Then there's the
Dolly Parton Crisis
Sources say political director Karl Rove is working with Attorney General John Ashcroft on a Constitutional Amendment barring Parton from having the surgery, but there are some complications.
"We're having trouble justifying changing our most precious legal document just to protect one chick's rack," said an DOJ official who asked to remain anonymous, "however, we are having more success with another strategy that would have Ms. Parton declared an enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo. That could stall the surgery for at least 3 years," he added.
Posted by degustibus at November 11, 2004 02:12 PMThis time, I am ready to throw up.
If what you are presenting on the left coaster is politics, I am ready to stop politics at any level.
I dont care about political consultants throwing the blame at each others. I dont care about internal stories.
I care about people. I care about people in Tenessee losing healthcare with a Democratic governor. I care about Gonzales becoming Attorney General. I care about the fact that this party is sliding to its right and that the only solution they see is to choose people more and more on the right.
Now, if you want to know why we lost, we probably have a perfect image here. Whining, whining, and again whining. No cohesion. No loyalty to your party, your candidate (when he was the candidate), no interest in selecting the best president (a vague image of Clinton is the only vision that you all have).
This makes me mad and I can predict that we are going to be in the minority for 40 more years (Carter and Clinton were accidents, not success).
Posted by M at November 11, 2004 02:24 PMA too-slavish devotion to polls has been a continuing problem for Democratic candidates, even winning ones like Clinton.
Ever since Reagan I've been complaining that Democrats are afraid to make a case for what they believe in. Instead, they let the GOP make their case, which moves voters continuously to the right, then the polls pick up on the rightward shift, and the Democrats follow the polls to the right. Is it any wonder that after a quarter-century of this, we find ourselves teetering on the brink of Fascism?
The main reason Howard Dean won me over during the primaries isn't that I agreed with him on the issues. Indeed, I'm to his left on almost every issue. But what was so refreshing about Dean was that he told everyone what he stood for. He was willing to change his position when presented with a good case, as with Social Security and Medicare. But he wasn't going to stand down on, say, Iraq just because his views were "politically incorrect."
But he was attacked during the primaries, and Democrats were frightened into believing he wasn't "electable." So they settled for yet another lowest-common-denominator candidate.
Could Dean have won? I have no idea. But I think we'd be better off today if we'd nominated him, even if he'd lost badly, than we are having barely lost with Kerry. Because at least people would know what we stand for, and we'd have something to build on for '06 and '08.
Posted by Mathwiz at November 11, 2004 03:32 PMSorry, but I don't know how to give you the links in blue so you can go to the site on your own. I thought this was important because evidently, not everyone is rolling over and giving Bush the election. Pass this on to everyone to sign.
Six prominent members of Congress have requested an investigation into the integrity of the vote. The decision could come as soon as Monday. Sign our petition demanding a full investigation into whether the election was conducted honestly or not. Also, share your personal story if you have one -- members of Congress will use it in their call for an investigation.
Questions are swirling around whether the election was conducted honestly or not. We need to know -- was it or wasn't it?
If people were wrongly prevented from voting, or if legitimate votes were mis-counted or not counted at all, we need to know so the wrongdoers can be held accountable, and so we can prevent this from happening again.
Members of Congress are demanding an investigation to answer this question. The decision on whether or not there will be an investigation could come as soon as Monday. Join us in supporting the call for one now, at:
http://www.moveon.org/investigatethevote/
Then please invite your friends and colleagues to sign, as well. We need to show Congress that hundreds of thousands of Americans are serious about protecting the integrity of the vote.
We're all hearing the stories and wondering what's true and what isn't. But at least two cases of serious problems are accepted beyond doubt:
In Broward County, Florida, electronic voting machines counted backwards: as more people voted, the official vote count went down. [1]
In one Columbus, Ohio suburb, election officials have acknowledged that electronic voting machines credited Bush with winning 4,258 votes, even though only 638 people voted there. [2]
These are just cases where we know something went wrong. There were also lots of reports of people being denied ballots on Election Day. So far, these reports remain anecdotal, but they must be compiled and examined. And the Internet is abuzz with theories about why the official counts were so different from the exit polls.
Do you have a story? Were you prevented from voting? Tell us, at:
http://www.moveon.org/investigatethevote/
Six prominent members of Congress have called for an investigation. Representatives Conyers (D-MI), Holt (D-NJ), Nadler (D-NY), Scott (D-VA), Watt (D-NC) and Wexler (D-FL), have demanded that the U.S. General Accounting Office:
immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered, and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration. [3]
We've got to support their call by asking our own Representatives and Senators to join them.
If you have a personal story of disenfranchisement, tell us. These members of Congress have agreed to include our stories and comments in their call for an investigation. Please sign now -- we'll deliver our compiled statements to them on Friday.
Even if you don't have a personal story, your signature on our petition will still help build support for an investigation.
To keep our faith in democracy, we need to know the facts. Your signature, and your story if you have one, will help.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
--Carrie, Joan, Lee, Marika, Noah, Peter, Rosalyn, and Wes
The MoveOn.org Team
November 11th, 2004
Footnotes:
1. Broward Machines Count Backward, Palm Beach Post, November 5, 2004
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news/epaper/2004/11/05/a29a_BROWVOTE_1105.html
2. Glitch Gave Bush Extra Votes in Ohio, AP carried on CNN, November 5, 2004
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/05/voting.problems.ap/
3. Letters from members of Congress to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, demanding an investigation of the election: November 5th, 2004 & November 8th, 2004
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11804.pdf
I think M touches on something very true. We Dems just have no discipline. The lesson I draw from this election, as far as the campaign aspect follow:
I remember seeing the relentless adds "flip flopper" again and again. Then the "your only secure with me" adds over and over.
At the time I was heartened, I thought: "thats all they got? Vs the litany disgraces they have brought down on us?"
Now I remember my advertizing class and the proven strategy of repetition.
When Kerry went from the environment, to taxes, to national security, to human rights, and on to whatever. The plethora of messages became no message. And there you are with Kerry tarred as a flip flopper with a message that also seems to flip flop wildly.
How much is Kerry's fault? And how much is the fault of the rage of the democratic party? Every corner of the party from the anti-war crowd to environmentalists, labor to civil rights groups thought they had enough evidence to sink Bush on thier own. Dutifully, Kerry made a separate attack on Bush in the name of each of them.
What we need is two over arching messages, one negative one positive (yes, Im now in the Rove school).
Negative: say "Bush is dishonest" and harp on it ad-nauseum, discipline.
Positive: say "Kerry has courage" and harp on it incessantly, disipline.
There are two difficulties in selecting the messages. They MUST be emotional, throw out anything with more than three syllables. Forget anything about "demonstrated" or "has a history" its got to be gutteral, instantanous.
Dont mix the message, the adds should be all negative or all positive. Floating the alternative after dumping on the opponent in the same spot only ties our guy with the negative emotions evoked.
Pick the theme early and never change. Dems from all quarters will howl about the lack of dynamism and the myopia of the campaign. But these are rantings of people who pay attention and think about it. Thier votes are cast in stone. For most who only pay casual attention, dogged repeition is whats needed, and discipline on the part of the campaign is a requirement, not a luxury.
Posted by Maya at November 11, 2004 03:35 PMThis is really, really sad to read. It is now no longer a mystery why JFK did not win by a substantial margin. As usual, democratic strategists are unable to see beyond the ISSUES. Their idea of defining John Kerry was to identify him with a collection of issue positions and then to criticize Bush’s positions on those issues. What they don’t see (what their Republican counterparts do see) is that the IMAGE CAMPAIGN is everything when it comes to winning over the Swing Voters.
Once the negative campaigning starts, the typical Swing Voter’s attention span becomes shorter and shorter. At first they’ll find themselves agreeing with the Democratic position; then they’ll see a Republican commercial and find themselves agreeing with them. When they start to see that the issues are actually quite complicated, they stop listening to the specifics and start relying on their “impressions” of the character of the candidates. They ultimately give their votes to the candidate who they feel the least amount of anxiety about. (Which guy can I trust to not screw me over?)
The Republicans know this. That is why they focus all of their efforts on defining the Democrat’s character is a negative way and their own candidate’s character in a positive way. That is why they rely almost exclusively on negative campaigning. Forget about what the Swing Voters tell you in a focus group. They are simply expressing their ideal wishes that we might “all get along” some day. They might not like the negatives, but they sure do respond to them. Bush was able to define his character positively in their minds by tearing town their image of John Kerry’s character. Because he is the one making the accusation, he presents himself as someone who supposedly does not possess those alleged flaws.
John Kerry lost the key Swing Voters he needed because Rove & Co. were able to tarnish his reputation, i.e., cast enough doubts on his character to leave them willing to vote for the guy who always seemed to be adored by his followers. He’d stand there in front of his fans, doing his stand-up comedian act, laughing at John Kerry, or at least at the caricature of John Kerry that they had fabricated out of thin air. They did it to Gore and they did it again to Kerry. When will they ever learn?
Posted by James J. Kroeger at November 11, 2004 04:14 PMwell, if they relied on polls, their polls sucked big time because Kerry's pollsters sucked.
Their internal polls were WRONG, WRONG and WRONG.
When you were supposed to be up 1-3% in OH and FL then found out that you lost by 4-5%, hell, let us the commenters here do the polling next time.
Posted by john at November 11, 2004 04:38 PMYeah, and with all these problems he still garnered 48% of the vote. So if the Kerry campaign still didn't have a coherent message even up to Election Day, which it didn't, then what does that say about Bush's true support?
Posted by Steve Soto at November 11, 2004 04:54 PMSteve, The support isn't there, even here in GA. Even the wingers are making excuses for their votes. Too late smart I guess. They know realize their mistake. Sigh.
Posted by ga6thdem at November 11, 2004 05:26 PMOr how about you screw the post mortems and see what the Ohio recount has in the cards.
Maybe even President Kerry, whiners.
Posted by Bart at November 11, 2004 06:02 PMI really do want to hear the post-campaign analyses, but I wish they weren't always in the form of unproductive bickering.
There were several strong negative arguments to make against Bush/Cheney that didn't get nearly as much play in the campaign as I expected and hoped. There were also several points in the debates where Kerry made the argument right to Bush's face. These include the rampant dishonesty, the corporate cronies, and the refusal to respect military opinion.
What if the roles had been reversed? Wouldn't we almost certainly have seen TV ads blaming Kerry for 9/11? TV ads with generals in them talking about specific incidents where Kerry ignored military advice? Wouldn't we have seen ads that showed specific instances, like mercury in water, where Bush rewarded corporate contributors?
TV ads like these should have been running all spring and early summer. There should have been regular demands for investigations of specific instances of dark deals and incompetence. But there was nothing like that.
I am not interested in hearing insiders take shots at each other, I want a goddamned explanation why Kerry did not attack Bush like the life of the nation depended on it.
Posted by James E. Powell at November 11, 2004 06:40 PMThat so called 'retarded guy' was retarded only because after he killed some people he took a gun to his head and blew part of his brain out in order to avoid arrest.
Clinton picked the perfect foil to make sure the public knew he was on their side when it cames to being tough on crime. As long as democratic morons keep criticizing Clinton for his action the Democratic Party will never really connect with the public. We have too many idiots who don't know the difference between someong responsible for his actions and true mental incompetence. Get a fucking clue.
Posted by ken at November 11, 2004 06:50 PMJames, I agree with you completely. Early on I thought there was no way we could lose the election. After all, there was a list of evil deeds, deceptions, lying, inside deals, fraud, attack leading to war, reduction of civil rights, torture of captives, and a general screwing of the people of America. Anybody should have been able to win this election other than Bush. We did not go for the jugular and I think that was a mistake. Rove did and he didn't even have a list near as long as we did.
Posted by Judith at November 11, 2004 08:18 PM