Look, Kerry's hoarding the cash is indefensible - and the Democratic party showed its political incompetence overall by losing again.

But a lot of the backbiting and Monday morning quarterbacking about what Kerry did or didn't do is inane because it simply does not take into account something that has changed dramatically, dramatically ever since Clinton came to power - and particularly after the Clinton impeachment saga.

The media.

The media's disdain for the Democrats, it's constant kowtowing to the GOP and it's completely understating what Bush and the GOP constitute - making it appear like just another election between an incumbent and a challenger, etc. - simply changes the dynamic of what Kerry could have achieved.

The media does exceedingly well in blaming the candidate but the biggest culprit in this election, as well as in 2000 (which Gore WON, even with the popular vote), is the media's mendacity (especially the right-wing) and almost complete indifference to high crimes, GOP mendacity and corruption.

So, all of this fine cherry picking of data to blame Kerry and comparing him to winning Democrats is meaningless without context. The Democrats, incidentally, will continue to suffer like this as long as they let the country be controlled by hostile media.

This is what is wrong with Democrats. We attack ourselves instead of the repubs. We have a message, health care, living wage, education. We lost,get over it,and lets get busy.

I wouldn't have a problem voting for Kerry in 2008. What he beleaves in and what I beleave in are closer then what Bush beleaves in. Kerry has a 57 million voter base to work with. This is alot of voter recognition. Who in the democratic party can make this statement. God willing in 2008 I will vote democratic and will attend my Iowa caucus.

I would vote anyday for Kerry.

As for this article, I gave money to Kerry, not to the DNC and the last thing I want is somebody like Donna Brazile to ask for this money.

She has been a problem throughout this election.

Kerry did a good job. Better than any of the others would have done. If that turns out to be true next time, you should support him again.

While I had great pride in financially supporting Kerry and voting for him, I think he ought to be talking to Bob Dole, not Gore.

TR is right on the money, the media is responsible for this crap. They tell us what's going on and most dumb butts in this country don't read ....well forget that. The ol' Prop workes well everywhere and has in history too, so fuck it. We're fucked.

Well, if it came down to Kerry and Hillary, I would definitely go for Kerry. Don't get me wrong - Hillary is smart and very capable. She is a woman (in time of War, which we will still be in) and also the Clintons have that problem with Bills "women". I for one was so disgusted with them by the end of Clintons Presidency. We need a man of decency like Vilsak, Edwards, Bayh or Clark next time. I would go for Kerry but he won't have a chance.

Well, if it came down to Kerry and Hillary, I would definitely go for Kerry. Don't get me wrong - Hillary is smart and very capable. She is a woman (in time of War, which we will still be in) and also the Clintons have that problem with Bills "women". I for one was so disgusted with them by the end of Clintons Presidency. We need a man of decency like Vilsak, Edwards, Bayh or Clark next time. I would go for Kerry but he won't have a chance.

John Kerry does not have a base of 57 million voters. I'd be surprised if he had a base above 10 million that could truly be called his.

John Kerry won the nomination because he was believed to be the best candidate to face George W. Bush in a campaign that would be dominated by Terror and the Iraq War. He probably was, but we will never know.

I do not believe he ran the best campaign that he could have run, and I am not engaging in post-election snark. More than a year before this election, we knew the following:

- Bush/Cheney would run a campaign based on Terra, Terra, Terra, and would shamelessly exploit 9/11.

- Bush/Cheney would call the Democratic candidate weak & unpatriotic.

- Bush/Cheney would say that a vote for the Democratic candidate would be a victory for The Terrorists.

- The corporate press/media would never tell the truth about George W. Bush, or his serial failures in nearly every policy.

- The corporate press/media would repeatedly slam the Democratic candidate without regard to the truth.

- The Democratic candidate would be labeled as "too liberal" no matter what his actual record.

- Gay & Lesbian rights would harm the Democratic candidate in the Red States and with Red Voters in the swing states.

That list looks a little familiar doesn't it? It should. Those are the reasons that the DLC used to destroy the Howard Dean campaign.

Kerry had plenty of time to figure out how to counter those attacks and barriers, and plenty of money and people to do it. He failed.

There is no reason that Kerry should consider himself anything but a senator. Maybe if he had considered himself a Nationally Important Democratic Senator before he ran for president, he would not have had such a hard time explaining to people who he was and what he stood for. They would already have known.

And what do we know now that we didn't before?

That he can't survive a Republican attack, that he can't speak in a manner that communicates his ideas to the Chimpanzee Masses, and that he has no comprehensive vision to share with America.

He got those votes because a lot of people swallowed hard, donated money, volunteered and voted for him for one reason: they wanted to get rid of Bush. They are not going to do that again.

I think we should just beat the shit out of ourselves...just like in 2000. It worked so well then..so come on ..lets get it on!!!!!

The Democratic Party has to figure out what it stands for. It cannot be all things to all people. When, at the Grand Canyon, Kerry was asked if knowing what he knows now (no WMD, no immediate threat to the US) would he still give the President the authority to attack Iraq, he said that he would. This was the perfect opportunity to defend the Constitution and reiterate that only the Congress has the right to authorize war, unless the country is in imminant danger. Taking a stand for the Constitution would have garnered support from conservatives as well as defenders of the Republic. He was a weenie throughout the campaign, trying not to piss off anybody.

Now, I believe that the e-voting software was hacked. The New Hampshire recount should shed some light on if I am wrong. But the statistical anomalies in Georgia in 2002 and in states that used the GEMS tabulation software this year are a red flag. Proprietary software is unacceptable. When the ES&S salesmen came to my district, I attended the meeting at the local library. I stood up and demanded open source software to mimimize monkey business potential. I pointed out that these companies care about profits, not honesty. We voted on punch cards again this election.

The day that my district goes to ES&S software is the day I stop participating in the process. And the day I start cheating on my taxes big time.

I think Kerry should spend it all, before the next primary amp-up. He should spend it on issue and honesty ads, attacking Republicans, and developing a message for all of us.

James E Powell -- word, dude; you nailed it. Or at least, part of it.

The part that the Democrats don't get is EXACTLY the reason why this bloodletting is important. We don't understand the art and science of political communication that the GOP has mastered -- which is why they win election after election.

We have our issues -- but we need to express them in ways that motivates our base, brings in the moderates, and mollifies the cultural conservatives.

The Clinton construct on abortion is a perfect example -- keep it safe, legal, and RARE. Especially RARE.

Nobody is pro-abortion; abortion is never a good choice, but it is sometimes the best choice, and it should always be the WOMAN's choice. Better education on birth control AND abstinence goes a long way towards reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies -- and adopting that construct frames the issue in that way has the potential to include everyone, except the most hard core wingnuts.

What Democrats need to learn is that people don't vote on issues -- they vote on their EMOTIONAL RESPONSE to issues.

In the deconstruction of the Kerry failure, Yuval's post on the TNR article had an excerpt that I'm still screaming about.

The swing voters in the focus groups said they didn't want to see attack ads, so the campaign dutifully obeyed. "There was a belief within the campaign that you did not need, fundamentally, to raise these questions about Bush," says one of the architects of the campaign's strategy.

Hey Bob Schrum, Tad Divine, John Kerry -- HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE?

Don't you know that these people telling you they don't like negative ads are the same people who say they want fuel efficient cars -- and then go out and buy SUV's? Jesus H Christ, politics 101 says that whoever defines their opponent first, wins -- and John Kerry played the flip flopper fiddle to Karl Rove's tune, and never seriously tried to define George W Bush for what he is.

John Kerry is a pathetic politician, who ran a carbon copy of the Dukakis campaign -- even though he had every opportunity to do the opposite. The tragedy is that this country may never recover -- for the want of short declarative sentences, all of the progress of the 20th century may be lost.

Burn in hell, John Kerry . . .

What I see is this. (And I didn't vote for Kerry in the primaries. I not a huge fan by any means) the Republicans, the Swift boaters, and the rest have used all their ammunition against him in this last election. It's been done, is old hat now, more importantly it will feel that way. I don't think any of it would be effective a second time. It's shock and awe stuff, but it's also mirrors, and mirrors won't work well a second time. Everything the right wing pundits will say will be stale. A re- look at his Vietnam record will just reinforce it. What will they do, reprint their books attacking him? Old news. A clever campaign would use the Vietnam record as if the attacks never happened.

The thing is the whole country saw him in the debates with Bush and however they deny it, they saw him win at some level. Something about the way they attacked Kerry requires an almost cancerous time and attention compression. It depends on rushing to judgement. Over months and years it won't hold up.

The Dems had is no candidate with nearly the recognition of W. The public at large didn't know any of them, so it was possible to project tremendous fear and negativity on any of them. Kerry now is as widely known as any democratic politician in the country and starts from a powerful name recognition base. People know his strengths and weakness as they once knew W's. Kerry's real failure was an inability to put positions and values into ordinary language. Ordinary attitude the way Clinton's "Play by the rules" phrase worked. Maybe he can find some one to help him do it. You could write the lines as you watched the campaign but no one on his staff wrote them.

Of course much depends on how he carries himself the next four years. And what the Republican encounter with reality reveals, nothing any of could do protesting the war had any effect..... it was the fact that we were right about it-- it's what happened in Iraq that's brought them up short.

My sense is that Dems were not depressed or angry about the way Kerry finished up the campaign, the way were with Gore's effort.

Would he want to go through this again that's a question. Can he come up with fresh plans and talk. Can keep going bringing up medical care and economic issues consistently. If fear of terrorism fades they rise in importance.

I think Kerry should hang it up. I voted for him, but he was not my first choice. I think next time around we might consider someone who can make a dent in the Red states. Oklahoma and Virginia have good Governors.

GW spent four years preparing for the 2004 election. He was out raising money early in his first year. He knew he was a shoe in to be the parties nominee, so the money went to define his opponent as soon as he knew who it was. At this time we don't know who will be running for the republican nomination, but we sure can define him to a tee.

There are still some who voted for Kerry and cannot define what or who he is. Here it is two weeks past the election and we are eating our young. Maybe this is why we can't win a presidential election or just as importantly take back control of the Congress. We have no loyality to those trying to lead our party. I am not saying following blindly like a good republican would, but at least defend our candidate like he was family.

This next two years scares me to death on a national political level. We need someone strong to be our voice. I look at my twelve year old granddaughter and eight year old grandson and am scared to death for them. To be snapped up to serve this country run by a group of fanatics, that is looking for a war and a profit to make. Yes, we need a strong voice, and right now to weeks after the election, we need that voice to be John Kerry. The senate is our only hope to stop this administration aggressive acts of war making. Maybe after the 2006 election we can look to someone else, but at this point in time it needs to be John Kerry.

One of the biggest mistakes made by many Democrats, and apparently made by almost all the Democratic campaign consultants, was to look to the Clinton 1992 campaign for lessons and guidance.

Clinton won in 1992 because of Ross Perot. The Perot campaign not only took votes that would have gone to Bush, but more imporantly, it made Bush defend himself from two attackers.

Clinton's victory in 1992 was an anomaly.

There is a lot of talk about the Democrats having to move to the right, or abandon certain issues, but I have a better idea. Get rid of the Washington DC Democrats who are not just out of touch with their own people, but who live in the Bizarro World of the nation's capital.

John Kerry got an opportunity that many others wanted. He had the chance to show America why he should be president, he had a weak, beatable incumbent, and he failed. There are other people with their own ideas and vision who have not failed given the opportunity. 2008 is the time to let them have a chance. Besides, as Einstein pointed out, insanity is trying the same thing twice and expecting a different result the second time.

As part of the "ANY-BODY-BUT-BUSH" crowd --- I must agree with the many other posts --- Kerry does not have 58 Million supporters.

He got many ANTI_BUSH votes not PRO_KERRY votes.

If he runs again , he would “lose”……

The only possible exception….that the OHIO recount changes the results
And Kerry is running for re-election in 2008.

Some people are saying that John Edwards should run for it in 2008, but how will that work? He won't be running as an incumbent, but as a former one-term Senator, a failed VP nominee, and a rich trial lawyer. He had no qualifications to be the (potential) President two weeks ago; he sure as shit won't have them four years from now when he won't have had any more relevant experience than he had from before.

Y'alls best bet is to get Evan Bayh primed to go. Find him the necessary national exposure (e.g., some sort of cause or conspicuous position to take) and keep up the drumbeat. He's a yankee with a good pedigree, nice looks, eloquence, and, as far as I can tell, some actual principles.

John Kerry's defeat proves one thing for certain, though, (and I'm sorry to have to abandon my pet choice to the great maw of plausibility): Hillary will never be President. The Democratic Party knows deep down in its bowels that it cannot afford to nominate another yankee liberal ---especially one with a built-in set of baggage to lug around. If it does nominate a yankee, it'll have to be one like Bayh.