John Kerry: You have failed to achieve Victory

John Kerry: You have failed to achieve Victory

There is some saying about how success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan. Well Orphans aren’t bred from test tubes so let me explain how you fathered a failed campaign.

#1) you did not prepare;
Your wife paying a lower tax rate then most lower middle class people, your not showing up to important committee meetings, your not spending 4 years getting your face on “bipartisan” legislative action, your stonewalling on the parts of your 1970s which so many Americans despise.

These problems could have been solved if you started in 2000 working on them.

Mama T could have gotten out of the tax shelters, you could have apologized by saying “the war was wrong, but how I opposed it was also wrong.”, you could have gotten on things like “No Child left behind” in a big way, and you could have attended your committee meetings. These things wouldn’t sink you but when combined with your other faults they formed a bad image, and a bad message.

#2) Message problem
Your message never came out effectively. You used John Edwards’s only speech as an element of your campaign, thus muting its effectiveness. Your wife said crazy things which detracted from your message (remember Dan Quayle?), you had a “Issue of the Week” approach which worked great in Clinton’s second run for the office of the presidency by muting republican issues… sure as heck wouldn’t work when they were only used by you for a week. You identified obscene and divisive humor (which was funny) as the heart of America. You were for the 87 billion dollars, before you were against it….

Your message wasn’t clear, your message wasn’t easy to understand, and your message was framed wrong.

Going to aspen, being buddy buddy with the Film Actors Guild types (see Team America for the refrence) made your message seem preachy and snobby. A man married to a Billionaire Heiress can’t win elected office by seeming snobby.

#3) its about the war STUPID!

You got it right that people were upset about the war

You got it right a lot of people didn’t like how we went into Iraq

But Americans dislike cutting and running from a mess we make, especially when we can’t paw it off onto some one else to fix (Nato, EU, UN)

Americans wanted a candidate with a positive vision of “Peace with Honor” not “No war for oil”

#4) George W. Bush

When your speeches talked about him, what he did, and why he is so evil it sounded just like dole in 96. You can’t run a campaign about the other guy being a loser.

#5) Strategy

Responding to the Swift Vets was dead wrong, demanding Bush denounce just them ( and not the 90% of 527s which helped you) was stupid. Fighting a “House to house” war with Karl rove was stupid… and I could go on ad nausem

If politics is a war, you had no tactician

#6) lets have Consultants (and meetings)

Anyone who lives in Cubicle Land knows the only thing truckloads of consultants make is work that doesn’t produce anything.

Anyone who lives in cubicle land knows the more meetings you have, the less work gets done.

You trucked in Consultants by the bushel

And you advocated meetings as a foreign policy solution.

You became a pointy haired boss.

#7) Message part II-The Sequel

You had from March to your convention to sell your vision for America.

That is how Clinton won in 1992; didn’t Carville and Begala remember that?

You had your convention to sell who you were, it sold Vietnam

We knew you were in Vietnam already.

#8) “He’s good enough.. He’s Smart enough.. and Dog gonit people like him.”

And they didn’t like you. You became Mr. “Hey kids get off my Lawn.” you became this stern patrician icon that should have a wife named “lovey”

Michael Savage compared George Bush to Moses, how he told god he stutters and is to imperfect to be his vessel. And god told Moses that was exactly why he choose him.

People could relate to George, and not you.

Both of you are scions of elite and privilege and he comes off as the regular guy

#9) No Backbone

Gay marriage is unpopular, but nuance is worse. You opposed the court edicting it in your state, but you pressured the Legislature to not take the action which could have avoided the conflict.

If you’re for Gay rights, make the argument why.

Only Nixon can go to China

And you had a go to china moment.

You could have pitched Civil Unions to middle America and made it work.

This was not the only lack of courage you showed in the campaign, but with the christophobic punditry out there this is the one I wanted to bring up.

#10) 1994-Pres

You guys have been losing out from a strategic point for a decade now.

Your troops have been doing progressively worse.

If you didn’t fix that problem before you started, it was frankly over.

These are ten reasons you failed to achieve victory