Swiftboats and Democrats

What to make of the Kerry campaigns claims that they underestimated the Swift Boat Vets? If they actually did underestimate them, then it reflects just how little Kerry deserved to win the election. The fact that they couldn't comprehend how damaging something so unpatriotic as what Kerry did would be reflects how stupid the campaign would have been.

But, I don't buy it. I think they're lying. I clearly remember that I had only even heard of the Vets (before their ads came out) and the Kerry campaign was already threatening to sue stations that played the ads (We know how much liberals love freedom of the press as long as it agrees with their worldview.) The Democrats were all over this. They labeled the Vets as liars, cowards, and mentally unstable right from the beginning. The Dems reacted quickly to the group, they just couldn't compete with the message. And now the party is trying to close ranks and pretend that it was just a matter of money and advertising that lost them the election, not ideas.

But this is exactly why the Democrats will continue to lose if they keep on this course. They absolutely fail to admit that any of their ideas might be unpopular. Just visit DU or Talking Points or DailyKos. It's never "Maybe we are wrong, maybe people don't agree with us." Instead it's always "Our ideas are great, but the Republican dominated media just twisted our message and people don't know what we believe in because they're all slack-jawed inbred hicks that don't read the NYT." There are issues on which I clearly support the Democratic argument and I'm not alone. But there is virtually no Democratic party issue that garners more than 55% popular support. That means that at best, just over half the country agrees with them on any given issue. Much research shows the public split down the middle or even leaning conservative on any number of issues. Yet, liberals in this country act as if everyone thinks exactly as they do. And then they call conservatives closed-minded?