Let me give you some names.

Eugene McCarthy. George McGovern. Great men. But they had the pants beat off them by Nixon. Nixon! During a very unpopular war that eventually the U.S. was forced out of. McCarthy and McGovern were right about the war but they couldn't make it happen politically in their election bids.

Michael Dukakis. Even Bush the First beat him. Remember the ridicule over the tank photo op of Dukakis? The revolving door commercial of Willie Horton?

Ralph Nader. Imagine if those that had supported him had worked for Gore from the beginning of the struggle to get elected and voted for him. Think about how close the election was. How a few more votes in Florida could have turned the tide.

John McCain. Republican candidate for President. A certified decorated war hero and Viet Nam P.O.W. (five years, six months). Bush's attack machine smeared him in the primaries and the people that worked for him (with the recorded telephone help of Pat Robinson in South Carolina!). Get something straight my wide-eyed fellow un-Bushites. Bush and his political machine and its warchest of money and dirty tricks will stop at nothing. They will run over their own grandmother with a tank if she gets in the way of electing Bush president again. And they mean to lock the whole government under their control forever. Got that?

Bill Clinton. Kicked the first Bush out of the White House despite his winning the Gulf War. Won the election for President twice. And despite the brutal and obsessed money and forces of a united GOP political attack machine. Think about what it takes to do that and the kind of person who is smart enough and has the politically savy required to pull it off. This ain't tiddlely-winks, folks.

The poll reported on below (and the article under it) illustrates why Dean can't win and Kerry can. Especially if Kerry convinces Wesley Clark to join him on the ticket. The election will be lost on losing the older conservative Democratic base AND the younger moderate Republicans who will not vote for Dean because of his McGovern stance on Iraq. The war was wrong to be fought for the reasons given but only a candidate like Kerry will be trusted by the voters mentioned above to sweep house while keeping a strong military in place.

Regardless of how you feel, do the math on the voters with the evidence provided.

Bush's Political Wizard of Oz and the head of the vicious political smear machine, Karl Rove, is on public record of stating he'd love to have Dean to run against in the election. Read the poll and two brief article excerpts below and see why.


Poll Finds Democrats Lack Crucial Support to Beat Bush
Party Must Strongly Reposition Itself to Regain White Male Voters' Support, DLC Advised

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 29, 2003; Page A03

PHILADELPHIA, July 28 -- Dramatic erosion in support among white men has left the Democrats in a highly vulnerable position and unless the party strongly repositions itself, President Bush will be virtually impossible to beat in 2004, according to a new poll commissioned for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).

The gloomy prognosis came despite evidence in the poll and in the assessments of Democratic elected officials attending the DLC's "national conversation" here that the economy alone makes Bush vulnerable for reelection. But Mark J. Penn, who conducted the poll, said that the party's image has regressed since former president Bill Clinton left office and that those weaknesses put Democrats in a weakened position.

Penn said his polling indicates that since Clinton left office in 2001, more Americans believe Democrats are the party of big government and higher taxes and he said Bush's handling of the war on terrorism has opened up a huge gap with Democrats on who is more trusted on issues of national security.

"If Democrats can't close the security gap, then they can't be competitive in the next election," said Penn, who polled for Clinton in his second term and who is the pollster for the presidential campaign of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.).

The poll showed Bush's vulnerabilities. Fewer than half of those surveyed (48 percent) think he deserves to be reelected and 53 percent said the economy is heading in the wrong direction.

But Penn said Democrats must make a concerted effort to appeal to white voters, particularly men and married women, to make the 2004 race competitive. He said just 22 percent of white men identified with the Democratic Party in his poll, and he said younger men are even more strongly Republican in their leanings...


Centrist Democrats Warn Party Not to Present Itself as 'Far Left'
Tue Jul 29, 8:55 AM ET
By ADAM NAGOURNEY The New York Times

PHILADELPHIA, July 28 The moderate Democratic group that helped elect Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992 warned today that Democrats were headed for defeat if they presented themselves as an angry "far left" party fighting tax cuts and opposing the war in Iraq.

The warning, by the Democratic Leadership Council, an organization of moderate Democrats that helped move the party to the center 10 years ago, was largely a response to the popularity enjoyed in early presidential primary states by Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont.

Dr. Dean has attracted wide notice for his criticism of the Democratic Party for supporting the Iraq war and some of President Bush's tax cuts.

Neither Dr. Dean nor any other presidential candidate attended the two-day conference of the leadership council, which ended today.

But the group's leaders said their concerns went beyond Dr. Dean and reflected what they feared was an emerging perception of the entire Democratic presidential field as supportive of liberal policies that the council rejected long ago.

"It is our belief that the Democratic Party has an important choice to make: Do we want to vent or do we want to govern?" said Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, chairman of the organization. "The administration is being run by the far right. The Democratic Party is in danger of being taken over by the far left."

When a reporter asked a panel of council leaders whether Democratic woes were a result of Republican attacks or Democratic mistakes, Senator Bayh responded with a curt two-word answer that silenced the room.

"Assisted suicide," he said...

KERRY MEET-UP

JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT




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