State Dems say Kerry blew Ohio in 2004 in a way they won't blow it in 2006

[BurtWorm]

According to Alex Koppelman of salon.com's War Room (this is offered not to fault Kerry--who probably still won even if his tactics were poor--but to suggest there might actually be reason to have hope for Ohio today):

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2006/11/06/kerrys_fault/index.html?source=rss


Here in Ohio, with some polls predicting a Democratic sweep tomorrow, state Democrats are barely even able to pretend for the benefit of reporters that they're not beyond excited about their prospects. But a cloud still looms over all: the memory of 2004, when a heralded Republican turnout machine brought John Kerry's presidential hopes to a screeching halt.

State Democrats, though, are saying today that the defeat might have been as much the fault of the Kerry campaign as anything else.

"There were a few of us that really, at certain points, begged the Kerry campaign to look at persuasion efforts both in terms of the media and field operations. That's an area where they completely dropped the ball," says Greg Haas, a longtime Ohio Democratic consultant, who ran Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign here. "They looked at the state as if it were some kind of electoral college and you didn't have to deal with certain parts of the state ... Their approach was almost like, 'You win these 15 counties and you get the 270 electoral votes you need.'"

Chris Redfern, the chair of Ohio's Democratic Party, agrees. He says Kerry's campaign focused only on urban areas, hitting just 17 of Ohio's 88 counties. "That's a recipe for disaster in Ohio," Redfern says. However, he notes that "I don't blame John Kerry for the loss, I blame those miserable consultants who told him to concentrate only on those 17 Ohio counties and leave $15 million in the bank."

Haas and Redfern agree that Ohio was Kerry's to lose -- had Kerry listened to native Ohioans instead of his national political consultants, they say, he might have won.

-- Alex Koppelman

[fasttense]

1. Bull crap. If they had counted the votes Kerry would be President right now.

[BurtWorm]

4. Doesn't mean his strategy wasn't off base.

The Ohioans are saying he put all his eggs in the urban basket. It sounds like they're not doing that this year, like they're doing the Dean strategy writ small--not writing off any part of the state.

[liberalhistorian]

10. I have to agree here, being an Ohioan in '04;

we were very frustrated by Kerry's strategy and knew that it would backfire bigtime. His consultants weren't familiar enough with the state and didn't bother to listen to the state Dems who begged them to change their strategy. Had he listened to the people who actually knew, and done what they advised, it might have been enough to overcome all the voting fraud and dirty tricks.

[blm]

14. What was the choice? Party infrastructure was collapsed in Ohio since 1997, and if you have

no county structure you can't DEPEND on it.

That was McAuliffe who knew Ohio was weak back in 2000, but never lifted a finger to FIX and strengthen that infrastructure for the entire four years he was charged with doing so. He also didn't believe in machine fraud.

That infrastructure should have been rebuilt and strengthened BEFORE the party even knew who the nominee would be, By the time we did all you can depend on is the STRUCTURE that exists at that time.

[quiet.american]

2. Why do they still insist on ignoring the voter suppression that happened in Ohio?n/t

[blm]

16. Because McAuliffe was responsible for countering RNC vote stealing and never did

for the four years he was expected to do so.

This is the real purpose of this article - distract from McAuliffe's negligence and collapsed party infrastructure in Ohio that hasd no secure process in place by blaming it all on Kerry.

Dean's hard work in Ohio is getting short shrift, too. He had to work his ass off all over the country to get the party infrastructure up to speed after it was weakened so miserably since 1997.

[bullimiami]

3. i wish they would get their goddamned heads out of the sand

and realize it was dirty tricks and criminal actions that took ohio from kerry.

my only fault with kerry is that he folded his tent instead of fighting the fraud everyone warned him about.

[blm]

18. DNC in Ohio trying to distract from the facts in Hacking Democracy that shows THEY

were the ones who never secured the election process in Ohio at the county and precinct levels. So they are blaming Kerry as a way to cover up for their state's structural weaknesses and a weakass party chair - Terry McAuliffe.

Dean should be getting credit here for his work the last two years, but instead they create yet another LIE about Kerry in their CRAVEN efforts to get rid of him so Hillary has a clear shot.

[BattyDem]

5. Just like Gore "blew" Florida?

:eyes:

Both Gore and Kerry should have run better campaigns. HOWEVER ... despite their problems, both would have moved into the White House had the votes been counted honestly!

[blm]

21. They ran better campaigns than Bush did - RNC worked overtime to steal votes

throughout the four years they were able to do so, suppressing votes, purging voter rolls and gaining control of the input and output of the voting machines.

Are DUers really HAPPY with the way the RNC was able to steal our votes and that the dNC let them do it without countering their moves for FOUR YEARS?

Do they really believe Bush campaigned BETTER Than Kerry?

[BattyDem]

22. Bush didn't campaign better than Kerry. However, there were mistakes.

Kerry's biggest mistake was not fighting back when the swiftboating started. He is a genuine war hero and he allowed himself to be portrayed as a coward and a traitor - not a good image to have during war time.

Gore's biggest mistake was avoiding Clinton (which made him appear to be ashamed of the things they accomplished in those 8 years) and simply not being himself. He allowed the handlers to dictate what image he should have ... and Gore is at his best when he's just being Gore.

JMHO :-)

[blm]

23. The mistake was believing media would show up and show the counterattacks.

and treat the issue with any integrity.

Research Forum data:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_oet&address=358x2555

[BattyDem]

25. That's a good point.

:-(

[seabeyond]

6. i think dean is the one to help dems see the light on this one

and ohio may not be so aware right now if this hadnt been a dean effort. wasnt just kerry but dems as a whole

[blm]

12. This article is set up to take credit AWAY from Dean's party infrastructure building

in states like Ohio.

They're trying to take blame off McAuliffe who left the state to collapse. We heard about the crappy party infrastructure in 2000 where it was too weakened to work for Gore, and McAuliffe didn't lift a finger between 2001 and 2004 to fix it.

Dean did. Blaming Kerry is BULLSHIT and sounds like a planted article by the Clinton-McAuliffe wing.

[BurtWorm]

17. Just curious why the local Dems would want to be doing that.

Why would they want to steal Dean's thunder if it has enabled them to pursue this strategy they couldn't pursue under the McAuliffe structure?

I don't know what is true about what happened in Ohio in 2004. I tend to believe the GOP successfully suppressed Democratic turnout using their usual tactics, effectively stealing the vote. I have no idea if it was possible in 2004 to target every corner of the state, or who was to blame for their not targeting every corner.

[blm]

19. It's Clinton people in the state blaming Kerry for the aspect of party infrastructure

that he would have had absolutely NO CONTROL over.

The nominee has to deal with the strength and the weakness of the STATE infrastructure that we know from many reports in 2000 and 2002 was in a sorry state of collapse. If there is no county level infrastructure in place to begin with, the campaign has no choice but to work with the ones that are available. You can't do the national and state party chairs job for them 5 months before an election. McAuliffe oversaw that on a national level for four years and was in charge of fixing it and setting the strategy to do so with the state party chairs.

This article is all about taking blame away from McAuliffe and the state chair at the time, just so they can blame Kerry and distract from the REAL problem of Hacking Democracy which PROVES the election process was never secured by the national and state chairs in charge of doing so.

By doing this, they also end up taking credit AWAY from Dean, because they can't admit that it was the weakass party INFRASTRUCTURE that was responsible for the loss, and it is Dean's strengthening of many state's infrastructures that is making a difference today.

[Mass]

7. Hopefully, this time, they secured the vote...

[liberalhistorian]

8. A lifelong Ohioan, I finally moved

to Rapid City, SD, last summer, leaving my family and friends to deal with the horrendous mess created by the state repukes' stranglehold, and the apathy and cluelessness of far too many of our fellow Ohioans.

I am more hopeful now about my former state than I've been in a very, very long time. My mom is still very active politically, and tells me she really thinks the Dems are gonna blow the idiot repukes out of the water and finally break their stranglehold and get them the hell out of office. We especially cannot WAIT to see that idiotic, gap-toothed, smug smile smacked right off of Senaturd DeWhine's face; that clueless idiot should NEVER have been elected in the first place, and we both love Sherrod Brown as well as his wife, Connie Schultz.

And Blackwell's blubbering, disbelieving meltdown is gonna be soooooooo great to watch; we've been waiting a very long time for that. He's probably especially frustrated that the gap between him and Strickland is far too wide for him to try any dirty tricks and shenanigans without attracting unwanted suspicion and scrutiny.

It will also be nice to see southern Ohio's stranglehold on clout and legislative power in the state finally broken as well.

None of this is enough to make me want to move back, of course, but it sure is great to see and I'm happy for my family and friends who are still stuck there. The taste of schadenfreude is gonna be sooooooo delicious!

[BurtWorm]

9. I would like to see Ken Blackwell cry.

:applause:

[liberalhistorian]

13. Yes, that is going to be especially

great, isn't it? I normally don't rejoice in the suffering of others, but fuck-all if he doesn't deserve it. The schadenfreude on this one, and also with DeWhine, is gonna be soooooo delicious!

[blm]

11. BULLSHIT - DNC's party INFRASTRUCTURE IN OHIO was COLLAPSED since 1997.

This article is a set up to take the blame AWAY from Terry McAuliffe who was in charge of party infrastructure and who NEVER SECURED THE ELECTION PROCESS at the levels where the votes were counted, because he idn't believe in machine fraud.

This is also a set up to take the credit away from DEAN who worked to fix the party infrastructure, ESPECIALLY in states like Ohio.

Further, ANY Dem would win in Ohio this year, since the entire GOP of Ohio has been caught up in scandal for the last two years.

[zulchzulu]

15. REAL Ohio state Democratic leaders would have deployed people...

...in areas they think they could have won in. The Kerry campaign (or any campaign for that matter) had limited resources and depended on the local Democrats to help out. Sure, they gave some marching orders and prioritized areas in the state where they saw the models from past races. But to not mobilize in areas that they should have, the Ohio Democratic Party needs new leadership.

[Sensitivity]

20. Kerry's campaign team was LAME! I've met Kerry and he IS too easy --

I was involved in one of his 2004 primary fund-raiser and found he is
not critical enough in selecting his staff. Tries to do too much himeself.
He seems to prefer supporting enthusiastic novices rather than pay top dollar to get tough-minded professionals on his team.

[LittleClarkie]

24. They're gonna pick a different way to blow it?

I hope not.