Sadly the best article on why we Dems didn't Landslide in 04...

[KoKo]

(a long..long read but for those of you who read it, I wonder if it made you sick...:-( For those of us who worked our butts off for four years, reading this just kind of kicks us in the gut. BTW, I think Kerry/Edwards won but it should have been so overwhelming the damned hackers would have been exposed right off. The article doesn't address stolen election, but what we are seeing now in the good old USA)


Kansas, Conviction, and the Future of the Dems

March 11, 2005
By Roger Bybee


BENEDICT ARNOLD DEMOCRATS DUMP POTENT THEME

With this context in place, enter John Kerry. Although John Kerry voted for NAFTA's passage, his primary campaign correctly sensed that the public had turned against such trade deals by 2004. While John Edwards and others articulated fuller critiques of corporate globalization, Kerry came up with the most memorable phrase, denouncing "Benedict Arnold CEOs." The term provided a grittier populist edge to his otherwise patrician image as a stiff-jawed Boston Brahmin, and was thus helpful in securing the nomination.

The "Benedict Arnold CEOs" term masterfully combined a punchy, attention-commanding populism with the clear argument that corporations shifting jobs overseas - and their White House advocates - were betraying the nation, This scored an especially clever and potent point against Bush's chief financial sponsors while the US is engaged in war. However, this, the noteworthy phrase of an otherwise theme-challenged and colorless campaign, was quietly taken out and shot at dawn after Kerry secured the nomination,. The firing squad was composed of Wall Street heavyweights like former Clinton-era heavyweights Robert Rubin and Roger Altman, whose own corporations-first economic views qualified them as Benedict Arnold Democrats.

This brain trust decided that the "Benedict Arnold CEO" language, perhaps striking too close to their mansions, was "overheated rhetoric," a Kerry aide informed the New York Times (6/25/04). Altman was even more forceful in explaining the decision to Arianna Huffington: "This was very unfortunate language. We've buried it." (Common Dreams, 11/4/04). Indeed they did. And with it, they buried much of Kerry's ability to convince working Americans that he was serious about producing major improvements in their lives.

Throughout much of the campaign, the tenacity of Kerry's commitment to economic justice seemed less than convincing to many voters. Eventually, he adopted positions opposing the Central American Free Trade Agreement and Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, and called for a "review" of NAFTA. But along the way, he issued an unusual and searing blast at Howard Dean for a "retreat from the global economy" and advocating an "approach mean(ing) that we couldn't sell a single car anywhere in the developing world." (New York Times, 9/23/03).

Much more about the strategies of Election 2004..........

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/03/11_kansas.html

[AP]

1. Koko, you were very dismissive of Edwards during the primaries...

...but I wonder whether reading this article might influence your feelings about what Edwards was trying to achieve at least retrospectively.

Yes? No?

I know his name comes up only once in this criticism, however, everything this guy accuses Kerry of turning away from are the things that were forming the core of Edwards's campaign.

[KoKo]

12. Did you read the whole article? eom

[AP]

20. I read it quickly. What did I miss?

[KoKo]

23. Because you read it quickly you missed alot...Not an article one can read

quickly...if one is serious and "torn up" about another Selection...this one in 2004.

If you can say you read this quickly...then I really can't discuss anything more with you in the future. :shrug: Sorry "AP"...won't answer anymore of your posts about this.

Lightweight views when America is in crisis..just don't cut it with me.

[AP]

30. Give me a break.

I read the article and if you can't give me two or sentences sumarizing what you thought about it, I'm not sure whose problem that is.

[Carolab]

2. One word: FRAUD. eom

[AP]

3. So don't even bother running great candidates?

I don't think so.

We can walk and chew gum at the same time, right? So let's work on fraud and on nominating kick-ass candidates who run kick-ass campaigns that have the power of creating a mood in America that demands and delivers progress.

[Carolab]

5. We need both but the most important is reforming elections. n/t

[AP]

8. They're not mutually exclusive concerns. We can care about both, and we

can care a great deal about both, and caring about one does not preclude caring about the other.

[Doctor_J]

6. we DID run a great candidate

that doesn't change the fact the the election fraud was rampant, and that the media were basically campaigning for Smirk. We ran a brilliant, articulate, successful war hero against a cowardly, stupid failure, and Diebold and the Corporate Media decided that things are just peachy they way are.

[AP]

7. We've run lots of brilliant, articulate heroes, and republicans have run

lots of stupid failures, and we've had the same results, so there's obviously something we're missing -- and it isn't just the machines. Democrats could be winning by miles if we were smarter.

[Old and In the Way]

15. Correct.

All else is just BS window dressing to justify the heist. I'm sick of looking inward and trying to explain why great candidates like Al Gore and John Kerry/John Edwards lost. I don't believe it. I do believe that the results were gamed. And, unless we address that issue, we'll be reading plenty more biased media stories about how our candidate didn't quite measure up because of _______ or ________ (add your favorite theories here), forever.

[blm]

4. Most of his charges are untrue. As someone who listened to just about

every campaign speech and rally and every ad that Kerry put out, he emphasized his economic policies over and over again while attaching them to his healthcare plan, the environment and our national security.

Bybee's article sounds like he only listened to Judy Woodruff and Candy Crowley, both of who were endlessly perplexed why Kerry couldn't seem to get his message out, so they concluded he didn't have one.

[KoKo]

31. All of the articles I've read about us having to move to the right are

crap. This is the only article that I've read that said we need to move to the LEFT. And, this article is what I saw throughout the campaign and what I saw happening when I worked on the Campaign here.

It's the only article I've seen that looked seriously at the weakness of our message from the Left and not the Right.

:shrug:

[blm]

34. It wasn't a weakness of message, it was the media not ALLOWING it heard.

Our platform and message is as strong as any diverse party can be. Our platform should move neither right or left.

Those articles that said we need to move right are hogwash based on media manipulation that painted the Dem message as losers for being too far left.

This article is hogwash for saying the Dem message wasn't left enough.

Pure media manipulation and too many Dems fall for it. Those complaining we're too far to the left and those complaining we're too far to the right.

That lets the media off the hook for not covering the real issues during the campaign....the REAL issues where the Dem message and platform is the exact right one for a diverse country.

[punpirate]

9. Funny thing about using...

... overseas sales of cars as an analogy. The US makers have, in large part, refused to directly engage in overseas sales, perhaps because of the cost of an extended global parts and service network. It's not just unfair trade tariffs that's acting as a deterrent--it's the US makers' policies.

What US makers have done in the past is to buy foreign makers or invest in subsidiaries overseas. Ford of Europe, GM/Opel, Ford/Jaguar, Ford/Volvo, joint agreements with Mitsubishi are all current or past examples of not pressing American-made models overseas, but rather hoping to skim off some profits to supplement domestic sales and to enable lower-cost vehicles to enter the American market as rebadges of foreign makes and to pick up a little extra profit without expanding capacity in the US.

As well, major manufacturers in this country continue to outsource jobs through foreign parts manufacturing for assembly in this country. One can't have it both ways--globalized trade, as practiced by this country's big corporations means exporting jobs and bringing back profits to, principally, a relatively small elite group of investors who benefit from preferential tax treatment here. The perceived benefits aren't felt at the bottom--either in increased wages, more well-paying industrial jobs, increased buying power (when was the last time sticker prices of cars went down because of outsourced manufacturing?), or in job stability. Big corporations in this country want tariff-free trade because it facilitates profits from outsourcing without having to make any investment in productivity improvements.

In those ways, unfettered global trade is strictly a win-win situation for the people at the top, and a lose-lose situation for those at the bottom.

Kerry softened his message to win the approval of those at the top, not the bottom, and that probably cost him some votes. Maybe not a lot, but maybe enough.

As long as politicians get their campaign money from the people at the top, they won't be saying or doing what ought to be done.

[Tweed]

10. Re-hasing old arguments

I'm surprised this was featured at DU.

[KoKo]

14. I'm surprised you're surprised that DU would feature this...unless we know

where we've been, how do we know where we are going? :shrug:

[Larkspur]

11. I definitely agree with the Benedict Arnold analogy

For the Dem Establishment, which is controlled by the pro-corporate Dems, the Primaries became more about stopping Howard Dean and the populist revolt against the Establisment than about defining what the Democratic Party should stand for in contrast to the Repukes. After the Primaries it was more about stopping Ralph Nader than about attacking George Bush. Kerry only did well because of ABB -- Anybody But Bush -- not because voters were actually attracted to him.

Kerry is an elitest snob and fell into every trap Karl Rove laid for him. I had little respect for him before the GE, and have absolutely none after his quick concession speech. Did he every pay off that $6.4 million mortagage on his Beacon Hills mansion?

[hansolsen]

19. Except for the ABB vote, Kerry would have lost in a landslide. I know he

wouldn't have received my vote.

[TacticalPeek]

13. No, Rodger.

Robert Rubin is not a Benedict Arnold Democrat.

[sadiesworld]

16. It's difficult to know where to turn.

I don't think a true populist candidate could survive the corporate media or the political parties' machinations. And if the media and the parties (or the voting machines) didn't finish him/her off, the CIA would. :shrug:

Sad as hell.

[sandnsea]

17. Long windy piles of pontification

Yes that would be a big problem the Democratic Party has.

This crap from the war wing is no better.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/index.ssf?050321fa_fact

[KoKo]

21. I think enough Americans woke up that Kerry/Edwards won...BUT

as I said in my statement at beginning of my post....it wasn't enough to be such a "Landslide" that the Hackers and GOP Operatives didn't steal it once again!

That said, I don't think this article is "Pontification." I think it points out more than any "post election" article I've read. And, for those of us involved in our State Government in this last election...those of us who served as elected officials...it shows how weak our Democratic Party Arguments have been and why we didn't have a "Landslide."

I think no matter how angry this article makes us Dems it's worth the read because it's more nuanced than anything else and really shows the challenges we are facing from our own Party going forward into 2000.

Who are WE...WHAT ARE WE? We Democrats? We aren't just "cats to be herded" but we are split...and the split is the Lieberman/Zell Miller wing as opposed to the other mid-range on down to "what?" WHAT??????

If we can't get together on a platform as to who we are and DRAW LINES IN THE SAND ...then are we a separate party at all. :shrug: I don't know anymore..but I know that we need a huge change.

[sandnsea]

25. Just one thing

Insurance Against Poverty

We can't even get the grassroots to use those 3 words in the SS fight. With all the blather about framing and message and left/right, it all comes down to that. None of it matters when something so simple either flies over the heads of our activist groups or is dismissed because it came from the wrong person or they think they know better.

[radwriter0555]

18. PATENTLY: NO. got DIEBOLD? That is why the Republicanazis WON..

And ya know what? It isn't really "WINNING" when they cheat.

It's using OUR Constitution as toilet paper that oughta be chapping your ass.

[KoKo]

22. Chapping "My Ass?" what do you mean by that?

:shrug:

[radwriter0555]

29. Do I have to explain a chapped ass? As in chapped lips?

Hmmmm... I guess it IS an odd phrase.

After all, how WOULD one's ass get chapped? It would likely have to be exposed to the elements, which, actually DOES fit the model, since bush is handing it to us in the ass, so to speak... and in order for him to being DOING this, we'd have to be exposed, so to speak....

Well, nothing like an over-processed thought there, eh?

[VOX]

24. Per "Kansas," ya gotta wonder who so many working-class Americans...

...keep lurching rightward at the polls, and voting directly against their economic interests. "What's the Matter With Kansas" author Thomas Frank is, IMO, dead-on in his analysis of this phenomenon.

[Doctor_J]

28. How about 99.9% control of the media?

I haven't read Frank's book, but the message fed to the "heartland" by Big Media would've made Goebbels green with envy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

26. Diebold-Schmiebold

The voting machine moguls could steal the election only because it was so close.

Up against the worst president in U.S. history, Kerry should have been able to walk into the White House. I was consistently frustrated with that inept campaign.

[Q]

27. Excerpt:

"Yet at the ballot box, the absolution of Corporate America for economic disparity and a crass, vulgar culture continued on Nov. 2, even among many of its most acute victims. This support for Bush among working-class and poor whites must be seen, first of all, as the product of a vacuum created by the abdication of the Democratic Party as the party of tenacious, committed fighters for the victims of injustice.

As Frank argues, "Democrats no longer speak to the people on the losing end of a free-market system that is becoming more brutal and more arrogant by the day." By pulling back on its commitments to working people, the Democrats have allowed the Republicans to substitute an anti-elitist cultural message for an anti-elite economic appeal. "It's that by dropping the class language that once distinguished them sharply from Republicans they have left themselves vulnerable to cultural wedge issues likes guns and abortion and the rest whose hallucinatory appeal would ordinarily be far overshadowed by material concerns," says Frank."

----

It's difficult to understand what the DLC's New Democrats were thinking when they abandoned the working class and many tradtional Dem values. I believe Franks has it right when he says that this created a 'vacuum'...allowing the Neocon/religious right to use wedge issues (instead of substance) to sway voters.

[lonestarnot]

32. NoT READing THIS !!!! THE REPUKES CHEATED THAT'S THE ONLY

REASON DEMS DIDN'T DO BETTER!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

33. They are Benedict Arnold CEOS

I agree with the premise that the phrase "Benedict Arnold CEOs" COULD have been extremely powerful. It had so much resonance that the other day those words popped back into my head when I was reading some teeth gnashing business article or the other. It has resonance because it is true.

American CEOs and their boards of directors have been solely concerned with feathering their own nests at the expense of their country and the social contract in general. Carly Fiorina gave voice to this when she said "American workers do not have a God-given right to a job" (paraphrase, can't remember the exact wording)When they offsource jobs, close factories, and lay-off employees they are able to kill off entire towns with one fell swoop. They do this in the name of "efficiencies" and "profit". But, strangely enough, they never address how their own gargantuan, bloated, parasitic salaries and options are affecting the bottom line. One of these CEO salaries could probably fund an entire plant. Then they base their American company offshore so they can avoid paying American taxes. This is just wrong. It is immoral. It is greedy and treasonous because they are killing the economic base of the country. John Kerry had it right. I'm sure they made him back off because it was so in-your-face to corporate donors.