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copman:
Possibly - but you are giving the Repubs a lot of credit for organization skills. I'm not sure they are as organized as you suppose. After all it was Kerry forces who seemed to be able to bring all the Dems together like they haven't been in years. They dumped EVERY other candidate including front runner Dean right away. Now THAT's organization!
I think with the organization that Kerry had he would have won if he would have been more pro- Kerry ( putting forth HIS Iraq plan for example) & less anti-Bush. But I guess hindsight is 20/20 right?
Ignoring gmg (who loves to talk about reason yet makes a statement claiming that reason of ANY sort could be found within a 50 degree radius of W, and who goes on about working from the "inside" as the GOP shifts further and further to the far right...), I DO give the GOP tons of credit, Copman. I think they ran superb campaigns at the national and local levels, and on the state level, for example, GOP backers and funders coordinated beautifully with people like the Swiftees. This isn't "speculation," it's documented. And it worked.
Don't forget that the GOP did a similar Kerryesque move in 2000 by pushing out a superior candidate, John McCain, partly through smears, to line up behind W. I can tell you, as a liberal, that I very likely would have supported a McCain re-election (since I think he would have defeated Gore handily), unless he were running against a truly progressive Democrat. I cannot imagine that we'd be in the mess we're in today, with the economy, with Iraq, etc., if McCain had been elected president. And he is a Republican through and through. I feel the same way about Colin Powell--that is, before he pimped himself with that UN debacle.
I also agree that had the Democrats been more pro-Kerry, they might have won a few more votes, but they were facing the juggernaut of this ill-conceived and executed war AND the aftermath of 9/11 AND the anti-gay agenda AND one of the most brilliant political machines we've seen in years. So I think they might have come closer, but until they can figure out a way to retain a few of the states they'd been winning (Iowa, New Mexico), and gain a few new ones, they'll be the minority party. Perhaps some of the Democratic governors in a few of the red-leaning states might be able to bring the Democrats back.
All of that said, the national GOP set the stage with the Party platform for the amendments in the states, particularly swing states; there was active coordination between GOP state activists, the anti-gay referenda leaders, and national GOP politicians; and the GOP did benefit by putting the anti-gay marriage referenda on the ballot in a number of the swing states. It didn't work in Oregon, for example, but what might the vote have been for W among some of the right-wing evangelicals if that motivator hadn't been in place? Rove made a point, just days after W was re-elected, of stressing that W was going to push for FMA--the national/federal version. Aren't there 1,000 other pressing concerns facing this nation beyond FMA?