Over at Slate they're running a series called "Why Americans Hate Democrats -- A Dialogue" pondering the future of the Democratic party and its future presidential candidates.
When you lose an election 51-48, and fail to pick up a few states by margins of less than 4%, people probably don't "hate" you. Some of them probably considered voting for you, but changed their minds. Some of them in Nevada and Colorado hated the Democratic party so strongly they voted for its Senate candidates but not its Presidential candidate. In Ohio the Democratic party was so "hated" that about one in six people who voted for the Republican Senate candidate also voted for John Kerry.
Let's remember that back in mid-September Kerry was behind in the polls by at least 6%, and maybe more. The Democratic party and its nominee were so hated that tough speeches and solid debate performances convinced about half the undecided voters to support Kerry in the end. Newsweek's extensive, inside coverage of the campaign shows that the six weeks between the Democratic convention and Kerry's 18 September speech hitting Bush hard on the Iraq war were lost weeks for the Kerry campaign. In many ways the election was lost in those weeks.
Posted by robe0419 at November 6, 2004 12:22 PM