Newsweek: Election 2004 Wrapup

[MavKikiNYC]

Newsweek: Election 2004

Long, multi-part article (with more installments to come) with many good details filling out the impressions we already had about the 2004 campaign.

Among the more interesting nuggets:

1) Kerry was a doomed, indecisive loser.

2) Teresa is a nut, who was a huge negative drag on Kerry's candidacy.

3) Howard Dean is a lunatic.

4) Bill Clinton advised Kerry to campaign IN FAVOR of a consitutional amendment to deny same-sex couple equal rights. (To his meager credit, Kerry never considered doing it.) The hope that Kerry could pick up crucial swing-voters in battleground states, confirming that Slick Willie is a black-hearted liar who'd screw anything for a vote (and conversely, vote for anything that would screw him). Let it never again be uttered in error that Clinton was an advocate for civil rights.

[MavKikiNYC]

I've been reading this lengthy article on and off all day--had to post this excerpt. God, what an image.

As the holidays approached, the Bush White House was as jolly as Rove. On Dec. 20 the Bush daughters, Jenna and Barbara, both college seniors, decided to hold a blowout for their friends in the Executive Mansion. Jenna, a young lady with her father's eye for a good time, had heard about a band from Nashville that was a big favorite at Southern good-ole-boy fraternity parties. The band, formally called the Tyrone Smith Revue, was better known as Super T. The bandleader, Tyrone Smith, would appear for the second set wearing a red cape and a bright blue jumpsuit emblazoned with a giant T.

The Tyrone Smith Revue set up in the East Room, usually used for press conferences. Shortly after 9, when the drinks were flowing and the kids were starting to glow, Super T swung into "Shotgun" and summoned the president, the First Lady and the twins onto the stage. "I want the Secret Service to stay back!" he cried. "I'm taking over now!" Super T began to instruct the First Family in a dance called the Super T Booty Green. ("Put your hands on your knees. Bend over. Shake two times to the right, shake two times to the left.")

The First Family got right down. The crowd erupted. Super T picked up the beat; he later recalled hearing a familiar voice cry, "Go, Super T!" He looked back to see the president of the United States hollering and shaking it like in old times at the Deke House. Laura Bush gently put her hand on the president's elbow; the frat brother subsided; the chief executive returned to duty.

The Bushes went to bed that night at 11:30, about two hours after the president's usual bedtime. As he dozed off, or tried to, a conga line twisted along the red carpet he usually walked down for formal press conferences. (Before the president retired, Super T offered to play at the Inaugural. Bush just grinned.)

[Epitome22]

[i]/[/L]


4) Bill Clinton advised Kerry to campaign IN FAVOR of a consitutional amendment to deny same-sex couple equal rights. (To his meager credit, Kerry never considered doing it.) The hope that Kerry could pick up crucial swing-voters in battleground states, confirming that Slick Willie is a black-hearted liar who'd screw anything for a vote (and conversely, vote for anything that would screw him). Let it never again be uttered in error that Clinton was an advocate for civil rights.

black-hearted? more like just a shrewd politician. Considering the amendment passed in every single state it was up in, including a blue state, he was probably right. Now we're criticizing Clinton for not being liberal enough?

Would you vote against a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman?

[Rhylan]

You're exactly right, Epitome... but that's where the Dem party leadership has lost so many people. Clinton and others live by the idea that a candidate's ability to shrewdly take positions and/or pander to the right demographics ranks above a candidate's actual position on issues.

Obviously, the 'politicking' is a big part of any winning candidate's strategy, but most people don't want to break down and vote for the king of shrewdness.. except in the case of Clinton. He had the personality to pull it off.

[Evilmav2]

Kerry does not like the daredevil label. He emphatically rejected it in an interview with NEWSWEEK, saying that he avoided really dangerous sports (he mentioned bungee jumping) and was always in control when he took on scary-seeming physical challenges, like kite boarding (a kind of airborne windsurfing). But control is a relative thing, and Kerry clearly likes to look for the edge. For instance, he said he performed aerial stunts only in a plane above 5,000 feet, so that if something went wrong, he'd have time to parachute.

It's too bad Kerry didn't go 'kite-boarding' or opt to perform any other 'aerial stunts' for the press during the campaign...

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC
Newsweek: Election 2004

Long, multi-part article (with more installments to come) with many good details filling out the impressions we already had about the 2004 campaign.

Among the more interesting nuggets:

1) Kerry was a doomed, indecisive loser.

2) Teresa is a nut, who was a huge negative drag on Kerry's candidacy.

3) Howard Dean is a lunatic.

4) Bill Clinton advised Kerry to campaign IN FAVOR of a consitutional amendment to deny same-sex couple equal rights. (To his meager credit, Kerry never considered doing it.) The hope that Kerry could pick up crucial swing-voters in battleground states, confirming that Slick Willie is a black-hearted liar who'd screw anything for a vote (and conversely, vote for anything that would screw him). Let it never again be uttered in error that Clinton was an advocate for civil rights.

Kerry did play it too close, not giving a reason to vote for him but rather only a reason to vote against Bush.

As Kerry's position was for all intent the same as Bush on gay marriages (opposed them), the endorsement of a Constitutional Amendment would not be much of a change but rather would have provided new fodder for the "flip flop" charge. Kerry had expressed his position that an Amendment was not needed and stayed with it, showing your assertion no.1 as false.

[MavKikiNYC]

Kerry had expressed his position that an Amendment was not needed and stayed with it, showing your assertion no.1 as false.

There are numerous paragraphs in the piece describing Kerry's indecisiveness and the debilitating effect on his campaign--too lengthy to post here, but I recommend them as moderately interesting reading.

The characterization of Kerry as indecisive was independent of his position on equal marriage rights, or his position on the need for a constitutional amendment. As to the latter, I gave him credit; as to the former, his position was both timid and indefensible.

black-hearted? more like just a shrewd politician. Considering the amendment passed in every single state it was up in, including a blue state, he was probably right. Now we're criticizing Clinton for not being liberal enough?

Would you vote against a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman?

You say 'shrewd (shrewed?) politican', I say hypocritical vote-whore. Whereas a non-electable figure like Clinton should be able to take a morally correct position on an issue like equal rights without fearing the short-term effect on his popularity, Slick's still out there finger-to-the-wind whoring for votes, all-too-willing to sell out a constituency that, by and large, blindly/foolishly/slavishly supported him. (I will concede that he still has the old ball-and-chain to think of.)

OTOH, as for the equal rights movement, given Slick's lengthy record of infidelity, he's probably not too effective as an advocate for any type of marriage rights. Still, he could've just kept quiet on the issue rather than actually suggest that Kerry pander to the far-right fundamentalists in hopes of snagging a couple of queer-basher votes.

The criticism of Clinton isn't that he's too liberal, rather that he's amoral and unprincipled beyond doing what he thinks will keep him (and his) in the political limelight.