Mary Beth Cahill Admits They Lost By a Miscalculation - RIGHT

[mikelewis]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=703&e=1&u=/ap/20041216/ap_on_el_pr/bush_kerry_managers

This is Kerry's campaign manager for Christ sakes. She's saying she lost because of Kerry's vietnam record. Who hired this woman? Even the people who rigged exit polls aren't stupid enough to say ignorant things like this. This lady is either unbelievably incompetent or unbelievably stupid. I wonder which one. She make absolutely no mention of the vote fraud. She says, "Well, gee, it must have been the war in Vietnam that threw this election." Yeah, Mary Beth, you keep telling John that. Keep telling him he lost fair and square while the rest of us are screamin foul play. Lady, you suck. Maybe John lost because he got screwed and you let it happen, you turn coat. I remember recieving e-mails from this woman and I didn't like her then and I damn sure don't like here now. She was so pushy and obnoxious. Kerry would be wise to distance himself from the likes of her.

Sincerely,
Michael Lewis

[propagandafreegal]

1. Mary Beth Cahilll needs to keep quiet. What BS. nm

[goclark]

10. Can someone give her some tape?

If this is the kind of advice Kerry was getting no wonder there were problems.

Her main message now should be, "We were winning in all the polls before the election, we won the exit polls, we had amazing crowds , amazing newspaper endorsements and now we find out that OUR WIN was suppressed and STOLEN!

No guts, no glory.

She is a spineless wonder.

[MrUnderhill]

2. She's also the one Kerry had to slap down...

... over the "she's fair game" comment on using Cheney's daughter's sexuality as an issue.


It was hard to explain that Kerry hadn't meant it in an inappropriate way when his campaign manager acted like it was planned.

[smartvoter]

3. Yeah? Well, this looks the same to me: no fight. nt

[Stew225]

4. The entire party should be ashamed of this

woman. What a pathetic louse!

[AmerDem]

5. Cahill is worthless and inept.

She was so in over her head during this past election.

[sunnystarr]

6. The story wasn't about what went wrong with the election ....

I don't get you guys ... and I have no real opinion of Cahill one way or another. The story was about the swift boat ads and the impact on the election. Are you all trying to say it didn't have an impact???

Cahill put the reason of the impact where it belonged ... on the MSM. Without their constant coverage every single hour of every single day - over and over again ad nauseum, the swiftboat ad wouldn't have made an impact. This enormous coverage garnered enormous contributions and added to its shelflife.

"Cahill said the Swift boat ads show the power of news coverage, particularly cable news stations, which she said amplified the ads by running them repeatedly.

She said it was frustrating that the first ad continued to eat up so much air time even after the central allegations were debunked.

"For me, this was a very big change. The fact that it was disproved and it was still shown every day as part of the (campaign) coverage," she said.

There is no issue with her in the article. Now if she was asked about election irregularities/fraud and said that it was fair election I would take great issue with her and she would get a scathing email from me.

There are enough real battles. Cahill in this article isn't one of them.

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

7. with all due respect, her campaign's response to the Swift Boat

Liars was inept, inadequate, non-existent. And it was only part of her bungling.

[KittyWampus]

8. It Was A GIVEN The Swift Liars Would Happen & Cahill Didn't RESPOND

she didn't have a plan for something that was OBVIOUS.

The MSM's Whoredom is a given... and she didn't have a plan for that either.

[TayTay]

9. Agreed!

I saw the panel discussion these quotes came from on C-Span last night. Cahill was at Harvard University Institute of Politics along with Ken Mellman from the Repugs and two journos. The Swift Boat Vets quote came from a question she was asked about what went wrong. It was a fair question and a fair post-mortem from her. Ahm, Kerry didn't win so it is fair to ask what went wrong so that the next Dem campaign can see what happened. (Independent of voter fraud. The campaign had good and bad moments that future candidates can learn from. Response time to neg. ads seems to be something that Dems can derive learning from.)

It was an okay panel, not exactly riveting, but not bad.

[jbond56]

11. well that is one way to look at it but

It was the perfect opportunity for Kerry to stand up and defend himself and he completely blew it. It made people think he would not defend the American people because he could not defend himself. Think about all the free air time he could of had?

Were the swifties a bunch of bastards? yes
If you are under investigation and act guilty do people assume you are guilty? yes


The reaction to the ads was 100x's more damaging.

We need people running campaigns that see this as an opportunity not watch it on tv and HOPE it stops. Please stop we don't know what to do. We are afraid to send our leader out to fight.

fuck!


Anyone feel like we always put a JV softball team up against the Yankees?

[Pithy Cherub]

13. In an ironic play on words, Cahil should have had a

swift response to both the liars and the inept media that continued to misreport. Someone more thoughtful would have also better prepared the candidate's surrogates before they went on air. Cahill rightfully deserves swift scorn!

[marylanddem]

12. How dare she...

make such comments at a critical time like this? As I understand it, she was the one who urged Kerry to take the "high ground" and not respond directly to the Swift Boat liars. THAT failure to respond hurt the campaign - but that's not why Kerry lost Ohio. Ohio was STOLEN, STOLEN, STOLEN. So shut up, Mary Beth Cahill.

[Straight Shooter]

14. Kerry wanted to respond directly and instantly, but MBC told him not to

It was a real source of contention between them.

It wasn't Vietnam which hurt John Kerry's campaign; it was because Mary Beth Cahill doesn't understand negative campaigning works.

The best thing to do would have been for John Kerry to go on the immediate attack and nip that SBV campaign in the bud. By not answering it at once, it fed the subconscious minds of the Repubs that he was not up to the task of responding to terrorists swiftly and with strong retribution.

All bullsh*t, of course, because John Kerry -- or anybody, for that matter -- would do a better job of eliminating terrorism and its roots than Little Boots and his gang.

[marylanddem]

15. Is it possible she's trying to sabotage the recount?

How else interpret such stupidity?

[KittyWampus]

16. She's Just Trying To Cover Her Own Incompetence... Especially In Dealing

with the Swift Liars.

[texpatriot2004]

17. I agree Straight Shooter, Clinton proved that when he was

attacked and responded immediately, that's how negative campaigning works. You have to respond FAST. Then they are on the defense, you're not attacking anyone (ie running a negative campaign) and you look good to boot because you are sticking up for yourself, you got backbone. MBC was WRONG, dead wrong.

You, Straight Shooter, are absolutely right on the money!

[texpatriot2004]

18. What's her contact information? I would like to tell her how I

feel about this statement. Anyone else?

* We didn't lose because of Viet Nam
* We didn't lose because we accept gays
* We didn't lose because we need to change our image
* We didn't lose because we don't talk about religion
and
* We DAMN sure didn't lose on moral values...

It's simple, we lost on account of ELECTION FRAUD. PERIOD.

And if people like MBC and the rest don't get it, we will keep losing!

[marylanddem]

19. Right on!

[delphine]

20. I agree with most of this except

election fraud is not possible if you're kicking the other guy's ass, which Kerry should have done handily.

We lost because:

Cahill (incompetently) et al told Kerry that

-no one would understand his role in BCCI or Iran-Contra investigations (i.e., we're too stupid)

-he shouldn't be "mean" to the "popular" preznit

-he shouldn't respond to the shitload of liars for bullshit

-he shouldn't talk about his Senate record

-he shouldn't admit he's a liberal

-he shouldn't talk about Iraq, er, no, he SHOULD talk about Iraq, er no, he should talk about domestic issues, er . ..

AND because

-his media team never heard the term "talking points" so the message was garbled and dem surrogates were left floundering

-the campaign as a whole refused to express any outrage over anything, did not know how to drum up media/public outrage either

-at one point, when asked if they'd start using negative ads, Tad Devine said, "we'll wait to see the tenor of their campaign" (!!!!!) - this was AFTER the repuke convention. What did Tad need to know about the "tenor" of the repuke campaign after that?

AND because

Terry McAwful and the rest of the dem "elites" are ashamed and embarrassed to be democrats or espouse liberal ideas

NOT because there's anything wrong with

-John Kerry
-his war record
-his stand on the issues
-his moral values
-his policies
-anything else.

Dems don't have to change who they are or what they stand for or even their candidates (who could be a worse candidate than bush?). They only need to change their strategy. If they beat themselves up every time for who they are, they will never figure this out.

[Straight Shooter]

21. John Kerry DID NOT lose the election.

You are merely citing reasons why he didn't win 65 percent of the vote, which he should have, if people had been given the true story through the corporate-owned bush-ass-kissing MSM.

[delphine]

22. Exactly, and the only reason the MSM

didn't give him a chance is that they're a bunch of lazy aholes who follow the latest shiny object, and the Kerry campaign managers couldn't find a "shiny object" to save their lives (or the campaign).

I agree he "won" - except he's continued the same "don't make waves" attitude he had during the election, so in the minds of the nation, he has "lost".

[slackmaster]

23. Why do people always try to distill things down to a single issue?

Do they think people don't have the cognitive skills or attention span to comprehend that multiple factors are always in play in politics?

:shrug:

[texpatriot2004]

24. Because they are simple minded and cannot comprehend

complexities. Just an thought. Only intelligent folks can see two sides (or even more)of an argument or issue. Those black and white kind of thinkers, those keep it simple soundbyte types lack intelligence.

[kk897]

25. incompetent, stupid... or doing exactly what she was told to do?

I don't trust anyone any more. Maybe she was a plant. Hell, maybe Kerry was a plant. ARRRGH!