It's a party problem...

I just finished reading the salon.com article on what a failure the Kerry campaign was. It's nothing I haven't heard expressed before, but it's always interesting to here it from someone on the inside who can so clearly see the problems. (Of course he never blamed himself)

In all of the reports released after the election, it was clear that while Kerry seemed to have all of this wonderful support from 527s, the fact that they could not communicate with the actual campaign meant the GOTV strategy was basically in disarray. Dems thought they had the advantage on this, and they took it for granted. The Kerry campaign itself obviously did not do it's best at GOTV. It's clear from our previous discussion on e-mail newsletters in the last week of the campaign, that while Bush's concerned GOTV, Kerry's were all about fundraising.

Verini is very right in his assertion that Dems weren't excited about Kerry, they were just amped up to beat Bush. No one stopped to think long enough to make sure Kerry had a well articulated platform. His campaign let Bush define Kerry early on to the extent that an above par debate performance was not anywhere near enough to erase earlier damage. And what I can't understand is why Kerry eventually used the same strategists that Gore and other previous Democrat losers used. I mean, Shrum? He hasn't impressed me yet. It's time for the Dems to learn their lesson once and for all and lose their misconceptions that they'll win because the Republicans are obviously evil.

I've never worked on a campaign, so I don't feel I can really put down those who do. I also don't think it's their fault. It's a party problem, and the party needs to find a solution-quickly.