[Dialogue] Post Election: What happened?!

[Janice & Abe Ulangca]

Nov. 3 David Dunn writes:

I wonder if a new, more radical--as in oriented toward addressing
contradictions--political movement will be born?  There's a good chance.  Lots of people have a new consciousness about the need for their participation in political life.  The anger re what the Bush administration has done has not gone away.  "Never give up" is coming from key groups via the internet.  Democrats and Greens, at least, are looking hard at contradictions and possibilities.

Let's talk vision, contradiction, strategy, tactics and implementation, from
the precinct up. 
First, some insights on the real situation re how the Republicans won.  Taking a little mystery out of what happened can perhaps lessen despair and increase determination!  Last night a fascinating PBS Charlie Rose Show, interviewing 3 political reporters.  Two were from Newsweek Magazine, which has a new issue with major analysis of "what happened."  

Points made:

1)  John Kerry ran a terrible campaign.  (I liked him, worked as hard as I could for him, but these guys made a persuasive case.)  He was indecisive "continually second-guessing -- twice they had to take his cell phone away from him, as he was always calling people up and saying 'maybe we should change this' after decisions made".  Confusion among staff at key times.  Failure to respond to attacks clearly. Kerry's wooden delivery "Everybody was trying to help him -- his wife, his staff, his daughters -- he got some better but not much."  Biggest problem not his record but lack of a clear message.  "Even Kerry said at a couple of points 'Do we have a message here?' "  He did not persuade voters that he had a realistic plan re Iraq.

2)  Carl Rove (the anything to win dirty tricks specialist) ran an absolutely brilliant campaign for Bush and the Republicans.  They managed to make the campaign more about Kerry than about Bush's record.  For many people they obscured the record's obvious defects with relentless fear-mongering re terrorism and gays.  And for some they defined Kerry as flip-flopper; out of the mainstream liberal; tax-raising, big government loving; elite latte-drinking, windsurfing; and traitor because he spoke out against the Vietnam war after serving there.  Said the political reporters:  "At every stage, the Republican campaign ran circles around the Kerry campaign.  The one exception were the debates.  By that time the Republicans had so defined Kerry as some sort of cartoon charicature that people were amazed to see the real Kerry and said, 'Hey -- he's a real person!  Not so bad after all!' and Kerry had his best bounce."

3)  (This third point was new to me.)  "We all thought that a high turnout would be good for Kerry, and Kerry people were encouraged by the millions of new registrations and the high turnout early in the day.  But the Republicans had registered millions also, and targeted their new registrations and voter turnout efforts brilliantly.  They went to evangelical churches, bought mailing lists, targeted people who were concerned about social issues such as gay marriage. They segmented mailings, etc. to fit people's specific concerns.  So the new voters did not break decisively for Kerry.  And the heavy targeting of the Republicans is why 'moral values' showed up as the top concern in swing state exit polls, narrowly beating out 'terrorism' and the economy."  (This surprised every analyst I heard after the election.)   "Among those who felt 'moral values' were top concerns, over 80% voted for Bush."  And eleven states, mostly swing states, had propositions on the ballot banning gay marriage, which helped to bring out the cultural conservative vote.  All these propositions passed.  The Democrats could have used messages such as those of the Green party presidential candidate, who talked about the morality of current policies!

Colleagues from outside the U.S. may be wondering "What ARE
you Americans THINKING, to re-elect this man?!!  I hope you can see from this list serv that some of us worked hard for Kerry.  There's also a very angry close to 50% minority out there, a lot newly plugged into progressive groups.   And there are some bright spots.  For example, good people upset conservatives in our county and in a couple of key state legislature races.  NY's Senator Charles Schumer, re-elected by over 40% margin, said that Democrats will be doing "a lot" of thinking re foundations, message, strategies, etc.  So the future is truly open.  But there are painful times ahead, calling for courage and creativity.  I feel so sorry that many outside the U.S. will suffer because of this arrogant American empire.

Janice Ulangca