November 10, 2004
LIPSTICKING THE PIG:
How About a Little Country Twang? (Harold Meyerson, November 10, 2004, Washington Post)
Voters in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary chose him because he was a mainstream Democrat who seemed best positioned to neutralize Bush's advantages as a war president. Kerry's positions on health care, taxes and trade and those of his main primary rivals were all pretty much the same. All the Democrats put forth ways to increase health coverage substantially without dismantling our current system; all embraced a more managed trade policy; and all favored rolling back tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans to get the funds for increases in health coverage and college tuition aid. These were popular positions, though the Democrats' and Kerry's ability to embed them in a national populist narrative often came up short.Kerry was both the personification and beneficiary of an extraordinary Democratic consensus this year: George W. Bush and a sputtering economy had concentrated the Democratic mind. In selecting John Edwards as his running mate, Kerry seemed more to be ratifying a decision already reached among party elites and activists than making a choice on his own. In large ways and small, campaign 2004 was marked by unprecedented Democratic unity. That's one reason why the defeat feels so shattering: The whole team was on the field, working together as well as if not better than ever before.
For this reason among others, the Democrats' postgame analysis has not yet assumed its accustomed form of a circular firing squad. Among Democrats I speak to from all corners of the party, the same points come up over and over again. The mobilization of the Democratic base that the party and the "527" groups threw themselves into this year remains essential, but it is plainly not a ticket to victory in itself. Democrats cannot go into the next presidential election with just a handful of states truly in play; they need to be competitive in more red states to keep the Republicans from concentrating their resources in Florida and Ohio and some borderline blue states.
Mr. Meyerson tiptoes up to the edge of insight here, recognizing that it was an archetypal presenter of mainstream Democratic dogma who lost this election. But then, instead of re-examining the dogma he just calls for the next presenter to be Southern, as if New Coke would have succeeded if only Ron Popeil had pitched it. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 10, 2004 1:31 PM
"...the Democrats' postgame analysis has not yet assumed its accustomed form of a circular firing squad."
True, because all are complicit in the cratering, and all agreed on what eventually cratered. Therefore, the post-game critique will obsess over trivia, superficialities, and style points.
Posted by: luciferous at November 10, 2004 1:48 PMBasically Myerson is saying we're dealing with a smarter caliber of idiot here, so next time we need to be cleverer in fooling them into voting for us. I guess that is a step up from the screeds about Talaban/slavehoder/al Qaida wannabes whose home areas should be expelled from the country that other liberal commentators have been doodling out over the past seven days.
Posted by: John at November 10, 2004 2:21 PMIn 2008 (barring economic collapse), PA and MI and MN and WI will be voting Republican. NH will probably revert to the GOP. So might ME. That gives the GOP about 355 electoral votes. Who will be shooting whom then?
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 10, 2004 2:29 PMWhat a waste picking Edwards was.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 10, 2004 2:31 PMDavid - I agree, but I think Kerry was faced with the choice of Edwards or losing all his Hollywood and trial lawyer money. He needed the buzz more than the substance. In those terms, he did what he had to do. Gephardt was the only other realistic pick, and he had already tanked (for the second time).
Kerry would have done better to have chosen Lieberman, but I suspect Joe would not have subsumed his more disparate views the way he did under Gore.
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 10, 2004 3:13 PMBill Richardson was the only choice that would have helped him.
Posted by: oj at November 10, 2004 3:20 PMoj,
How can Bill Richardson who when he was at DOE handled security as if there were an express lane for Chinese agents to get out of Los Alamos with nuclear secrets even be considered for a ticket at a time when National Security was a paramount issue?
Posted by: Bart at November 10, 2004 3:54 PMDavid - remember when Edwards was actually picked? All the sages nodded their heads in unison, the polls ticked upwards, and a certain giddiness descended upon the left-tilting blogs.
Man, they sure were wrong.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at November 10, 2004 3:55 PMBruce:
Here's how we summed it up: "had Senator Edwards been President Bush's vice-presidential pick, he'd have been the least qualified member of his cabinet.
Posted by: oj at November 10, 2004 4:13 PMoj,
Nobody cared when he ran for governor of New Mexico where the only espionage issue relates to somebody developing a new form of salsa.
When you run for the President and you've made a total cluster (blank) of security at a nuclear weapons facility, people will take notice.
Posted by: Bart at November 11, 2004 6:31 AMBart:
George Bush gave us 9-11 and no one cared. Kerry negotiated with the North and no one cared. Clinton was reelected.
Posted by: oj at November 11, 2004 8:42 AMGeorge Bush gave us 9/11? Perhaps his father and Clinton did, but I can't see how anyone can seriously blame W for an early-term intelligence failure by people long entrenched in government and supported wholeheartedly by the MSM.
Kerry lost.
The press and the GOP focused on the Monica Lewinsky mess because too many Republicans and media types, including Rupert Murdoch, are on the Chinese payroll.
Posted by: Bart at November 11, 2004 1:47 PMBart:
He ignored all the warnings and did not make al qaeda a priority. No one cares.
Posted by: oj at November 11, 2004 2:45 PMAnd just what precisely was he to do with those astonishingly amorphous warnings?
What could he, or anyone, have done about al Queda that would have stopped the attacks?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 11, 2004 8:13 PMYour watch, your responsibility. The American Presidency is the big leagues.
Posted by: oj at November 11, 2004 8:28 PMOJ:
Verbs are a valuable addition to sentence meaning.
The question wasn't assigning responsibility, but rather what he was supposed to do with the warnings.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 12, 2004 5:11 AMJeff:
well, he didn't do anything at all. Even Bill Clinton at least wagged the dog.
Posted by: oj at November 12, 2004 7:09 AM"What could he, or anyone, have done about al Queda that would have stopped the attacks?"
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 12, 2004 9:22 AMChecked out flight schools? Looked at the 20th hijackers harddrive? etc., etc., etc.
Posted by: oj at November 12, 2004 9:34 AMPlease lay out the contents of those warnings for us, so we can conclude whether there was any reason, short of clairvoyance, to do any of those things.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 12, 2004 7:16 PMhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23188-2002May15?language=printer
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/05/29/rowley/index_np.html
Posted by: oj at November 12, 2004 7:48 PM"A CIA spokesman said the agency routinely passed on intelligence citing the possibility that al Qaeda might be planning to hijack an airliner as part of a terrorist action against the United States. But a suicide attack involving an aircraft was never envisioned, the spokesman said."
And the second link refers to information the President never got close to.
Thanks for making my point.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 13, 2004 7:46 PMJeff:
Failures of imagination and management that occur on your watch are your responsibility. Next time your team screws up try going and telling your boss ythat they didn't tell you what was going on and you didn't imagine the problem could happen--see if he thinks that excuses you.
Posted by: oj at November 13, 2004 8:36 PMOJ:
The question wasn't whose responsibility it was, but what meaningful action could have been taken to prevent the attack.
To repeat, in case it wasn't obvious enough the first time:
"What could he, or anyone, have done about al Queda that would have stopped the attacks?"
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 14, 2004 1:57 PMJeff:
Knowing that al Qaeda had targeted us, wanted the towers and had used and planned to use planes previously leads to any number of reactions, not least going after bin Laden, which even Clinton did, though in desultory fashion, and improving security at airports and onboard.
Posted by: oj at November 14, 2004 5:01 PM