Boo hoo hoo! Mark Liebovic CRIES for John Kerry. Kerry's sin wasn't that he lost.. it is that he DIDN'T GIVE Dem. voters ONE fight to hang their hat
Dear Mr. Liebovich: It is NOT that John Kerry LOST his race of 2004... it is that he did NOT give us Democratic voters, activists, and campaign contributors ONE SINGLE ISSUE that we could hang our hat on.
Republicans have been delivering 'RED MEAT' to "their base" and "core supporters" for the past dozen+ years. Somehow, the Republicans manage to FEED THEIR SHOCK TROOPS 'RED MEAT,' while STILL appealing to the "moderate" aka "muddled middle" for the all-crucial swing votes.
THIS Mr. Kerry, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Edwards, and Mr. Gore (in 2000) have NOT figured out how to do. Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, and Gore, in their respective campaigns, DISMANTLED the Clinton-Gore WAR ROOM of 1992, the one that the Clinton-Gore campaign set up to IMMEDIATELY REBUT any lies and deceptions ('propaganda") issued by the campaign of President George H.W. Bush (Sr.).
BUT, don't take OUR word for it here at C-Dems.blogspot.....
HERE is the speech written at THREE O'CLOCK in the morning, by New College graduating student and student speaker Jean Rohe, PROTESTING the commencement speech of presidential wanna-be John McCain at her very liberal school's graduation. Ms. Jean RESENTED the selection of Mr. McCain, by College President and former Dem. Senator Bob Kerrey, for the school's commencement speaker, SO SHE PUT HERSELF ON THE LINE TO EXPRESS HER OPINION.
In her own words, Ms. Rohe felt "OBLIGATED TO RESPOND." She wrote her protest speech only after noting the "WIDESPREAD STUDENT OUTRAGE" at a commencement she had attended (as a dual-degree graduate) the day before. The night before her second graduation ceremony and her own speech, a college friend urged her to read Senator McCain's stock speech, posted on his website, and not allow the opportunity to respond to it go by without a real response. So at 3:00 am Jean Rohe wrote her commencement speech to the student body, changing it from the one she had previously written celebrating New York's diveristy and her school's committment to community.
IN ONE SPEECH, Ms. Jean Rohe tells MORE than JOHN KERRY did, in SIX MONTHS OF CAMPAIGNING.
It is NOT that John Kerry "lost" his election - it is that he didn't give the Democrats a SINGLE call to arms, not ONE OUNCE of "red meat" for all the millions we donated to his campaign. Mr. Kerry couldn't call President Bush a lair, couldn't even call him a "flip-flopper," and instead just stood there like a multi-million dollar punching bag, as President Bush looked into the cameras (on the 3rd presidential debate) and sneered "My opponent is a FLIP-FLOPPER."
There is an element of truth, a grain of resonance, to Mr. Liebovich's column, which is better distilled in George C. Scott's monologue as General Patton in the movie of that name: "America," Mr. Scott's Patton intones, "LOVES A WINNER, and WILL NOT TOLERATE A LOSER."
That is not entirely true - we DO respect many underdogs who lost after giving a good fight. But Mr. Kerry ROBBED us of that good fight, and indeed, he threw in the towel on election night, not carring nor concerned about the thousands of Ohio voters who feel that their votes WERE_NOT_COUNTED.
Ms. Rohe says it far better than we can: Here is her amazing student commencement speech, and her comments on how she came to write it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jean-rohe/why-i-spoke-up_b_21358.html
Plea of the Democratic Pariah: Forgive My Defeat
By MARK LEIBOVICH
Published: May 21, 2006
WASHINGTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/weekinreview/21liebovich.html
IN so much as the term "rehabilitation" applies to Al Gore, he is enjoying a nice little run of late.
Mr. Gore — the former vice president, would-be president, almost-president and, in some circles, should-be president — did a hilarious turn on "Saturday Night Live" last weekend. He has received continued plaudits in liberal journals and blogs for his staunch opposition to the Iraq war and good reviews for his documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth." He attended an opening for the film here last Wednesday amid raves about how at ease this latest version of the "new Al Gore" appears, in addition to the requisite "Gore in '08" buzzing among the Washington smartypants set.
If Mr. Gore runs for president again — and he says he won't, though not quite definitively — he would come rested, battle-tested and, given how Democrats have treated their losing nominees, deeply stigmatized.
As a general rule, it can be an unpleasant career move for a Democrat to run for president, streak to primary victories, win his party's nomination and, ultimately, fall short. For his troubles, he will automatically be consigned by large sectors of his party to a distinctive Democratic pariah status — his campaign ridiculed, second-guessed and I-told-you-so'd endlessly by insiders and operatives who bemoan how "winnable" his election was and "unlikable" his personality is.
They will reflexively lump the runner-up into the party pantheon of losers and hope he stays away. "We tend to treat our losing nominees like Superfund sites," said Bob Beckel, a longtime Democratic strategist who ran Walter F. Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984, a landslide loss to Ronald Reagan.
This contrasts with Republicans, who have admittedly had fewer runners-up in recent decades but who nonetheless accord them a more respectful, eminent status. Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton in 1996, but has retained an elder statesman's role within the party. Barry Goldwater lost 44 states to President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 yet remains a conservative icon. Richard M. Nixon lost narrowly in 1960 and went on to be elected president in 1968.
"Maybe the Republicans know something that we don't," Senator John Kerry said, referring to Mr. Nixon's comeback win during an appearance earlier this year on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."
Proponents of a Gore comeback are quick to stake their own claim, oddly enough, to the precedent of Mr. Nixon. They catalog the parallels between the two men's electoral histories. As with Mr. Nixon 40 years earlier, Mr. Gore was a sitting vice president who lost in one of the closest races ever. He left the national stage and made an ill-fated reappearance (Mr. Nixon to lose the California governor's race in 1962, Mr. Gore to endorse Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, which tanked). Mr. Nixon eventually triumphed, eight years after his bitter defeat, at the expense of an incumbent party hampered by an unpopular war.
Could the parallels to Mr. Nixon extend that far? If he were to run in 2008, Mr. Gore would still have a way to go, party officials say.
There remains a broad sector of Democrats who will reflexively roll their eyes at the notion of Mr. Gore in general, let alone the idea of a political comeback. "I've always been puzzled by all the hostility to Gore, especially after he was essentially robbed of the election," said Elaine Kamarck, a longtime aide to Mr. Gore who is now a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Gore's experience should be a plus, not a stigma, she says.
But the Democratic Party represents a rare American enterprise in which experience, intense vetting and a proven record of success will, to many minds, disqualify a candidate from trying again.
That could be changing, Mr. Gore's stalwarts insist, or hope. Ms. Kamarck says that history has cast Mr. Gore in an improved light given his early opposition to the Iraq war and longtime warnings against global warming, an issue gaining urgency.
Could it be changing for Mr. Kerry, too? Unlike Mr. Gore, Mr. Kerry had the benefit — or curse — of a high-profile Washington job to return to. Earlier this year, GQ published an unflattering profile of Mr. Kerry that relied heavily on anonymous quotes from former staffers and Beltway Democrats portraying him as a scorned and pitiable figure. The article was e-mailed with a measure of unrestrained glee around Democratic offices on Capitol Hill.
"The bitterness towards Kerry is much greater from the chattering classes in Washington," said Michael D. McCurry, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign. Mr. McCurry posits the example of his father, a Democratic activist in South Carolina, who still admires Mr. Kerry and resents the ridicule that's been heaped on him by onetime loyalists. Mr. Kerry's current staff is quick to share news of the large turnouts and ebullient receptions the senator is getting as he travels the country, exploring another run in 2008.
Coming so close might give Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry a measure of electoral viability that was not available to landslide victims like Mr. Mondale, George S. McGovern and Michael S. Dukakis. But it also breeds frustration, much of it aimed at the near winner.
"To come close and lose tends to magnify everything the candidate did wrong," said Leon E. Panetta, a former White House chief of staff under President Clinton. Democrats are predisposed to blame their own, he said, no matter how much they once loved them.
Why doesn't the G.O.P. do this?
"Because they win," Mr. Panetta said, laughing.
Republicans are more disposed to a corporate or military model in which retired executives or generals are often kept around, brought back as advisers or re-deployed in times of crisis. "Democrats tend to tire faster of people than Republicans do," said Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant who has conducted focus groups on presidential candidates of both parties. "A conservative nature is a more patient nature."
Mr. Luntz says the influence of television in modern campaigns only heightens the impatience of Democrats. He suggests that Adlai Stevenson — the last losing Democrat to be renominated, in 1956 — would likely not be afforded a second chance today. "We demand instant gratification now, in our lives and our politics," he said.
"I think all of us understand the world we live in politically," said Mr. Dukakis, who lost to President George H.W. Bush in 1988. He says the experience of being a party nominee has afforded him chances that otherwise wouldn't have existed, such as speaking to college students across the country.
"I ran a lousy general election campaign," he said. "A lot of people were upset. I was upset. But there's a role you can play. You can't expect your party to wrap you up in love and affection."
Mr. Mondale says a losing candidate should condition his expectations accordingly. "If you come back and expect to be, quote, the titular head of the party, you're bound to have a bad day," said Mr. Mondale, who went on to be ambassador to Japan during the Clinton administration.
Mr. Mondale, who lives in Minneapolis, says he sees Mr. McGovern when he comes through town, and saw Mr. Dukakis during the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston.
"We spend time together sharing the joy of our shared experiences," said Mr. Mondale, who may or may not have meant this sarcastically.
Republicans have been delivering 'RED MEAT' to "their base" and "core supporters" for the past dozen+ years. Somehow, the Republicans manage to FEED THEIR SHOCK TROOPS 'RED MEAT,' while STILL appealing to the "moderate" aka "muddled middle" for the all-crucial swing votes.
THIS Mr. Kerry, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Edwards, and Mr. Gore (in 2000) have NOT figured out how to do. Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, and Gore, in their respective campaigns, DISMANTLED the Clinton-Gore WAR ROOM of 1992, the one that the Clinton-Gore campaign set up to IMMEDIATELY REBUT any lies and deceptions ('propaganda") issued by the campaign of President George H.W. Bush (Sr.).
BUT, don't take OUR word for it here at C-Dems.blogspot.....
HERE is the speech written at THREE O'CLOCK in the morning, by New College graduating student and student speaker Jean Rohe, PROTESTING the commencement speech of presidential wanna-be John McCain at her very liberal school's graduation. Ms. Jean RESENTED the selection of Mr. McCain, by College President and former Dem. Senator Bob Kerrey, for the school's commencement speaker, SO SHE PUT HERSELF ON THE LINE TO EXPRESS HER OPINION.
In her own words, Ms. Rohe felt "OBLIGATED TO RESPOND." She wrote her protest speech only after noting the "WIDESPREAD STUDENT OUTRAGE" at a commencement she had attended (as a dual-degree graduate) the day before. The night before her second graduation ceremony and her own speech, a college friend urged her to read Senator McCain's stock speech, posted on his website, and not allow the opportunity to respond to it go by without a real response. So at 3:00 am Jean Rohe wrote her commencement speech to the student body, changing it from the one she had previously written celebrating New York's diveristy and her school's committment to community.
IN ONE SPEECH, Ms. Jean Rohe tells MORE than JOHN KERRY did, in SIX MONTHS OF CAMPAIGNING.
It is NOT that John Kerry "lost" his election - it is that he didn't give the Democrats a SINGLE call to arms, not ONE OUNCE of "red meat" for all the millions we donated to his campaign. Mr. Kerry couldn't call President Bush a lair, couldn't even call him a "flip-flopper," and instead just stood there like a multi-million dollar punching bag, as President Bush looked into the cameras (on the 3rd presidential debate) and sneered "My opponent is a FLIP-FLOPPER."
There is an element of truth, a grain of resonance, to Mr. Liebovich's column, which is better distilled in George C. Scott's monologue as General Patton in the movie of that name: "America," Mr. Scott's Patton intones, "LOVES A WINNER, and WILL NOT TOLERATE A LOSER."
That is not entirely true - we DO respect many underdogs who lost after giving a good fight. But Mr. Kerry ROBBED us of that good fight, and indeed, he threw in the towel on election night, not carring nor concerned about the thousands of Ohio voters who feel that their votes WERE_NOT_COUNTED.
Ms. Rohe says it far better than we can: Here is her amazing student commencement speech, and her comments on how she came to write it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jean-rohe/why-i-spoke-up_b_21358.html
Plea of the Democratic Pariah: Forgive My Defeat
By MARK LEIBOVICH
Published: May 21, 2006
WASHINGTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/weekinreview/21liebovich.html
IN so much as the term "rehabilitation" applies to Al Gore, he is enjoying a nice little run of late.
Mr. Gore — the former vice president, would-be president, almost-president and, in some circles, should-be president — did a hilarious turn on "Saturday Night Live" last weekend. He has received continued plaudits in liberal journals and blogs for his staunch opposition to the Iraq war and good reviews for his documentary about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth." He attended an opening for the film here last Wednesday amid raves about how at ease this latest version of the "new Al Gore" appears, in addition to the requisite "Gore in '08" buzzing among the Washington smartypants set.
If Mr. Gore runs for president again — and he says he won't, though not quite definitively — he would come rested, battle-tested and, given how Democrats have treated their losing nominees, deeply stigmatized.
As a general rule, it can be an unpleasant career move for a Democrat to run for president, streak to primary victories, win his party's nomination and, ultimately, fall short. For his troubles, he will automatically be consigned by large sectors of his party to a distinctive Democratic pariah status — his campaign ridiculed, second-guessed and I-told-you-so'd endlessly by insiders and operatives who bemoan how "winnable" his election was and "unlikable" his personality is.
They will reflexively lump the runner-up into the party pantheon of losers and hope he stays away. "We tend to treat our losing nominees like Superfund sites," said Bob Beckel, a longtime Democratic strategist who ran Walter F. Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984, a landslide loss to Ronald Reagan.
This contrasts with Republicans, who have admittedly had fewer runners-up in recent decades but who nonetheless accord them a more respectful, eminent status. Bob Dole lost to Bill Clinton in 1996, but has retained an elder statesman's role within the party. Barry Goldwater lost 44 states to President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 yet remains a conservative icon. Richard M. Nixon lost narrowly in 1960 and went on to be elected president in 1968.
"Maybe the Republicans know something that we don't," Senator John Kerry said, referring to Mr. Nixon's comeback win during an appearance earlier this year on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos."
Proponents of a Gore comeback are quick to stake their own claim, oddly enough, to the precedent of Mr. Nixon. They catalog the parallels between the two men's electoral histories. As with Mr. Nixon 40 years earlier, Mr. Gore was a sitting vice president who lost in one of the closest races ever. He left the national stage and made an ill-fated reappearance (Mr. Nixon to lose the California governor's race in 1962, Mr. Gore to endorse Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, which tanked). Mr. Nixon eventually triumphed, eight years after his bitter defeat, at the expense of an incumbent party hampered by an unpopular war.
Could the parallels to Mr. Nixon extend that far? If he were to run in 2008, Mr. Gore would still have a way to go, party officials say.
There remains a broad sector of Democrats who will reflexively roll their eyes at the notion of Mr. Gore in general, let alone the idea of a political comeback. "I've always been puzzled by all the hostility to Gore, especially after he was essentially robbed of the election," said Elaine Kamarck, a longtime aide to Mr. Gore who is now a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Gore's experience should be a plus, not a stigma, she says.
But the Democratic Party represents a rare American enterprise in which experience, intense vetting and a proven record of success will, to many minds, disqualify a candidate from trying again.
That could be changing, Mr. Gore's stalwarts insist, or hope. Ms. Kamarck says that history has cast Mr. Gore in an improved light given his early opposition to the Iraq war and longtime warnings against global warming, an issue gaining urgency.
Could it be changing for Mr. Kerry, too? Unlike Mr. Gore, Mr. Kerry had the benefit — or curse — of a high-profile Washington job to return to. Earlier this year, GQ published an unflattering profile of Mr. Kerry that relied heavily on anonymous quotes from former staffers and Beltway Democrats portraying him as a scorned and pitiable figure. The article was e-mailed with a measure of unrestrained glee around Democratic offices on Capitol Hill.
"The bitterness towards Kerry is much greater from the chattering classes in Washington," said Michael D. McCurry, a spokesman for Mr. Kerry during his 2004 presidential campaign. Mr. McCurry posits the example of his father, a Democratic activist in South Carolina, who still admires Mr. Kerry and resents the ridicule that's been heaped on him by onetime loyalists. Mr. Kerry's current staff is quick to share news of the large turnouts and ebullient receptions the senator is getting as he travels the country, exploring another run in 2008.
Coming so close might give Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry a measure of electoral viability that was not available to landslide victims like Mr. Mondale, George S. McGovern and Michael S. Dukakis. But it also breeds frustration, much of it aimed at the near winner.
"To come close and lose tends to magnify everything the candidate did wrong," said Leon E. Panetta, a former White House chief of staff under President Clinton. Democrats are predisposed to blame their own, he said, no matter how much they once loved them.
Why doesn't the G.O.P. do this?
"Because they win," Mr. Panetta said, laughing.
Republicans are more disposed to a corporate or military model in which retired executives or generals are often kept around, brought back as advisers or re-deployed in times of crisis. "Democrats tend to tire faster of people than Republicans do," said Frank Luntz, a Republican communications consultant who has conducted focus groups on presidential candidates of both parties. "A conservative nature is a more patient nature."
Mr. Luntz says the influence of television in modern campaigns only heightens the impatience of Democrats. He suggests that Adlai Stevenson — the last losing Democrat to be renominated, in 1956 — would likely not be afforded a second chance today. "We demand instant gratification now, in our lives and our politics," he said.
"I think all of us understand the world we live in politically," said Mr. Dukakis, who lost to President George H.W. Bush in 1988. He says the experience of being a party nominee has afforded him chances that otherwise wouldn't have existed, such as speaking to college students across the country.
"I ran a lousy general election campaign," he said. "A lot of people were upset. I was upset. But there's a role you can play. You can't expect your party to wrap you up in love and affection."
Mr. Mondale says a losing candidate should condition his expectations accordingly. "If you come back and expect to be, quote, the titular head of the party, you're bound to have a bad day," said Mr. Mondale, who went on to be ambassador to Japan during the Clinton administration.
Mr. Mondale, who lives in Minneapolis, says he sees Mr. McGovern when he comes through town, and saw Mr. Dukakis during the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston.
"We spend time together sharing the joy of our shared experiences," said Mr. Mondale, who may or may not have meant this sarcastically.
posted by verifi at 11:26 AM
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