Why is this/that?

[politicasista]

Ginny posed an interesting question a few days ago in one thread (Kerry and the gay marriage issue) about the trust factor.

To paraphrase her it was: Why do people here feel like they can trust Dean, Clark, Edwards or someone else, but no one felt like they could trust Kerry?

I answered by saying that I think it's because they feel that these men relate to them on a personal level, so they label Kerry as "priviledged" or yes a "career politician DLC-sellout" (yuk!). But anyway, we may have answered it before, but it's a good question she posed.

[JI7]

1. "why do people here"

which people ? a lot of people here feel they can trust Kerry. i don't know where you get the "no one felt like they could trust Kerry" from.

[Dr Ron]

3. I assume she meant the Kerry bashers n/t

[politicasista]

5. She did

[politicasista]

4. I found an excerpt of her post:

"You watch a candidate, you listen to him or her speak, you get a feel for how they think and what their values are. You begin to understand them and agree with them and trust them. You identify with them and trust them to represent you and your interests.
And the ones who keep carping on everything some candidates did, or are doing, or will do just don't have that trust.

What I don't get is how some people developed a trust in Dean, or Clark, or Kucinich, or whoever, but wouldn't or couldn't learn to trust Kerry as well, seeing as how he was our nominee. They grudgingly voted for him anyway, and now are the first ones to jump on anything they don't like him saying or doing. I trust Dean, for example, but trust Kerry a lot more--you can trust more than one, but maybe not the same amount."

Hope you don't mind Ginny. :)

[JI7]

6. the same applies to others also

there are people who don't trust Clark, Edwards Dean and others also.

it's not isolated to Kerry. the same was/is true of the Clintons.

as for much of the bashing i don't think it's a matter of trust but people just being assholes.

[karynnj]

7. Also, they weren't the candidate so fewer people feel the need

to list all the non winners that they don't trust. For some, I have to admit that I never even thought to examine whether I trusted them or not because there was no reason to. I think I trusted Bil Clinton far more than his actions warranted because I thought deep down there his goals were good, in most cases. I do know that I trust Kerry more than any politician in my lifetime - because he seems to be one of the most decent, honest people in politics.

[Dr Ron]

2. Projection

Here's something I posted in the comments to LUTD on a very similar question which would apply here:


I think their support for Dean (as well as other Democrats who have a less liberal record than Kerry) comes down to the adoration for slogans over issues seen in Kos's post yesterday.

By ignoring the complex issues and past record and concentrating on slogans, they can project their views into people like Dean.

This leads to problems when the positions come out. We saw this with Medicare, when the Kos ditto heads and Deaniacs either denied Dean's record or came up with arguments in favor of Medicare cuts. We are seeing this again as some opponents of the war are finding that Dean isn't as far left on this issue as they assumed.

[TayTay]

8. Part of the severe Deaniac love comes from pure frustration

Gov. Dean burst onto the scene in early 2003. The Dems had just faced some big losses in off-year elections and had not put up what many thought was a good enough fight against * & Co over the Iraq War. * had, of course, lied to the Dems in the build up to the off-year elections in 2002, telling them that he would not overtly punish them at the ballot box over their legitimate concerns about an Iraq War. (*, surprise, surprise, lied. He went out and preached that, post-9/11, the Democrats were soft on terrorism. He overtly lied and did what he said he wouldn't do. * is a lying bastard. Yawn.)

Dean's steal of Wellstone's line about being from 'the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party' was a seed planted in fertile soil. There is now and always has been a strong faction of the Dem Party that distrusts America's use of it's military powers. (With extremely good reason. See, oh, Iran-Contra as an example.) This wing of the Dems holds any vote for a Rethug war as a capitulation to a liar and to a nearly fascist agenda. Dean was lucky in his timing. He made those electrifying (to a certain segment of the Dems) comments early in the race. Kerry was pretty much out of commission at this time. (Recovering from prostrate cancer surgery.) Dean had the field to himself.

Gov. Dean played the lefty wing of the Party like a violinist. He was able to self-identify as the 'Knight in Shining Armor' of liberal-Land. That Gov. Dean's record as Vermont Gov was actually moderate (and had a lot of questionable sell-outs to corporate interests in Vermont, see Monsanto and the milk hormone controversy) was not questioned. There is something to be said about being from a small out-of-the-way state like Vermont. Dean's record was not that visible to most lefty activists and became a tabula rasa that the lefties could write whatever they wanted on. And write they did. Dean became what he completely was not, the Knight Errant of Liberal-Land.

Dean was an amateur on the national political landscape. His campaign went down when he made purely amateur mistakes. (His use or rather misuse of money was obscene. If anyone has the right to ask for money back from a national campaign, it would be Deaniacs. They spent most unwisely on trivial crap that did nothing to advance their cause.) Dean began to fall in the polls (helped by his own unwise comments over Saddam Husein and other things.) Kerry was a pro (something Kos hates him for) who was able to build a very good understructure in Iowa that was able to pick up the fallen Dean supporters. (This was no accident. The Kerry people worked incredibly hard to build that understructure. They were pros.)

You know the rest. Dean comes in third in Iowa. Kerry wins big. The Deaniacs believe to this day that Dean could not have lost. (How could he have lost? He was a Knight Errant for goodness sakes. They don't lose, they are betrayed.) Kos hates Kerry because Kerry had the gaul to beat Dean in a fair fight. Kos has to make it an unfair fight in retrospect. (Maybe Kos needs therapy. He is identifying too closely with the loss.)

That is my take, anyway.