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Kerry too aloof to beat Bush - experts
Posted Wed, 03 Nov 2004
John Kerry was too aloof, too hesitant, too slow to react to attacks and too far to the left for US voters, experts said after US President George W. Bush secured a stunning second term in the White House.
Battle-scarred and dazed, the new election defeat left the Democratic party floundering after mounting the biggest attack in history against a sitting president.
"There are three reasons why Kerry lost," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. "One, he is too liberal, well to the left of the American mainstream on the critical social and cultural issues such as abortion, gay rights and gun control."
More important for Sabata was personality. "John Kerry is no Bill Clinton. There is very little warmth there, and people didn't warm to him. A moderate Democratic candidate with personal warmth would have defeated George W. Bush easily."
And third, "the flip-flop charge, the indecisiveness," said Sabato. "He threw away the biggest opportunity," which was to assail Bush's policies on Iraq. Kerry "was all over the map on Iraq".
Indecisiveness key cause of defeat
Elaine Kamarck, an adviser to former vice-president Al Gore, said the indecisiveness was the most important cause of the defeat.
Kerry's loss "will be primarily because he supported the Iraq war, and therefore there was no sense of clarity between the two parties," said Kamarck, a professor at Harvard University.
Bush exploited to the full Kerry's comment early in the campaign on a Senate vote on funding for Iraq. "I actually did vote for the 87 billion (dollars) ... before I voted against it."
A senior Democratic strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it left the campaign floundering from the start.
Kerry in the “flip-flop hall of fame”
Kerry tried to brush the statement off as an "inarticulate moment". Bush said the statement "put John Kerry in the flip-flop hall of fame".
The Democrats also failed to clearly define a vision for the United States over the next four years during their party convention in Boston in late July, observers said.
Kerry "missed the chance to set forth his vision for the country and put pressure on Bush by defining alternative policies", said Allan Lichtman, a political scientist at the American University in Washington.
Otherwise Kerry won other key parts of the campaign such as the televised debates "hands down," Lichtman said.
Kerry slow to defend himself on Vietnam record
In August, Kerry was hurt when his campaign took days to respond to an attack by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group, which released television advertisements raising questions over Kerry's Vietnam war record.
Most of the charges were eventually discredited, but the attack wounded Kerry, who tumbled in the polls.
By the time election day came around, Kerry was again virtually level with the Republican.
He wore his lucky yellow hunting jacket every day for the end of the campaign and had lunch at the Boston restaurant that he has been to for every election since he became a senator.
Kerry now faces roles as junior senator
But the election day figures never backed his optimism and Kerry will now have to fall back on his role as the junior senator for Massachusetts.
"I'm very confident that we've made the case for change, the case for trust in new leadership, a new direction, a fresh start," Kerry said after voting on Tuesday.
"Finally, let me just say that whatever the outcome tonight, I know one thing that is already an outcome: Our country will be stronger, our country will be united and we will move forward no matter what, because that's who we are as Americans and that's what we need to do."
For many Americans however, the Bush years have left the United States deeply polarized with no chance of the unity Kerry called for.
AFP
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