back to the blog

I haven't blogged in a long time. Now that hurricane season and election season are over, with similar disastrous results, I need to change subjects. One more political note, however, before 2004 begins drawing to a close: I have been reading a lot of theories about why John Kerry lost. Most of them seem overly simplified. I have a few simple theories of my own.

One is that Kerry failed to hit back hard at the swiftboat vets who smeared him. Some of those guys have been smearing him since he came back from Viet Nam and began speaking out against the war. What happened to the swiftboat buddies he had up on stage the night of the nomination? They disappeared.

Another of my theories is that he didn't hit back at the constant Bush smear ads about the votes he cast in the Senate for more taxes, etc. He should have countered with a package detailing all the good things that he did vote for during his career in the Senate.

Thirdly, his own smear ads weren't as nasty as the Bush smear ads. No matter what the experts say, Americans love a good smear campaign. That has been true throughout American history. The only thing better than a smear campaign would be to have the candidates duke it out, bare knuckles, no rules, no holds barred.

Finally, he carried too much baggage marked "wealthy Eastern liberal." Speaking as a non-wealthy Southern liberal, I can say that sort of baggage does not sell well anywhere in the South or the Midwest.

Between now and the next election, the Democratic Party needs to find candidates who can get elected, like maybe a younger Jimmy Carter. Sorry, but Hillary Clinton has no chance - she carries the same baggage as Kerry and she also suffers the disadvantage of being a woman. We will have a woman for a President some day, but not Hillary. This will mean finding "centrist" candidates who are not afraid to disagree with the single-issue constituencies and who can speak instead of the greater good of the country.

Wild suggestion: Let's recruit Colin Powell to run as a Democrat. He'd get my vote.

If the Democrats can't find candidates who can get elected, we will see the party fold up and die. I hope that does not happen in my lifetime, which is not saying I am hoping for an early death. When I'm 88, I want somebody to guide my hand as I punch my absentee ballot from the nursing home, and I hope the Democrats will, at that time, be continuing down a long, long trail of success.