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Edited on Wed Feb-01-06 03:58 PM by karynnj
he didn't run a perfect race.
On a) I don't think his position on Iraq should be the same as his Vietnam one, because the situation is different. Part of the confusion is that in 2004, he had to say what he would do inheriting a situation he didn't want, but which were the cards dealt. His positions form Sept 2004 (NYU speech) and Jan 2005 were almost identical, and boiled down to stabalize things, do the diplomacy and then get out. His Oct 2005 plan has the same goals but recognized the worsening situation. In Vietnam, Kerry (and others) saw that no matter how long we stayed the end result would be the same. Here, what Kerry is trying to do is to push things in the direction of a government that gave some rights to the Sunni minority that would not be an Iran clone. The Arab league plan that was talked about in (I think)November or December is a glimmer of hope on this.
b) see thread referenced in earlier post - he did. At this point, Kerry's response is a moot point. The importance is that the Republicans had nothing on Kerry (other than his 1971 portesting - but Kerry wasn't a hippy freak breaking the law, he was a war hero politely and intelligently speaking to an impressed Congress) but they used their echo chamber and a biased media to turn a small number of ad dollars into a torrent of slime. I am not knocking Hillary when I protest Hillary people saying, "no one can swiftboat a Clinton", the reality is that they will take something even if already explained (cattle futures) or makeup something(??) and do the same thing.
c) There are a small number of people who have won national elections. The Clinton people won in a 3 way race with a powerful 3rd candidate slamming the president then being painted as a lunatic, with a President at a less than 40% approval rate, and with a candidate who is a natural politician. Most of their advice was either wrong or against Kerry's values - they said to push economic issues and in the last weeks of the campaign that Kerry should back all the anti-gay amendments. (Note doing the latter WOULD violate your point d) and would be in contrast to his whole career (He was one of first to mention gay rights in a Senate speech, he spoke for gays in the millitary when Clinton was pushing that even agreeing to be sworn in to testify in the Senate, he voted against DOMA). The Gore campaign was poorly run.
The campaign before that was Dukakis's which Susan Estrich ran. She is now at Fox news. She ran an extremely awful campaign and annoyed many people. She wrote a flattering peice about John and Teresa in early 2004 and mainly trashed him after that (likely because he didn't want her anywhere near his campaign.) She now has a book pushing Hillary that trashes him and every other potential 2008 candidate.
Before that you have Mondale's 1984 and Carter's 1980 campaigns. Point there is not a huge pool of people who have experience on running campaigns and one size does not fit all.
Cahill was from Kennedy's staff and he knew her since before he was a Senator. She was brought in when his campaign was dead in the water and helped him run the primaries. All in all, considering that the party was a disaster at the state level (as Dean as confirmed), the President used fake terror warnings, the voting system itself was broken, the President illegally used churches including some from Kerry's faith, the campaign finance law had an unintended fluke in it that hurt the non-incumbent who by tradition have the earlier convention all worked against them. It was remarkable that with all this, he did as well as he did. (likely it was his performance at the debates)
If he ran again, the Kerry Massachusetts team, including his brother and former brotehr in law that had no experience in 2004, may be the people he would depend on. They know him, love him and have been intensely loyal to him for about 25 years.
d) flip flop - I'm sure as soon as Kerry said it he regretted it - he was out speaking 12+ hours a day. He had explained his reasons in detail to a heckler. In hind sight the moment a second heckler asks the question again, Kerry should have simply said "I've answered that, new question." In a way, it was his good manners coupled with impatience with having to re-answer the question that caught him. It was unfortunate BUT the fact that the media immediately jumped on it and repeated it enough to give it credibility. Remember that Bush on one of the morning shows said that the war on terror was not winnable. This was a huge deviation from his position. This was a one day blip. Bush mentioned a national sales tax could replace the income tax. Again, the administration said essentially, "just kidding". A half a day blip.
There will always be misstatements when you speak as much as a candidate does (or as seen today a busy Senator). What needs to happen is for things to be corrected as soon as possible. There is no candidate who - in the current environment - who won't say something wrong.
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