President John Kerry took the oath of office today at 12 noon...
Yes, that didn't happen, but why?
If you answer, "well it was those swift boat ads in August", bzzzt, wrong!
If you answer, "well there was the month long gap between the conventions", bzzzt, wrong!
If you answer, "it was the religious conservative voter with abortion and gay marriage as their issues", bzzzt, wrong.
If you answer, "Bush came across as a strong leader", you get partial credit.
The reason Kerry lost is his own damn fault. I'm not here to bash John Kerry, he's a honorable man. He fought for his country with honor, even when he didn't have to. Many others during that time, when they had a degree and family connections didn't serve (not referring to anyone in particular, not). I'm not even going to blame his campaign advisors, thought I'm not sure they served him the best.
John Kerry made one monumental mistake in a town hall meeting in the primaries: "I voted for the 87 billion dollar bill, before I voted against it". That one quote is all the Bush campaign needed. It was the entire cast for the Bush campaign, Bush is decisive; never mind that he's like a drunk driving us into a stone wall, but he's knows where we're going. Kerry didn't know either himself or especially where he wanted to lead the country. He's a flip-flopper and he's against funding our troops in a war he supported.
There's another reason why this worked so well: the Bush folk had that one quote, but that would be enough for the next three months. All they had to do was go to Kerry's Senate record. Billions and Billions of flip-flops, which any Senator will have. The legislative process is not a yes or no proposition, it's compromise. So you can take a position that a legislator voted yes on, and say that it's his position. Say he proposed a bill that cut intelligence by 1 billion, but the administration of the other party(President George H. W. Bush) wanted to cut intelligence by 5 Billion, and that passed. All you have to do in a post 9-11 world is say that he wanted to cut intelligence spending by 1 Billion, he looks week on the war on terra. Even though it isn't true, being that your father's administration wanted the 5 billion cut.
So that's how Kerry lost, one really dumb answer to a question and he got labeled as a "flip-flopper".
The problem is, he could have answered the question better, and he admitted this in late October. What he voted for was an 87 Billion dollar appropriation that was paid for with tax hikes to pay for it, and against the 87 Billion dollar appropriation without paying for it (just put it on the credit card). He could have said, "I want to do everything to support our troops, I've been there, but we have to support our troops by paying for it".
This also raised a second problem, the vote to authorize Bush to invade Iraq. Kerry voted for the resolution, but then said that he was against the war. Again, Kerry seemed indecisive to voters. Was he for going into Iraq or against it? Here's Kerry's thinking on this, he believed that the president should have the leverage of invading before going to the world community and asking for action, which bush got (the inspectors). Once the inspectors were in place, remember that even Syria voted for that UN resolution. We could wait to see what they found, remember again, we knew exactly where the WMD was to be found.
To be quite honest, without the 87 Billion comment, Kerry might have still lost. But it really don't think so. That made the rest of the argument from the Bushies much easier, it gave them a really juicy sound bite that could be run over and over again. Not just in campaign commercials, but also on cable TV. It was a gift that kept on giving.
President George W. Bush say's "thank you John Kerry for giving me that line".