Mark Steyn makes a good point:

And yet the media came within a whisker of pulling him across the finish line. If it’s a 50-50 nation with John Kerry dragging down one half of the seesaw, what would it have been with someone marginally less unlikeable on the ticket? A blowout? With hindsight, 2004 should have alerted Republicans to significant weaknesses in both the Bush and Congressional brands.

I was surprised, and dismayed, at how many votes Jean Francois Kerry got, though I think that Evan Thomas' MSM did deliver its fifteen percent. It should have been a warning, but the Republicans ignored it, and kept earmarking and spending away.

Bear in mind though, that if you compare the '04 results to the '00 results, Bush performed better in every state except two - the two at each extreme of the voting margin (Vermont and Utah, I think)

It's easy to say with hindsight that the Republicans should have been forewarned, but there were many pundits back then who saw something like, "Democrats run an ex-soldier for President, the MSM backs him to the hilt, 9/11 was a distant memory, Iraq is a quagmire, and the Dems still lost by a greater margin than in 2000 - Bush and the Republicans are stronger than ever".

I think the real lesson is that it's a 50-50 nation, and if you want that 5% in the middle, you have to earn it - in every election.

Simberg

what ever happened to the Jack abramoff factor?

The corrupt lobbyist who was in bed with delay

As bad as media bias might seem today, it's still a universe better than in 1993. It is very frightening that mr. 'do you know who I am', xmas in Cambodia, John effing Kerry came so close to election. But think on this -- if the media conditions were the same in 2004 as they were in 1992, do you suppose the phony Texas ANG documents that CBS pulled out of their rear end could have been exposed as phonies so quickly? With 1992 media no one would have found out the truth until months after Kerry was safely elected to office!

But the larger point you make still stands. As long as the entrenched NY-LA media axis continues to function as a wing of the Democratic Party the Republicans can't afford to play games or allow weakness.

what ever happened to the Jack abramoff factor?

Look into it and get back to us, m'kay?

> The corrupt lobbyist who was in bed with delay

The corrupt lobbyist who was in bed with everyone.

Reid is making Delay and Lott look like paragons of virtue. (His "bridge to my property" is just the tip of his pile of crap.)

But, give Reid some credit - he's clean compared to Murtha, Pelosi's pick for Majority Leader.

Unfortunately, evidence suggests that the "Iraq is a quagmire" meme that was instantly created by the far left as the iraqi invasion commenced has taken hold with the majority of the US public. This is partly due to character of the news that comes out of Iraqi from the MSM, and partly due to the less than encouraging facts on the ground.

The catch 22 here is that perception drives reality; the "quagmire" meme dominates causing the US gov't to withdraw prematurely thus allowing dictitorial islamic thugs to take over Iraq. Thus proving the Iraqi intervention was a quagmire.

If on the other hand the "liberation" meme dominates it would bolster the US gov'ts resolve to pacify, stablize and democratize Iraq thus insuring confidence in our iraqi allies and repeated defeat of our enemies leading to a self sustaining iraq state. Thus proving the Iraqi intervention was NOT quagmire.

The 2004 election demonstrated that voting majority clearly favored "liberation". The 2006 elections shows the "quagmire" meme as gained traction.

fred

have you been to Iraq?

How do you know it's not even worse then the media says?

Have you been to Iraq? How do you know it is not better?

anonymous,

Have you been to the USA?

Has anyone considered the competing "screw it - let's turn Iraq into a glass lake" meme?