If Kerry won, I believed we would be able to divert the war in Iraq away from a ruinous course that was weakening our military, our economy and our national security. It would allow us to shift the focus of the fight against terrorism back to Afghanistan, where it should have been all along, and where it would inevitably have to return. A Kerry victory would mean that thousands if not tens of thousands of human beings – including our own troops — would be spared death, carnage and misery, because the war would be conducted and ended by adults, instead of perpetuated by ideologically arrogant and blindingly naive fools. I also believed that Kerry would finally address issues such as national health care, global warming, and fossil fuels — particularly by putting money into new energy technologies instead of massive subsidies for the oil industry.
If Kerry lost I believed it would mean only that the rest of the country had not yet realized what I had realized, which was that George W. Bush was an utter failure as a President and as an American. Such a loss would subject us to four more years of Constitutional abuses and failed policies, but it would also teach the rest of the electorate a lesson that would lead not simply to a change of leadership in our country, but to a dramatic change in course away from George W. Bush’s failed policies and incompetence. I could not have imagined Katrina, of course, or the gross mismanagement of the economy, but I did know that sooner or later George W. Bush would be held responsible for his failures by the American people. More importantly, I knew that another four years of George W. Bush would mean that the evangelicals and radical neoconservatives on the right would not be able to blame John Kerry and the Democrats for the disasters that George W. Bush had wrought. The Republicans would own the full eight years unambiguously, with nowhere to hide, and there would be no Democrat to scapegoat.
I cannot say I was surprised when Kerry lost in 2004. I didn’t know if Americans would be ready to change leadership so soon after 9/11, particularly when the Bush administration was so committed to terrorizing its own electorate with the specter of another attack. But in the aftermath of the loss and the expected recriminations I remained convinced that we had waged the right fight, and that we nominated the right candidate. Not because I was against Dean or anyone else, but because Kerry’s selection and the way he ran announced at a critical moment – in the first election after 9/11 — that Democrats were willing to take national security seriously. To take responsibility for the defense of the nation in a way that the Democratic party had not done in my lifetime.
During his campaign, John Kerry outlined a course of conduct in foreign affairs that the Bush/Cheney team ridiculed, but which it has now effectively adopted as of this date. It is a foreign policy that leans heavily on the diplomacy that George W. Bush rejected until he realized that the last tattered shreds of his legacy hung in the balance. Kerry’s vision also put the emphasis for fighting Al Qaeda on law enforcement tactics, which again the Bush administration ridiculed in 2004, but which everyone now agrees is the right approach.
In 2006 the Democratic party made the same policy arguments that we’d made in 2004. Kerry led the way in congressional races, raising as much or more than any other Democrat for other candidates, and using his own considerable online outreach and activism to do so. Before Barack Obama’s team blew the doors of every fundraising record in 2008, Kerry’s three-million-strong email list showed what could be done in 2006 focused races around the country, and Congress fell to the Democrats as a result.
Elected in 2006, among others, was Senator Jim Webb of Virginia. Webb — a former Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration, a former Republican, and a veteran of the Vietnam War — had taken notice of the Democratic party and its willingness to embrace national security and foreign policy in a mature way in the 2004 campaign. After rejecting the fear mongering of the Republican party and the arrogance and incompetence of George W. Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, Webb signed on with the Democrats and went on to win a narrow, pivotal, critical come-from-behind victory over a Republican candidate who had been considered a front runner for the Republican nomination for President in 2008. In doing so, Jim Webb became, in 2006, a leading indicator of what has now become a wave of Republicans embracing that same Democratic message in 2008, as put forward by Barack Obama.
Critical in all of this is that the message Democrats projected to voters in 2004, 2006 and now in 2008 has not changed. Where in previous years we might have swung wildly back and forth between policy positions, Democrats are now seen as the adults in the room, recognizing the problems we face and offering reasoned – as opposed to ideological — solutions. There has been very little trash talk or in-your-face values mongering on the part of Democrats and progressives over the past four years. Instead, the emphasis has been on the problems at hand, and how reason and resolve can solve those problems. The candidates may have changed, but the message has stayed the same, and it is a message that crystallized in 2004.
While the race for the 2004 nomination created friction within the Democratic party, it also produced agreement. After Kerry took the nomination he embraced not only the online fundraising example of the Dean campaign, which pioneered so many of the techniques now being used by the Obama campaign, but Kerry also supported Howard Dean’s candidacy for chairmanship of the DNC. Later, when Dean announced that he would pursue a 50-state strategy, foreshadowing if not laying the groundwork for the Obama campaign, Kerry defended Dean against James Carville, who brazenly tried to oust Dean from his chairmanship. While the 50-state strategy didn’t pay off at the presidential level in 2004, it delivered Congress to the Democrats in 2006, and has now helped position a Democratic presidential nominee to take states that were considered solidly Republican only a few years ago. Again, a clear line of continuity exists between John Kerry’s politic choices in 2004, the expanding of the map in 2006, and the explosion of the map in 2008.
It is said that although the Republicans lost in 1964, Barry Goldwater laid down a conservative course in that year that would lead the Republican party to victories by Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush. Whatever you think of those presidents, the Republican party adopted Goldwater’s course in large measure and stuck with it, gaining credibility with moderate and independent voters along the way as the Vietnam War went awry.
In 2004 John Kerry and you and I may not have won the fight for the White House, but we charted a course and embraced a point of view that the Democratic party is still holding to. It is the vision of Kerry and Dean, and now, Obama, and it defines a new direction for the Democratic Party. For the first time in over twenty-five years, we will not have a Bush or a Clinton running the country — or the Machiavellian Carville/Matalin cabal behind both families — and I can’t help but think that’s a good thing.
I do not know what toll the loss in 2004 took on John Kerry. What I do know is th
at he never broke stride. He simply went back to work, fought the fight again in 2006, and helped deliver Congress to the Democrats. In 2008, when Barack Obama stumbled in New Hampshire, John Kerry was the first to step in and endorse Obama in the wake of his loss, giving legitimacy to Obama’s candidacy at a critical time and making it clear that the Democratic party was not the private property of the Clinton campaign.
I became involved in the 2004 campaign, and supported John Kerry, because I knew as an American and as a citizen that I would not respect myself if I stood on the sidelines. It wasn’t that I needed to win, it was that I needed to stand in opposition to the course George W. Bush had charted for our country and the world, and I did that. For a year and a half, as a volunteer putting in full-time hours, I fought for my country. And if I learned anything along the way about John Kerry it’s that I think he decided to run in 2004 — against a sitting war President — for the same reason. He knew the odds were against him, and he knew — as the Clintons clearly did — that 2008 would be an easier row to hoe, but he didn’t take the easy road. I will always respect him for that.
It didn’t surprise me that John Kerry gave Barack Obama the keynote address at Kerry’s own convention in 2004. Barack Obama’s 2008 platform is almost identical to John Kerry’s platform, and that doesn’t surprise me either. Obama’s fundraising machinery is the 2.0 version of the online activism pioneered by Dean and Kerry in 2004, and battle-tested again in 2006. And the seeds of the fights now taking place in traditional Republican states like Missouri and Virginia and North Caroline were planted by Dean and Kerry when they laid the groundwork for a 50-state strategy by refusing to knuckle under to the bullying of James Carville.
Where we are now in 2008 is directly related to where we were and what we did in 2004. And I want to take this moment to thank John Kerry personally for setting us on a course that we have not had to back away from.
Mark
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p>Frankly, I believed then what I believe now — in 2004 the “rest of the country” was pretty aware what an utter failure Bush was and elected him anyway. They elected him because they felt they had to after 9/11, otherwise voting for someone else would mean the terrorists “pushed him out”. They elected him because they believed Bush’s lies about Kerry. Because they liked him as a “guy”, as a guy who went to the right church and cleared brush and wore cowboy hats. They elected someone to be on their teevee, not run their country. Bush’s approval rating in Fall 2004 was 50-55%, not a glow of approval. Bush lost because Kerry’s was lower.
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p>I know that I’m also showing my colors here as much as you are showing yours, but to say
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p>doesn’t make sense to me. Obama and Kerry share platforms in that they share the platform of the Democratic Party, but that’s about it. On everything from Iraq to Afghanistan to health care to marriage equality to education, Obama’s platform is much, much close to Dean 2004 than Kerry 2004. That was a strategic choice each candidate made — how far to distance oneself from one’s own party platform. Dean and Obama are running on it to a greater extent than Kerry felt he should. Obama’s wide-field strategy and online presence are closer to Dean than Kerry. Mind you, he’s clearly a superior strategist to Dean and Kerry, just as Kerry was superior to Dean.
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p>Frankly, there’s a lot of good stuff to be said about John Kerry. He has done some good work, and he’s clearly enjoying some liberation from his pre-election image as Al Gore is. While I am disappointed in Kerry as a Senator who represents Massachusetts, I think well of him as a national figure for the Democratic Party. I think he’d be good in the Cabinet, or as an ambassador. I think Kerry is at the stage where he is a presence on the national scene, not least of all for the reasons you describe. In some ways, he has “moved beyond” being tied to a single state, arguably in the way that Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Bill Richardson have. His path, his talents, his goals, and his beliefs are poorly fit into the requirements of being a center, and now that Democrats likely will have control over the Executive Branch, better opportunities may arise. I hope the path that Kerry takes after 2008 gives him a chance to use those skills in a way that benefits all Americans.
I think the main part of Obama that is akin to Dean was opposition to the Iraq War from the start. This is possibly one of the main reasons Obama defeated Clinton, who was put in a Kerry position of explaining her vote for the IWR over and over again. But apart from that I heard Kerry say in 2004 the following: Energy Independence, health care reform (the same health care members of Congress have!), roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, redirect efforts in Afghanistan, the war on terror is largely an intelligence gathering and law enforcement process, the war in Iraq was a mistake and we need to get out as soon as possible. Not just Obama but Hillary, too embraced these messages in 2008.
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p>And I like the larger point that every candidate stands on the shoulder of great leaders before them. No candidate can win this election by him/herself. And I think it is important that every Democrat who contributed to this effort is honored. If you want to read the many tributes to Howard Dean you can go to the front page of Daily Kos. I am glad an eloquent diary was written for John Kerry who also deserves a lot of credit. The least of which is that he chose Barack Obama as the keynote speaker in ’04.
Bush’s approval rating in Fall 2004 was 50-55%, not a glow of approval.
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p>I guess we see that glass a little differently. The Iraq war and the ‘war on terrorism’ were the issues, and with those ratings a sitting president had great advantage. You can’t underestimate the power of the presidency when campaigning. Add to that, a bunch of sociopaths and well…
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p>AS for Kerry and Obama sharing policy, once again I just disagree. They are so similar, including on health care.
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p>Anyway, Kerry could have quit but he didn’t, and he continues to put the real into putting country first, so I thought this piece deserved attention.
the economic structure collapse (just like the bridge), toxic food killing our pets, recalls of both foods and drugs, and also a lot of Republicans and Evangelicals got caught with their zippers down and so on…Reminding people in 2006 that the Republicans don’t own integrity or national security!
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p>The biggest change is at least 10- 20 percent more people regret not voting for Gore and Kerry (2000 and 2004) than did before. We have a ton of Republicans who regret the slime-filled campaign lies of 2000 and 2004
less than half of all Americans thought the country was heading in the wrong direction. That number is currently above 80 percent.
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p>People are sick of the Republicans’ failed approach.
makes him very hard to beat. Also consider that some of those not approving were the Pat Buchanan type Republicans, who were unhappy with him, but were going to vote for him any way.
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p>The fact is that had there been enough voting machines in Ohio to ensure no one had to wait more than, say, a half an hour – Kerry might have won. The fact that he made it so close was impressive. Kerry did better vs Bush than generic Democrat and here is a link showing a model that predicts results based on underlying variables forecast that the Democrats were very likely to do worse. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/…
I agree that all Democrats, whether you speak of 2004 or 2008, agree on far more than they disagree.
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p>Obama is closer to Kerry on health insurance, even taking Kerry’s idea of re-insurance of catastrophic health care costs. He also has taken up Kerry’s alternative energy / environment positions – where Kerry was far stronger than Dean was. These were issues that Kerry very much did run on.
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p>On Afganistan, Kerry in 2004 was saying that we outsourced the effort to capture OBL to the Afghan warlords. How was Dean different? The recent root of Obama’s position on Iraq was legislation introduced by Feingold and Kerry in 2006 on Afghanistan.
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p>As to Iraq, Obama’s Iraq plan is a variation on Kerry/Feingold. At the time of K/F, Dean was backing the Korb plan, which was far less aggressive in getting out and focused less on diplomacy. Comparing their positions near when Obama defined his in 2007 makes more sense than arguing what their plan was going forward in 2004. (Kerry’s Iraq plan in 2004 as given in his NYU speech called for a regional summit and in concept is what evolved into Kerry/Feingold as Iraq changed. Dean in 2004 was NOT calling for immediate withdrawal.)
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p>On marriage equality, Dean and Kerry were both for civil unions – Kerry was for full federal rights that marriage has and I think Dean was too. Dean signed the civil union bill in Vermont, but he had not been a force pushing for it. In a way, you could say that both he and Kerry were pushed by others in their states who did push for it. I fail to see a huge difference.
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p>As to on-line presence, I agree that Dean was the first to raise money there and to have an interactive internet presence. However, there was a very active johnkerry.com site that had a very good blog and which did connect people in committees for things like debate parties – and he raised a lot of money there as well in the late primary season.
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p>More importantly, Kerry later used his email list and web site to push issues and to raise money and get volunteers in 2006. Obama’s anti smear site was similar to the site Kerry allies set up in 2006 to protect vets running.
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p>As to their campaigns, Obama’s took good parts of both and likely some stuff neither had. Obama’s Iowa campaign was said to have been more like Kerry’s, in that they had a very solid ground game, but it had incredible support of young people never before interested. (Edwards’ was probably more like Dean’s. There was also a long time when Edwards was the favorite of much of the blogosphere.)