Bush got elected to his 2nd term by a majority. [View All]

[ginchinchili]

It was, in large part, a rejection of John Kerry because a majority of Americans didn't like him. Here's the rub. No matter who the Republicans select--I think it will be McCain--anyone will be a stronger candidate than Bush, and the type of people who didn't like Kerry, a majority, won't like Clinton or Obama. This is it in a nutshell and I can't for the life of me understand why the Democrats haven't figured that out. They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Well, right now winning is a necessity, but Democrats fall into their same old self-defeating traps. They don't seem to be able to reevaluate their mistakes. They don't understand American presidential politics.

There are a lot of Democrats who are very excited about the prospect of electing an African American or a woman to the presidency, and I can appreciate that. But a majority of Americans don't care about that, not enough to decide the presidency. They want someone they're comfortable with, someone they trust, and preferably someone with enough experience to convince them that the candidate is competent. In partisan politics winning is everything. If we can just get a Democrat in office we've won and can move the country forward in the right way. We can always hammer out the details. But Democrats are too enamored with celebrity. They collectively become like a deer in the headlights and lose sight of the goal.

We had the perfect winning candidate in Joe Biden. I assumed that once Democrats started learning about him he would be the inevitable choice simply because he was holding all the marbles and was a shoe-in for the presidency. No, he's not a woman, nor is he a minority, but he could win. I'm totally beside myself because the Democrats barely gave him a second look. Everyone seemed to like him, but he wasn't celebrity enough. So onward we dance toward what will probably be another defeat. Folks, if we haven't figured it out this time, there's no reason to believe that we ever will.

One last point. If the Republicans win again there will be a lot of innocent lives lost unnecessarily, the environment will continue to die, and the rich will continue getting richer at the expense of the rest of us. By refusing to make winning the priority everyone supporting these candidates bear some responsibility. Perhaps our doe-eyed fixation on a wiz-kid and the spouse of a favorite son is not the best way of determining presidential criteria.