Reviewing Some Recent Liberal Political History

The following post was taken from Daily KOS on July 26, 2004 just before the Democrat National Convention. Read it and then read the comment posts that follow in the above URL. Mighty fun reading. The good part is that they will be in that same boat come 2006, 2008, etc, etc.

Dusty

DNC: Keep it bland
by kos
Mon Jul 26th, 2004 at 16:45:50 PST

Kerry's strategy this cycle has been to give Republicans as little material to churn through their Noise Machine as possible, all the while letting Bush beat himself.

It's been a sound strategy thus far, if a bit frustrating at times. Margaret Cho was disinvited from tonight's LGBT Unity event precisely for that reason. Democrats wanted to avoid another "Whoopi" moment. And Margaret is, er, 2000 times spicier than Whoopi at her raunchiest. Stupid move, but it fits Kerry's strategy.

And while they were not disinvited, Dean and Gore are being forced to "tone down" their speeches to strip out most anti-Bush rhetoric.
Democrats are scrambling to tamp down former Vice President Al Gore and firebrand Howard Dean [related, bio] before they step to the convention podium, worried they may embarrass John Kerry with red-meat anger and excessive Bush bashing.

The Democratic National Convention and Kerry campaign staffs are working feverishly to rewrite, polish and tone down speeches submitted in advance of today's convention opening bell.

Party leaders, including Kerry, said they know the four-day fete has to play in Peoria, not just on the FleetCenter parquet.

"Attack wins in some cases, but you don't win presidential elections (with it) because people are tired of it," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy [related, bio] said on ABC's "This Week."

Obviously, the voters were smart enough to reject a bunch of loonies trying to act bland!