Posted on 11/12/2004 10:06:13 AM PST by Carl/NewsMax
Top strategists with John Kerry's presidential campaign are blaming his crushing defeat last week on bad advice from Clinton operatives who took over the campaign after Labor Day.
"When [James] Carville and [Stan] Greenberg tell reporters that the campaign was missing a defining narrative, they forget that they were the ones insisting we had to keep beating the domestic-issues drum," complained David Thorne on Thursday.
Thorne - a brother-in-law from Kerry's first marriage to Julia Thorne - was one of Kerry's closest advisors throughout the campaign.
Thorne told political gadfly Arianna Huffington that because of the misguided Carville-Greenberg strategy, "We never defended John's character and focused on his leadership with the same singularity of purpose that the Republicans put on George Bush's leadership."
Kerry's brother Cameron agreed, telling Huffington, "There is a very strong John Kerry narrative that is about leadership, character and trust. But it was never made central to the campaign."
Tom Vallely, the Vietnam War veteran whom Kerry tapped to lead the response to the Swift boat attacks, told the columnist: "The Clinton team, though technically skillful, could not see reality — they could only see their version of reality. And that was always about pivoting to domestic issues."
Reports Huffington:
"In conversations with Kerry insiders over the last nine months, I’ve heard a recurring theme: that it was [Bob] Shrum and the Clintonistas [including Greenberg, Carville and senior advisor Joe Lockhart] who dominated the campaign in the last two months and who were convinced that this election was going to be won on domestic issues, like jobs and healthcare, and not on national security."
The failed strategy apparently originated with ex-President Clinton himself, who trumpeted the domestic issues mantra in repeated calls to Kerry.
Writes Huffington:
"Behind the scenes, former President Clinton also kept up the drumbeat, telling Kerry in private conversations right to the end that he should focus on the economy rather than Iraq or the war on terror, and that he should come out in favor of all 11 state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage — a move that would have been a political disaster for a candidate who had already been painted as an unprincipled flip-flopper."
They should have read FR last August.
Duhhhh. These people are truly stupid. It amazes me that K got as many votes as he did.
Sounds like they were paving the way for Hitlery
Schadenfreude.
Let the recriminations begin!
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha bbrraawwwwwaahhhhhh HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA GOOD 'OL CLINTON HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA I CANT STOP LAUGHING HA HA HA HA HA AS IF KERRY WASN'T A DUFASS WHICH IS WHY HE LOST HA HA HA HA HA HA EATING THEIR OWN HA HA HA HA HA HA HA I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM NOW HA HA HA HA
That's what he gets for crawling into bed with that scumbag.
Now why would they give him that kind of advice? LOL.
Ya think?!
Too funny!!!
Well, you heard it here on Free Republic first. I read dozens of posters making that same point weeks ago.
Some one tell me again why we need an MSM, so that we can get the wrong news on time or the right news weeks after the fact???
Hillary needs to run in '08.
I too was suspicious when the Clintonistas came on board. But from what I could see, they helped Kerry tighten up the campaign in the final days.
I thought that was VD.
What're they beefin' about? He got about the same proportion of the popular vote that X42 did when he ran?
The Wicked Witch of New York send her congratulations to her loyalist fifth columnists
HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAhhhh.....aaa.. oh, my my my.......
"it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault, no, it's YOUR fault.....
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
The democratic party is DOOMED.
"I can say this because they won't listen to me, anyway:
"Bill Clinton is pulling strings behind the scenes to make
sure John Kerry LOSES the 2004 election!" --Rush Limbaugh,
(several times in his broadcasts starting about June, 2004)
Geez, if they'd been reading FreeRepublic during the campaign, they would have known they were being sandbagged.
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