Reply #33: I do not agree that we had a "hard fought primary" [View All]

What we had was, maybe, just maybe, a hard fought Iowa and a hard fought New Hampshire. After that, it was a walk.

We need to do a better job of vetting our candidate in *our* primaries. By the time I got to vote, it was fait acompli. Kerry was in and my vote didn't matter.

There was one good thing about our primaries this year and that was the televised debate schedule. Bush's numbers kept going down with each debate of our guys. That was a good thing and I would have welcomed more of them. Wouldn't it be far better to have our guys talking issues through more than just the early primaries?

And while some could say the debates hurt us because we got our guys smacked around by other "our guys", I don't see it that way. I thought our debates were gentlemanly, really. There was very little mud slinging. Sure there were a few things, but nothing serious and nothing that rose above simple "entertainment".

On balance, I do not think Kerry was the best candidate, although I supported him when he got the nod. But there were way too many times he just plain made me groan with what he said and what he did.

The "voted for before I voted against" thing was just plain stupid. Shame on him for that. And the duck hunt was so clearly a pandering stunt, it was beyond the pale. I won't even go into the swiftshit liars - they just kicked his ass all over the lot. In the end, his not responding to that strongly was his undoing. He could have overcome everything else, but they made him look weak and stupid. Sure it was an orchestrated smear, but it worked because he didn't fight. At all. Not a whimper. And that, at the end of the day, was all she wrote. He was a wuss.