[Steven W.]

Skeptics take notice, Karl Rove got the hat trick in the DemoncRAT primaries by letting them take down Dean who (alongside the unelectable Kucinich) was the only DemoncRAT who actually believed in all their absurd positions, by letting Joe Lieberman bite the dust (as the only DemoncRAT candidate with any sense of self or integrity) and leaving Hanoi John French Kerry as their ultimate candidate.

[alloysteel]

'Tis probably true, that most of the positions that the Kerry campaign will take on the issues of the day may anticipated, and most of the means of demolishing their reasoning, or justifications, or simply rationalizations, already exists. What the real caution should be directed at, is something like the "blindside" issues, similar to the DUI charges that were trotted out just before election day in 2004. Something that is sort of true, and damaging, and thrown before an answer can be composed and put out there.

For some people, winning isn't everything. It is the ONLY thing. Because losing isn't anything.

Unfortunately, when hollow men win, and they have nothing to propose and no real objective to strive for, the whole structure of society becomes a façade and a sham. Another target ripe for the picking by really ruthless raiders. It took a couple of hundred years to completely pick over the corpse of the Roman Empire. The US could be picked clean in a couple of decades.

[Pharmer]

"Karl Rove got the hat trick in the DemoncRAT primaries by letting them take down Dean"

Rove has not had to deal with a real zealot as was Dean. With Kerry, as with all previous presidential candidates, the road the the White House is NOT through congress, especialy through the Senate. The paper trail is too long with no executive experience. Dean was a governor, he had to be taken out. Kerry is the candidate they thought they were getting in Gore. What they forgot was that Gore was an assistant CEO, the same thing the Dems forgot about Bush 41. But I might add that Bush 41 proved that he had never been truely top dog in anything like his 2 sons and in the end was his downfall.

[JTG]

Lieberman with integrity? I think that Dean would have made a better president than Kerry or Lieberman, personally. And that's just because he balanced budgets. He angered the left wing so much in Vermont that they ran a Progressive Party candidate against him in 2000, and the guy took 10% of the vote. Dean almost lost because of it. True, Dean ran as a leftist in the primaries, but Dean was no leftist. He just had a big mouth, but he was basically a centrist.

[uncbob]

Karl Rove got the hat trick in the DemoncRAT primaries by letting them take down Dean

Dean did a good job of taking himself down

He didn't need permission from Rove