easy. The Kerry/Heinz kids also reflected their values and were all interesting articulate people.


He also did use his anti-war past. I doubt he would have won Iowa without the anti-war side of him. The after November 2004 claim that he didn't negelected the fact that he always transitioned when speaking of the war to how he then came home and spoke against the war. He, in fact, he tried to do what one analysis said he had to do - which was to show that the same patriotism and character that made him a hero in the war motivated him afterward.

[MH1]

4. Does anyone have video of the Rassman reunion?

I keep hearing about it but don't believe I ever saw it.

If anyone has a link to video it would be much, much appreciated!

[TayTay]

5. It was on C-Span

I can't get their search function to work. The search words would have been Kerry and/or Iowa and a date stamp of Jan 2004. But it may be gone. It was, I think, a Union event that got turned into something else indeed.

[blm]

6. It's more BULLSHIT - Kerry never had establishment backing - - NEVER.

And Dean was NEVER the more liberal candidate than Kerry - - NEVER.

Bad reporting from a media that is still clinging to its distorted storyline.

[MBS]

7. I totally agree!

The continued distorted, shallow, shabby , stupid coverage just drives me NUTS.