I stayed up until 2:30 A.M. watching Dan Rather breathlessly explain why CBS was holding off on a call in Ohio. "I would rather be last than wrong". That is quite a contrast to the judgement he displayed in airing the fraudulent Bush Texas National Guard documents. He went on to explain how provisional ballots in Ohio could still be a key to a Kerry victory. This seemed somewhat strange since is seemed statistically impossible. Was it more wishful thinking?
There is much analysis to be done in the coming weeks but one thing is for sure is that right up until the last minute the American media was rooting for Kerry and putting their preference into action. The last weeks non story about the fake missing weapons in Iraq as well as the inexplicable exit polls showing Kerry ahead in almost all the battleground states was "scandalous" according to Dick Morris.
The weapons story turned out to be particularly damaging for Kerry because despite it being debunked shortly after the New York Times broke the story, Kerry continued in the last week of the campaign to try and hammer home a victory with the fairy tale of incompetence on the part of Bush and the military. One can only speculate what might have happened if he stayed completely focused on jobs in Ohio.
There are many winners and losers beyond the candidates in a contest of this magnitude. From a political strategy standpoint, Karl Rove, head of the Bush team turns out to be the pre-eminent guru in contemporary American politics. Rove got it right across the board. The millions of evangelical Christians on the sidelines came out to vote in big numbers. This completely trumped the Democratic party emphasis on getting out the youth vote. It simply did not materialize. His focus on galvanizing the core Bush voter as opposed to broadening his appeal bore out his opinion that this core would be so substantial as to be impregnable for Kerry.
The blogosphere was a huge winner while mainstream media was embarrassed. Web sites like Realclearpolitics.com, powerlineblog and Lucianne.com to name a few, were reliable providers of election related information. The New York Times and CBS were humiliated.
In retrospect two issues in particular may have hurt Kerry decisively. The Swiftboat vets were relentless in their attacks and those attacks were made possible by a very large number of internet based contributions. Much as Howard Dean used the net to benefit his candidacy so to did the vets. They started with some of their own seed money and a Bush supporter contribution which together totaled $300,000. By the time they were finished they had raised about 15 million dollars and their ads were common place in some battleground states. Although much smaller in dollars this group was far more effective as a 527 group than the much larger Democratic 527's. The bottom line was that a group of 260 American Viet Nam veterans were far more believable than the George Soros funded 527 groups.
It seems somewhat ironic that the one item which might have swung the entire election was something that emanated in Massachusetts and was supported by some of Kerry's most ardent personal and media supporters. The Boston Globe and New York Times have been activists in encouraging and subsequently cheering the Massachusetts Supreme Court's razor thin 4 to 3 vote to authorize gay marriage in Massachusetts. The state was well on its way to eliminating the civil rights inequities which are inherent in civil law in the state. It was not necessary to have a heavy handed decision come down from the court which had virtually no method of popular appeal. Although the decision did not have a widespread backlash in Massachusetts it reverberated throughout the country with the resulting ballot questions amending state constitutions in 11 battleground states. All of these ballot questions won overwhelmingly. As a branded liberal senator from Massachusetts and his typical tortuous explanation of his position on gay marriage, Kerry could not get out from under this issue.
In the end it was an election the Democrats should have won. They had any number of major foreign and domestic issues to exploit. They had the big media acting as partisan cheerleaders and for the first time they had financial resources which equaled and sometimes exceeded those of the Republicans. Yet in the end not only were they defeated for the presidency but also gave up seats in the house and senate which included that of the minority leader Tom Daschle.
Its time for the Democratic party to do some serious internal finger pointing and then some serious soul searching. The party primaries seemed to be skewed in favor of candidates that must have a resume which appeals to the far left of the party. The elite left core of the party acted like a bunch of smug name callers who were going to free the country of the bumbling dummy from Texas. On the core issues of trust and moral values the Democratic party was found wanting by the heartland of the country.
