This is a snip from Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz’s column:
All of which brings us to the question–what happens to Kerry now?
Does he become the party’s leading spokesman in the Senate, overshadowing little-known minority leader Harry Reid? Does he start some sort of America’s Future group and raise truckloads of cash from his donor lists and play the role of power broker? Does he use the fact that he got 56 million votes to lead the opposition to Bush while the ‘08 picture sorts itself out?
Well, maybe. But Kerry is also going to be a reminder of the huge Democratic disappointment of 2004, the failure to retire a president with a vulnerable record. More pundits are coming out and saying Kerry ran a lame campaign. Unlike the Red Sox, he will have to live with that ‘L’ tag forever.
The New Republic wants him off the stage:
“He’s back. Actually, he never even left. John Kerry, according to reports in The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, plans to have a prominent role in the Democratic Party. Apparently he’s contemplating a political action committee and think-tank to help define the party’s future. And, according to those around him, he’s also considering another presidential run in 2008.
“Our reaction to this is . . . how to put it? Well, here goes: No. Please. Stop.”
This one is also chock-a-block with more good stuff, including a discussion of AG-pick Gonzales.
The only reliable poll I was able to find on election ‘04 was the Rasmussen Report. Contrary to the mainstream media these folks kept saying that the undecideds would break for the incumbent. I followed it for about two months and Bush never had 50% until election day.
It seems to me that ‘08 is wide open for both parties’ nominees. My sentimental choice, as a Dem, is Hillary/Barack. Wesley Clark could emerge as a viable choice, depending on how Bush’s “Democratization” of the Middle East goes. Well, you know what I mean
Kerry would, under normal circumstances at least, be a far superior choice to “W”. The people were ready, or nearly ready, to defeat a wartime president, which I guess would be a first. Rove and his mafia–I mean cohorts–ran a brilliant campaign. Kerry was doomed, although he proved himself presidential. Don’t rule him out for ‘08. A Massachusetts liberal, a flip-flopper, Swift Boat Verans for Truth, “I actually voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it”, etc., etc. Piece of cake for Rove. Gephardt might have been a better veep choice. But then I’m from Missouri. I think the evangelicals and even mainstream Republicans have found their Truman-like Pres in George W. (If you know what I mean).
leroy
Ok “Leroy”
I have a feeling there’s an 89% chance you’ll vote for a democrat if they ran Marx’s dead corpse in ‘08.
How clever and cynical!
In fact I think its best that we just stomp on the lot of them before they start attacking us all! (Kerry,Lieberman,Sharpton, etc) And this from a Dem…Evan Bayh in 2008
I am not at all convinced that Kerry was the nice guy hear & Bush the warmonger. Note how Kerry was found joking with a KLA donator (or at least a man with no visible means of support connected to our moslem extremist/church burning/terrorist/drug dealer/schoolgirl kidnapper/NATO appointed policemen/genocidal Albanian friends). Compared to them Chalabi is a pillar of probity.
It is also worth noting that there are 60,000 people calling themselves Serbian Americans or even more interestingly Serbian Yugoslavs in Ohio.
Listen to the Randi Rhodes show on Air America Radio. She’s on from 3pm to 6pm weekdays. She deserves a lot of credit for having the courage to jump start this movement while most other liberal talk show hosts were trying to figure out what’s wrong with the Democratic party. Guess what, nothing is wrong with the democratic party! They stole the election. We must bring them to justice. Listen to Randi to find out the current info and what you can do to help. http://www.solarbus.org/stealyourelection/
Oh so THAT’S what happened!
Sieze it baby! Grab it and run with it like there’s NO TOMORROW!
I will say that I am flattered that you no longer think the majority of us was just dumb, there must be some other explanation. While I don’t think that’s the valid explanation either, certainly it makes more sense given the choice.
Then again, I think the New Republic wants someone barely to the left of Bush – a “strong conservative” rather than a “rabid conservative.” Its lame apology aside, I still haven’t forgiven that rag’s drooling over the Iraq war and it’s inability to raise relevant, critical questions.
Nice blog, by the way.
it was indeed a tough choice for the americans, to choose between two evil forces, but alas, to the misfortune of all, the greater of the evil prevailed
Whither John Kerry? Withering away on the vine of obscure Senatorship unless and until the indefatigable volunteers at blackboxvoting.ORG and the Greens and other true Americans (I am a brit by the way. Q what does it have to do with me? A. everything, because if we lose our grip on the frayed rope of democracy we drown in the quicksand of authoritarianism), if the Greens and true Americans fight their way through the morass of the courts and media indifference and prove, vote by hard won vote, that cynical Republican fixers and hackers stole the election and stole democracy and the media wake up and take notice, then THEN! the statesman Kerry will wake majestic and presidential and step forward like that drunk Yeltsin on the tank to claim the soiled mantle of the Presidency but W will refuse to give it up and they will scream unscripted invective at each other and the mantle will tear and the the empire will split in two just as christendom was riven when there was a pope in Avignon and one in Rome. At least, I think that is one outcome. Maybe y’all better just let George have what he wants and hope for the best, OK?
My Lord… we want a SMALL ASS government that is incidental to the people and non-interventionist! Please people, drop the totalitarianism crap. You want the huge governments that have a hand in everything. Keep it honest will ya?
The point is, Clever Cynic, that if politicians are allowed to cheat on elections, they will come to believe that the voice of the people counts for nothing, and when that happens, they will soon come to believe they can do whatever they please, and then we are all in BIG trouble. All power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Democracy is in a weak state in the UK and is evidently even more poorly in the good ol USofA, and it is up to all of us, irrespective of party and country, to look to defend the integrity of what little influence we do have. It is incredible that in the Ukraine people are righly out on the streets after a stolen election, whereas in the US the Democrats are sucking their thumbs and saying sorry. Your brothers are dying in Iraq ostensibly to bring democracy to the Iraqis. Surely you at home can be bothered to read the evidence of a threat to democracy in the Homeland?
Wake up America and smell the rotten corpse of a stolen election. Please. For all our sakes.
P.S. start here for Votergate
Sounds like sour grapes to me. You Democrats seem to be living in a dream world where everyone believes like you do and if the majority of people don’t choose the person you think should win an election then the election must have been stolen. Get over it. Your candidate couldn’t compete in the arena of ideas. He tried to scare young people by telling people that Bush had a secret plan to bring back the draft. He tried to scare the elderly population by implying that Bush’s plan to save social security would somehow jeopardize their checks. Kerry thought he could fool gun owners into thinking that he was one of them by going hunting and asking the clerk at a sporting goods store. “Can I get me a hunting license?” Kerry and most liberals don’t seem to grasp the fact that the second amendment is not about hunting its about the right to bear arms period.
The American people want a president with principals and not a president that puts his finger to the political winds. Democrats pine for the days of Clinton, but they conveniently forget that most of the good that came out of the Clinton administration came after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994. For those of you that are interested in common sense analysis of issues of the day, check out my blog at http://www.cynicalconservative.blogspot.com
Hillary should be President in 2008, as she has the highest (integrity?). Anyway she already has the China, the Pictures, and the furniture for the WHITEHOUSE. Yup.
Sad truth is, Kerry ran a lame campaign. Not that it mattered. The fact that the debates failed to move the electorate suggests that the flaw was not with the candidates. The flaw is that too many American voters are motivated by shallow authoritarian slogans and are basically incapable of participating in a democracy.
What really hurts, though, is that I remember Kerry as a genuine hero, long long ago. Not because he won Purple Hearts — Kerry’s heroism was in coming home and telling the truth about the emptiness of the American cause in Vietnam and the atrocities US soldiers committed there. When the man who became the most visible Vietnam Veteran Against the War actually got himself elected to the Senate, I took it as the first real evidence I’d ever seen that idealism might actually amount to something in America.
Kerry’s worst moments in 2004 were when he abandoned that record of courageous honesty. He had to know going in that by running for President he would draw all the old “I’m not Fonda Hanoi Jane” flakes down from their hermit cabins. Unfortunately, Kerry ran from the old stance that made me admire him. It was a very disheartening thing to watch.
yeah Kerry was heroic, burning villages, shooting animals, electrocuting people… sounds like a pretty damn stand up guy. thats the problem with you libs, your hypocrites. plain and simple. you condemn soldiers in Iraq, but you worship at the alter of John F-ing Kerry. I noticed one other thing… you libs hate your country, it must be true. All i hear you people say is how shity america is, what ever happened to the days when you people could praise america and respect her, and salute her flag and still disagree with your president? (yes Bush IS, YOUR president, like it or not.) maybe those days never existed perhaps you wankers always hated your country… now don’t go piss and moan about how i accuse you of hating america, because if you don’t want to be accused of it don’t act like it. simple enough?