Would Kerry have done better than Bush?

Yeah, I didn’t get a sense that he had a purpose for running besides running and it showed in his campaign. If he had, that whole Swift Boat thing would have been of no consequence. There would’ve been other things to think about and express to the people.

Ha, can I get a job punditing next to David Gergen? I like him; he’s a smart guy and his voice is so oddly soothing.

A blessing for Kerry, certainly not for the rest of the world. I would have made a better president than Bush.

APRIL: Swiftboat would have been of no consequence? The Bush administration and their straw men told so many lies that had international (negative) consequences, what would have been different with the swiftboat lie?

He wouldn’t have focused on it so much, is what I’m saying. It would’ve have been like, all right, but we have to focus on the economy. Kerry wouldn’t have allowed the Swiftboaters to hijack the agenda, which is what happened. If you have a strong sense of purpose, the momentum of that will override that sort of sabotage, I think.

i think anyone would have been a better president than bush.

I don’t think that Kerry ‘allowed’ the Swiftboat lie to hijack the agenda. Weeks before the election the lie was released and reported by all sectors of the media. You must realize

A lie can run around the world before the truth can get it’s boots on.
James Watt

my cat would’ve made a better President than Bush.

I’m with poofandmook on this one…. My cat could have done a better job than bush. And, my cat has been dead for two years

at least when my cat does something bad, she knows enough to look sheepish and hide behind the entertainment center… not do it again.

@galileogirl – The Wright business Obama had to deal with last year is a good example of what Kerry should’ve done. He said his piece about the controversy and went on with his campaign. He gave the impression that once he said his piece, he was done with it, no matter what anyone was going to say.

For some reason, Kerry got swamped by those liars and appeared to be constantly on the defensive. I don’t know if it was a media-derived impression, or something wrong with his communication staff or what, but a candidate can’t look weak in front of the electorate. Between Bush and Kerry in 2004, Bush appeared to be the stronger man. And perception is all. 70% is how you look, 20% is how you act, and only 10% is what you say. Kerry seemed weak. I think in the backs of minds, it gives people pause. He may have done better than Bush as President, but the impression he gave, shallow though it may be, wasn’t very strong to me. Hey, I voted for him regardless. ::shrugs::

I think it took another four years of BushCo to wake most Americans up.

The Wright business was working. Obama was barely keeping his head above water all summer and that was because so many people were fed up with the Bush administration. By the first of Sept he was slipping under and it wasn’t just the convention bump. But then came an accumulation of reporting on the foreclosure crisis, failed banks, stock market in freefall, and major layoffs. Scandal can be amusing but when it’s your house, your bank, your job and your retirement account, you want a good leader. McCain whistling in the dark and his campaign questioning Obama’s birth certificate did not look like a good leader.

In my opinion as a hard left liberal, I can not answer any way other than an unqualified yes. Simply because he’d have had different agendas. Bush, being the ideological opposite of me could either a) succeed at what he was trying to do, which would have been the worst possible thing, or b) fail at what he was trying to do, which would have been bad due to the lack of progress, but good because at least he wouldn’t have been driving the country in the wrong direction (from my point of view). If Kerry had won, he could have succeeded, in which case he would have been a great President in my view because if he succeeded at what I would want a President to do, that would be great by me, or he could have failed. So considering that in reality there’s very little chance that both Presidents would have completely failed at completely opposite agenda, there’s pretty much a zero chance statistically speaking that Kerry would not have been at least somewhat better than Bush in my assessment. To express that numerically, let’s say that a neutral starting point of zero would be where both Bush and Kerry would theoretically start. Let’s say 10 would be complete success and -10 would be complete failure. Now, Kerry’s range of possibility was between 0 and say 6.5), that is he couldn’t do worse than 0 because 0 would be not accomplishing anything, not moving the country in the direction I want to see it go at all…but I limit him to 6.5 because I’d say his ideology was about 65% of what mine was. Now, Bush, wanting to move it to -10 (because he believes totally the opposite of what I do), his potential was in my opinion anything between 0 and -10, because his ideology was 100% the opposite of my own, there could not have been a person with a more backwards agenda to my way of thinking. So let’s say he had failed at everything he tried, well he would not have made any negative progress, he’d be at 0. I think Bush did accomplish many things I didn’t like, perhaps he got to a -6, but even if I were to say, OK, he was at only -.5, well, Kerry couldn’t have possibly done worse than 0. So no matter what, there is no scenario under which I can imagine that Kerry would have been a worse President than Bush.