Beat the pundits! Time to thrash out why the candidates lost -- before the votes are in.

Debate Topics

1) Why did Bush lose the 04 election?


2) Why did Kerry lose the 04 election?

You even get to hedge your bets.

JW

I'll Start.

1) Why did Bush lose the 04 election?

Bush lost the 2004 election for several reasons.

1) Iraq war. He gambled that he had the good poop on the WMD and lost. He tried to change the rationale, but the electorate did not buy it.

2) He failed to defend his record. He repeated the mistakes that Carter made in 1980. He tried to shift the debate to his opponent when a Presidential re-election campaign is referendum about the incumbent whether he deserves re-election.

3) The RNC and the Debates. BC04 made Kerry almost a cartoon character with the demonizing of him in the run up to the debates. Kerry showed that he was a competent person who failed to live up to the BC04 caricature of him. Bush in the first debate demonstrated every negative stereotype of himself. The last two debates hardly mattered. Bush lost it in St Louis.

4) Bush’s logic defying self-anointed sense of infallibility alienated the electorate. EVERYBODY makes mistakes… except GWB. That did not play well in Canton.

5) The Rove strategy of ignoring the swing voter and rally the base. While it is true that undecideds usually break for the challenger, Bush did nothing to try to reduce the percentage. He unnecessarily limited himself to the Republican base. Whether he could have realistically persuaded any of the undecided will forever be an open question, but the Rove strategy failed.

6) The motivation of the Democratic base. Simply put, they out hustled the Republicans. The factions of the Democrats set aside their differences to oust the man they loathed. Kerry while somewhat uninspiring, was not a demon to the Republican base. The Swiftboat guys tried to demonize him, but they had no real evidence and the attacks were, in the end, ancient and impersonal to the electorate.



2) Why did Kerry lose the 04 election?
Kerry lost the election for several reasons.

1) Lost August. The campaign vanished for a month. Granted they did not want to spend their money early, but they failed to effectively counter the attacks until the week before the RNC – and then they were drown out.

2) They failed to make the election a referendum about Bush. They let BC04 set the rules early and only wrestled it back late, too late.

3) He was unable to connect with the electorate. He could not get his message out against the counter charges. He failed to effectively counter the BC04 distortions of his positions. The most famous being the lack of the simple clear explanation of the $87Billion for Iraq. Had he said from jump street that he opposed the way it was financed and would not vote for it to be floated until generations in the future, but would have stayed in DC until they got a fiscally responsible version of the bill, he would have been fine. Instead, he just let it lay there and fester.

4) The sunshine and lollipop convention did not help him. He should have ripped Bush’s eyebrows off and never looked back. BC04 did not have to take the defensive until the first debate.

5) He failed to shore up his base. He lost Gore states that should have been safely in his camp before grabbing Ohio. Winning Ohio means nothing if you loose more EVs in other states that you were counting in your column.

6) He failed to cut a deal with Nader. It was a distraction and he should have found a way to appease Nader’s ego. Yes, it would have looked like pandering, but at least he would have his flank covered. While the Nader numbers were not large, it did distract the organization and provided a weak strategy team a headache they could have done without.

7) The swiftboat vets went unanswered for weeks. This was a precursor to the RNC and dovetailed nicely. Bush got a big bounce and then just had to keep Kerry at an arms length.

8) Bush gave a better deal to Satan. j/k


JW