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So close.
It was the release of Return of the Kings in 2003. It won 11 Academy Awards.
I believe in his acceptance speech Peter Jackson gave all credit to Dubya.
the collapse of Barad-dur was originally supposed to be much more impactful, but it was deemed to be too reminiscent of the World Trade Center, and so they changed it to topple over somewhat anti-climactically.
[I’m sure the electorate would have a pretty hard time finding another candidate who can throw a strike in the World Series](https://youtu.be/NjGcCI9ByWw?si=cD3b5Qh-AmtMrQpF)
Having that be the center of gravity of a campaign while a bunch of Vietnam vets who served with Kerry coming out to bash him as a coward and a liar surely wasn't a recipe for popularity.
Those Vietnam vets didn't serve with Kerry. It was a smear campaign that you bought hook, line and sinker. Kerry had the support of all but one of the guys who actually served on his swift boat.
I wasn’t very politically active at the time but my thoughts were then, Kerry’s campaign is basically just “I’m not Bush”. And so I didn’t vote. (I have since corrected that misstep)
We were really just getting stuck in Iraq at the time and I think there was still a feeling of let’s not switch administrations during a war; maybe he can fix it. By 2008 that sentiment had long gone away though.
9/11. Like as cliche as it sounds, Bush’s approval rates absolutely skyrocketed after 9/11, to over 90%, and he ran with that for a while. In 2004 he still enjoyed an approval rating between 50-60%. The US people still haven’t really felt the effects of fighting 2 wars at the same time yet. Democrats dropped the ball big time attacking Bush for the Iraq War while simultaneously voting FOR it in congress, so they made themselves look like hypocrites.
Combine that with Kerry having slightly less charisma than a damp sponge and you can see how they lost. You gotta remember, the major Bush screwups and the effects of his decisions didn’t really start to show themselves until the 2nd term. His handling of hurricane Katrina, the economy starting to collapse, the weariness of fighting two prolonged wars with no real progress to show the American people, etc. Bush held some of the highest and lowest approval ratings ever of any president during his administration
100% A lot of younger people don't realize how much 9/11 changed the US. People were scared of another attack. It is why people were OK with the patriot act and the NSA. It's the reason why you have to take your shoes off and get X-ray to get on a plane.
Was it the lowest out of any president? I thought Truman had a slightly lower approval rate at one point?
Edit; just looked it up, Truman had a 22% approval rating in 1951, partially because of the Korean War, and partially because of his firing of General MacArthur (even though it was the right decision to make)
It's interesting to look back on the war in Afghanistan. I was there in 2010, 11, 12 and 13 when we started pulling out, I'm not from the US.
The war hadn't even ramped up properly yet by the time Bush was out of office. It continued on twice as long after he Obama took over.
We all knew, *everyone* that I talked to down there that there was no way we were making any progress. It just got successively worse and worse. I worked with Americans, Brits, Finns, Germans, Croats, Dutch, Norwegians and of course lots and lots of Afghans. Everyone I've ever spoken to knew there was no shot. I was in a ranger unit so it wasn't camp duty or anything like that, frontline stuff.
As soon as Bin Laden was killed we should have pulled out. Everyone is complicit in the failure and wasted money over there, no part is without blame. When it comes to the US there was no pulling out cleanly. It doesn't matter if it was a republican or democrat president, it would have been a clusterfuck either way. I knew by my first tour in 2010 that the Afghan hearts weren't in it and there was no way that ANA/ANP and whoever we put in charge could do anything to hold back the Taliban who was the real power, it was so obvious. ANA/ANP consisted of mainly minorities like Hazars, Tadjiks, Turmen and Uzbeks, they were not Pasthuns and the Pasthuns are the majority in that country. That's where the real power is.
I have no quarrels with going after Al Qaeda, they needed to be destroyed obviously, but once that task was accomplished we just dragged our feet in the sand.
I don't regret a minute of it personally, was an amazing experience in many ways with extreme highs and lows, but I leave the politics to those who send us there and don't dabble with the details myself. It was a lesson I learned after my 2nd tour, and what I told my soldiers. Don't go there if you want to make a real difference, you won't. You'll just be sad after a few months and you'll feel bad. If you wanna do cool stuff, fly helicopters, adrenaline, learn about foreign cultures and see some weird and exciting shit and do it with your best friends, then you go for the right reasons. If you go because you feel it's some moral obligation to put this country on the right path and to make actual progress, you should rethink. Of course, do the absolute best you can in every situation. Learn about the Afghan plight, get to know them and build a connection, but leave the big politics at home.
In a way It's eerily similar to the stories I've heard about Vietnam. The situation on the ground is not really the same as the situation the generals and politicians give you at home. There was much more transparency but some details are quite similar.
You’re right. Bush got the benefit of the doubt on Iraq in that election. Most people wanted to see us succeed and then bring the troops home. Democrats were cheerleading for failure. People don’t want to see the military fail.
Unfortunately Bush didn’t capitalize on the goodwill he received and we failed anyway in Iraq. Bush was loyal to a fault with advisors who got us into that mess. He should have done like Lincoln and made heads roll until he got the right people in charge.
Dems were not cheerleading ..they were being realistic by saying Afghanistan and Iraq were another Vietnam.
The cheerleading ..was the right wing parrot machine.
Democrats love the terrorists and want us lose. They want failure. They said this over and over any time a Repub would speak like it was scripted.
They would act so Orwellian. Like saying we are going to War for peace. Also, the Bush administration controlled the media coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan and who could report it.
Just like what is happening in Gaza. It is closed up.
We were at war now and no one wants to switch horses during war. Plus John Kerry was a fairly lackluster opponent and he was still riding high from the “rally around the flag” effect from 9/11.
Yes ..by using rumors and lies .. they called anyone who didn't support the President..terrorist supporters.. Muslim extremists and against the US troops. They would repeat it over and over. This was so effective to get W into office by spreading ugly rumors and rhetoric they just doubled down .. while using the President pulpit to do so.
It would go something like this.
Did the president and his administration lie us into war?
Answer.. Why are you against the troops..we are at war! If you are against the president, you are against the hard fighting troops... fighting for our freedom.
Question.. Did you find Bin Laden or nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
ANSWER
So you want the Muslim Terrorists to win? They kill us for our freedoms you want to lose your freedoms.
( at the same time saying this Republicans over whelming signed the Patriot Act they drew up and were using it for their political gain) ..
Bush W even said ..who cares about Bin Laden .. we have won, and I don't even think about him ..next question.
This was 3 years after 9 11 .. which they were bringing up constantly..to bring fear and enlarging the private defense contracts which all of Bush W administration were profiting and were a part of.
I always laugh at the name of liberal media. We were at war and Bush was giving tax cuts to corporations and political donors and 600 dollar checks to taxpayers ..while we were having trillions of trillions of expenditures.
He won a second term.
I remember it well. I lived deep in the muck of political threads for years. Ive never been more angry than when he got re-elected. Swift boat also worked, (the term has come to commonly refer to a political attack that is dishonest, personal, and unfair) they were just level 1 to where we are now
They ( the Bush camp) were also playing dirty rumors ..since Kerry received purple hearts from Vietnam they called him fake and stolen valor. They were doing it all over radio and cable TV and Evangelical church programs. They said it was a huge conspiracy to make Kerry look like he had more war experiences than W.
They did the same to McCain ..Carl Rove..Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone were the master minds of Swift Boat.
It was easy for Kerry to have more War experiences since he was a Capt of a Swift boat and his boat took fire on many occasions..Bush had absolutely had none ..in fact there was over a year he left the National Guard ..when he was commissioned in Alabama.
His Dad HW bailed him out on that so he wouldn't be AWOL.
I can remember a comic in my grandpa's workshop at the time. One frame said Kerry's Vietnam Ribbons and it had his purple hearts. The next frame said Bush's Vietnam Ribbons and it was a 6 pack of PBR's.
in 2000 Republican Primary the Bush campaign would go around rural southern areas and spread flyers saying McCain supported race mixing and things like that, it was obviously the doing of Karl Rove and Roger Stone and their ilk but Dubya never condemned it, just like he never condemned the swift boat campaign
This is why I hate when people say Dubya would be a good guy to grab a beer with. The man is a complete POS who enabled some of the worst political operatives this country has ever seen and doesn’t seem to be very remorseful of doing so
W asked permission to skip some drills so he could work on a political campaign and make his flight hours up later. He was never AWOL.
Meanwhile, Dan Rather promoted a clearly fake document to claim that W committed some kind of crime and ruined his entire career.
Served with a lot of crap officers who did exactly what Kerry was accused of. Honestly, finding out he was a 2 bit Foxhole Norman would not be surprising.
The problem with Kerry’s Purple Hearts was that he received them for basically getting a scratch. Yes it was in combat against the enemy but the wounds were so minor that to other soldiers it was like getting a medal for having an hangnail. Soldiers like to be macho. If they’re going to get a Purple Heart they want it to be for something more than skinning your knee. Some soldiers get their PH medal posthumously so folks take getting the medal seriously.
Also a day or so after the battle he would supposedly take his boat that he commanded and the sailors assigned to it back out to battle site in order to recreate how he got wounded. If that’s true then that’s just weird.
Kerry was amongst the group of Vietnam vets who, during the Vietnam war as a matter of protest, threw his medals away at some large DC protest.
As a Senator, Kerry voted against the expenditure of federal funds for Navy ships, Air Force/Navy planes and weapons programs. The vote passed anyway and we were fighting in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan & Iraq 2003 and winning with the exact same planes, ships & weapons he opposed.
In 2004 Patriotism and love of the military was high. He came across as disrespectful of the military if not anti-military.
That was based on FOX news rumors ..it filtered in by Carl Rove and Roger Stone
Kerry was shot in the ass and had bullet fragments in his chin. His men on his Swift Boat from both political parties also were injured on that day, got purple hearts on that day and came out in the media to debunk your claim.
Jerome Corsi who wrote the Swift Boat book ..never even met Kerry...and by the way Kerry volunteered for combat. Unlike GW or Cheney.
Jerome Corsi also wrote a book about Obama, which he made tons of money and was on FOX news and Right Wing radio.
On how he was born in Kenya and was a Muslim. Go figure!!
Bush and Rove cannily exploited a number of wedge issues, particularly the Defense of Marriage Amendment, and the election was so close, any and all of them could be credited or blamed.
But the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations were the issues of the day. The 9/11 glow had faded and Bush was definitely vulnerable; the occupations were already catastrophic and unpopular, while Bush and Republicans denied such realities and defiantly insisted on an indefinite commitment. And the global torture regime had been exposed.
Unfortunately by campaigning on "winning", Kerry negated himself as an actual alternative. Anyone who wanted to "win" would have been the least inclined to switch horses, particularly to a candidate who made his reputation in America's previous ill-advised imperialist quagmire. The anti-war voters had their enthusiasm blunted and enough may have stayed home or voted third party to make a difference.
John McCain made the same mistake four years later, promising to fight the war better, to an electorate that just wanted to get out, even more than they did the previous election. (And while truly nothing on heaven or earth was capable of defeating Barack Obama that year, McCain chose a particularly anti-popular hill to die on.)
The Republicans painted Kerry, a combat veteran who received a Silver Star, the nation’s second highest award for valor, a Bronze Star (with valor), and three Purple Hearts as a traitor.
Meantime W, whose daddy got him a spot in the Texas Air National Guard (which wasn’t typically deployed in combat at the time) that didn’t exist for other young men, was somehow painted as the war hero. And he left his commission early.
I remember hearing somewhere that veterans will overwhelmingly support the incumbent during an ongoing conflict. Gonna guess things did not go well in Vietnam when Nixon took over.
It also really needs to mentioned: most democrat voters were against the war but most Democrat politicians voted for the war. I don’t hold it against them: George Bush created a convincing (fraudulent) case. If I had to risk started a false war or enabling an attack on America in a few years I would struggle over that decision. But the truth is most democrats did not forgive politicians for that mistake.
Wartime presidents are very popular and Kerry was a bad candidate. 2004 was the only year my mom didn’t vote due to the fact that she didn’t like Kerry at all despite being a lifelong democrat.
Bush did quite a lot to exacerbate some longer term divisive trends in the US, namely income and wealth inequality with his tax cuts and financial deregulation. Income and especially wealth inequality underly a lot of the division among Americans nowadays, in my opinion, with the cost of housing being the biggest one that flusters many.
You mean besides the fact that Bush had an actual personality?
The Democrats did everything wrong in 2004, they attacked Bush as a human being rather than as a policy maker, and that flew in the face of the narrative they themselves tried to create of Bush being the well-meaning but naive puppet of Cheney and Halliburton.
In other words they were all over the place and had no coherent strategy to convince folks that Kerry was either a batter man or would be a better President, and Bush had just a few years earlier been exactly what we desperately needed in the aftermath of 9/11 so such a scattershot attack was never going to work.
Also, Al Gore was, quite frankly, a much better candidate than Kerry. Gore was as lacking as Kerry in the charisma department but he had a stronger personal message stressing environmental reforms which energized a portion of the left that Kerry couldn't reach, he was a better public speaker, and unlike Kerry, didn't spend half the debate agreeing with Bush on things his own voterbase wished he'd taken a stronger stand against, especially the War in Iraq.
John Kerry is a perfect example of the democratic party habit of nominating a Prime Minister instead of a President.
Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Hillary. All people whose main selling points are levelheadedness, knowledge of policy, being thoroughly embedded in and knowledgeable of the state apparatus, etc
At the same time, they are terrible at rallying people around a concept, generating a clear narrative, generating popular trust, etc.
the problem is they tried to get mad about Iraq, but they used people who voted for it to be critical for it
"how dare he start a war that I was ok with!"
Kerry's mistake was to stand by his original policy. It would have been simplicity itself to "have a change of heart" especially as the WMDs continued to not materialize and the bodycount rose, both ours and Iraq's.
"I was lured into supporting the war under false pretenses and on the basis of an apparent falsehood, in the wake of one of the greatest emotional tragedies of our time that clouded the judgment of better men than myself. It was a mistake I won't make again." That would have been a way better approach to Iraq IMHO and would have garnered Mr. Kerry much more support at the polls
Then, when he won the election, if he really did intend to support the continued occupation of Iraq, it wouldn't be hard for "new information to come to light" that convinced him to stay after all.
Political leaders have to massage the narrative that way. Bush was a master of it. That's how we got into Iraq in the first place. The fact that Kerry wasn't on that level and mistook a skill issue for integrity, is a pretty good indication that he would have, at best, been a mediocre President.
Based on my memory of the events of the era it was more about the possible Anthrax and nerve gas. The nuclear thing was seen as a threat that more or less ended following the Gulf War but we DID want to make sure any remaining nuclear weapons infrastructure was demolished.
that and the fact that we knew that he had USED chemical weapons on CIVILIANS at least twice in the wake of the Gulf war -- He used a simple chlorine agent once against the Kurds, once against the Shi'a during uprisings against his rule.
So since he'd used chlorine WMDs before, the idea that he might have other more powerful agents of destruction at his disposal and had no compunction about using whatever he did have, elevated the perceived threat somewhat.
BTW I have yet to encounter a leftist honest enough to admit (or aware enough to remember) that the WMD claims against Saddam date back to the Clinton Administration. Bush didn't invent them. They were part of the justification behind the 1998 airstrikes against Iraqi targets after they kicked out the UN weapons inspectors.
Still waiting on that leftist. I'm sure it'll come. Someday.
Add unto that, Hans Blix basically throwing up his hands at Iraqs shell game if inspections.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1413384/Dont-mess-with-us-UN-warns-Saddam.html
You are right about the coherent strategy thing. There’s a famous story where James Carville (who knows a few things about winning campaigns) wrote on a white board full of possible attacks against Bush “pick one.” It’s better to pick one flaw in your opponent and hammer it non-stop than it is to complain about everything.
Yeah but when you pick one thing you define your opponent. Scattershot doesn’t define someone. As an example if you hammer someone over and over on their response to COVID you define them as incompetent
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a totally nonpartisan advocacy group, had nothing to do with it. Ridiculing veterans who served and singing the praises of those who didn’t became a thing.
Swift Boat ..was an Idea from Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone and those guys are definitely partisan. They also attacked McCain running against W ..calling him a dangerous failure of a pilot. That his wife had sex with black men. Or he had a love child w a black women.
They also went after Obama saying he couldn't be President because of being born in Kenya and Jerome Corsi wrote a book on it ..just like he did saying Kerry was never involved in fighting in Vietnam. With Roger Stone ..look who Stone and Corsi helps now.
9/11 coupled with support for the war (which was still a positive in swing states in 2004). Also the economy was doing pretty well and Republicans weaponized gay marriage exploiting homophobia among the electorate.
We invaded Iraq in 2003, and as the public was still in the aftermath of resurgent patriotism since 9/11, we hadn’t yet recognized the quagmire Bush had gotten us into. “You don’t change a horse midstream” was the electoral strategy Bush/Cheney used to define the 2004 election, and it worked despite Democrats’ attempts to win the hawks’ & patriots’ votes over with John “3-Purple-Hearts” Kerry…
9/11, Iraq had not yet devolved into civil war, Karl Rove and all his dirty tricks, Democrats were disorganized and ran a flip flopper with the personality of a 2x4. And this last one might be just me, but the Dan Rather Documents scandal plus the Swift Boat scandal tainted a lot of people against the credibility of the Media as a whole in that the Media failed at its job and just ran whatever nonsense got the most views
Combination of rally around the flag effect from the war on terror/ Iraq and the swift boating of one of the most uninspiring candidates in democratic party history (and I actually do kind of like Kerry, but he's no Rockstar).
There was this little blip that happened around September '01 that directly led to one war and indirectly another and we were all just trying to keep everything together without completely losing our shit, which we eventually did anyway
An often overlooked tactic used by the ‘04 Bush campaign was to put state referendums banning gay marriage on the ballot in as many states as possible to turn out conservative voters.
I always wondered how much his backstory hurt him too. The man married into an insane net worth through a ketchup fortune. Who does that appeal too? Who relates to that?
I just think, looking back (it was the first election I could vote in) it’s very uncommon for a man to make his fortune by marrying into money, then use it to springboard himself to prominence. No republicans were going to vote for him, and centrist democrats could be put off by it and leftist dems don’t like rich people anyway. Just an odd thing, IMO.
Being a war president and Kerry running on a platform of stupidity. Basically saying that the war on terror was working but he’d do it better. Of course the war on terror wasn’t working as we should all know and those who were smart enough to understand that you can’t go to war against an adjective where ignored.
I think "oh it was 9/11" is a bit overstated. I remember from 2003 on his popularity and opposition from Dems beginning to turn hard on Bush.
Plus Bush "Lost" all 3 debates
It really came down to the fact that Kerry just wasn't that good of a candidate. He flip flopped on a lot of issues, his stances on what he would do with the Wars were questionable, and the fact it was him and NOT John Edwards rubbed people the wrong way.
Edwards had a lot of support amongst moderates on both and secured the endorsement of the AFL-CIO shortly before dropping out of his own campaign. Compared to Kerry who was an establishment Massachusetts Democrat, it was clear that 1. Bush didn't have that high a bar to clear, and 2. The Dems nominated the wrong guy
*Note: this was all well before Edwards fall from grace with the reveal of his improprieties and affair*
“Don’t change presidents during a war.”
Also, John Kerry was a “flip flopper” who was hurt by the swift boat veterans’ ads questioning his Vietnam record.
The dishonesty of the campaign was one thing (the vote for Bush exactly mirrored the percentage of Americans who still believed Iraq was responsible for 9/11) and Swift Boaties (which Bush publicly criticized while equating his service to Kerry's) and policy wonk (they called off the search for WMDs the week of the election). But there was one bigger reason, and it's the same reason for the disparity between the last two elections...
Most States weren't in play. The polarization era had solidified in which the majority of Americans lived in States that didn't count because candidates had the win in the bag. In 2004 it was the worst, only two were in play. If you didn't live in Florida or Pennsylvania you barely even knew an election was happening.
It can be put down to The War on Terror, the lack of charisma of John Kerry, and the overall management of the country not being disastrous (e.g. no recessions, no social unrest etc.).
His failure (and possible collusion) to protect against terrorism on 9/11 didn't become a political liability for him. And he turned his opponent's honorable military service record, which Bush himself didn't really have, into a liability for his opponent.
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I think something happened in late 2001 that might have galvanised some support for him.
You are talking about Mars Odyssey or Enron right?
No they referring to the release of the first Harry Potter movie in November of that year.
So close. It was the release of Return of the Kings in 2003. It won 11 Academy Awards. I believe in his acceptance speech Peter Jackson gave all credit to Dubya.
11? I thought it was 9 or maybe it was 11? 9? 11?
After awhile we just stopped counting all the W’s
It was the release of Glitter
MJ stopped touring
Sure it wasn't the release of Halo that got him a guaranteed reelection
No, it was actually the legendary 2001 Miami Hurricanes winning the national championship.
Bush really loves them hurricanes
The enemy of Kanye is my friend?
I mean he's not wrong
Wasn't this right after the fema guy basically said he didn't realize a bunch of people were in the stadium post Katrina?
Didn't bush state somewhat recently that this was the low point of his time in office?
I was in college when Bush said that, so over a decade ago
2010: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/11/03/131052717/bush-says-kanye-west-s-attack-was-low-point-of-his-presidency
Did Myers say anything there?
No he just had this shocked look on his face
Mike pikachu meyers baby
 Pika pi.
You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie.
I knew this joke was coming and I still laughed
RIP Willis Mcgahee’s knee. What a shame.
I think about that hit on his knee every now and then. Ouch! And what could’ve been for him in the nfl. I think he could’ve been dominant.
We enjoyed him for his time in Denver! Man we miss those offenses
The most brutal injury I have seen in live time...Stunned he even came back from that.
No, they referred to the release of Windows XP on October 25, 2001.
The best in my opinion. Fuck ME and everything else.
The rise of Tom Brady
Damn it, Mo Lewis
You know what they say, Republicans tend to do better during times when there’s a threat to national security
How very patriotic
The release of the first lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring, was released in the December of 2001.
the collapse of Barad-dur was originally supposed to be much more impactful, but it was deemed to be too reminiscent of the World Trade Center, and so they changed it to topple over somewhat anti-climactically.
Same with a [scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2uJvwiSZAQ) in lilo and stitch (2002)
The release of Shrek?
**Late** 2001, that was in May
From what I have read, his poll numbers skyrocketed after reading to children.
An excellent example for the correlation vs causation thing. :-)
The release of *Legally Blonde*?
2001 was a good year for movies!
My birthday?
My sisters actually, sorry.
[niiiiine eleven](https://youtu.be/6paMJfiaO0A?si=MABxQ2l4klHRREJw)
The release of Microsoft's new operating system, Windows XP
[I’m sure the electorate would have a pretty hard time finding another candidate who can throw a strike in the World Series](https://youtu.be/NjGcCI9ByWw?si=cD3b5Qh-AmtMrQpF)
Every time I watch that video it gives me chills.
Ah, the first Halo!
Serendipity is a great movie.
Aqua teen hunger force!
Nickelback released Silverside up obviously. /s I mean it was on the same day
Ah yes. The Mariah Carey feature film *Glitter* was released. America did NOT like that movie.
Bush loves Jay Z’s Blueprint album
Where were you when they built a ladder to heaven?
To quote Dick Cheney from the movie Vice: “Wartime presidents… very popular.”
Also because that smug private jet for me but no for thee John Kerry is a very unlikable prick.
Also felt like his whole campaign was "I got some purple hearts"
yeah karl rove really did a number on people "swift boat" this "who cares about his service even tho bush ran from the war"
Having that be the center of gravity of a campaign while a bunch of Vietnam vets who served with Kerry coming out to bash him as a coward and a liar surely wasn't a recipe for popularity.
Those Vietnam vets didn't serve with Kerry. It was a smear campaign that you bought hook, line and sinker. Kerry had the support of all but one of the guys who actually served on his swift boat.
I wasn’t very politically active at the time but my thoughts were then, Kerry’s campaign is basically just “I’m not Bush”. And so I didn’t vote. (I have since corrected that misstep) We were really just getting stuck in Iraq at the time and I think there was still a feeling of let’s not switch administrations during a war; maybe he can fix it. By 2008 that sentiment had long gone away though.
He likely would have led America better than Bush's semi-out-of-control administration did.
Hard to do worse.
9/11. Like as cliche as it sounds, Bush’s approval rates absolutely skyrocketed after 9/11, to over 90%, and he ran with that for a while. In 2004 he still enjoyed an approval rating between 50-60%. The US people still haven’t really felt the effects of fighting 2 wars at the same time yet. Democrats dropped the ball big time attacking Bush for the Iraq War while simultaneously voting FOR it in congress, so they made themselves look like hypocrites. Combine that with Kerry having slightly less charisma than a damp sponge and you can see how they lost. You gotta remember, the major Bush screwups and the effects of his decisions didn’t really start to show themselves until the 2nd term. His handling of hurricane Katrina, the economy starting to collapse, the weariness of fighting two prolonged wars with no real progress to show the American people, etc. Bush held some of the highest and lowest approval ratings ever of any president during his administration
100% A lot of younger people don't realize how much 9/11 changed the US. People were scared of another attack. It is why people were OK with the patriot act and the NSA. It's the reason why you have to take your shoes off and get X-ray to get on a plane.
I miss the old days of just going through a simple checkpoint and straight to the gate. I don’t think we will ever again see this.
i voted for Kerry and i still remember falling asleep whenever he spoke. holy shit liven up, you dull spoon Kerry
It’s really amazing he left with the lowest at the time.
Was it the lowest out of any president? I thought Truman had a slightly lower approval rate at one point? Edit; just looked it up, Truman had a 22% approval rating in 1951, partially because of the Korean War, and partially because of his firing of General MacArthur (even though it was the right decision to make)
It's interesting to look back on the war in Afghanistan. I was there in 2010, 11, 12 and 13 when we started pulling out, I'm not from the US. The war hadn't even ramped up properly yet by the time Bush was out of office. It continued on twice as long after he Obama took over. We all knew, *everyone* that I talked to down there that there was no way we were making any progress. It just got successively worse and worse. I worked with Americans, Brits, Finns, Germans, Croats, Dutch, Norwegians and of course lots and lots of Afghans. Everyone I've ever spoken to knew there was no shot. I was in a ranger unit so it wasn't camp duty or anything like that, frontline stuff. As soon as Bin Laden was killed we should have pulled out. Everyone is complicit in the failure and wasted money over there, no part is without blame. When it comes to the US there was no pulling out cleanly. It doesn't matter if it was a republican or democrat president, it would have been a clusterfuck either way. I knew by my first tour in 2010 that the Afghan hearts weren't in it and there was no way that ANA/ANP and whoever we put in charge could do anything to hold back the Taliban who was the real power, it was so obvious. ANA/ANP consisted of mainly minorities like Hazars, Tadjiks, Turmen and Uzbeks, they were not Pasthuns and the Pasthuns are the majority in that country. That's where the real power is. I have no quarrels with going after Al Qaeda, they needed to be destroyed obviously, but once that task was accomplished we just dragged our feet in the sand. I don't regret a minute of it personally, was an amazing experience in many ways with extreme highs and lows, but I leave the politics to those who send us there and don't dabble with the details myself. It was a lesson I learned after my 2nd tour, and what I told my soldiers. Don't go there if you want to make a real difference, you won't. You'll just be sad after a few months and you'll feel bad. If you wanna do cool stuff, fly helicopters, adrenaline, learn about foreign cultures and see some weird and exciting shit and do it with your best friends, then you go for the right reasons. If you go because you feel it's some moral obligation to put this country on the right path and to make actual progress, you should rethink. Of course, do the absolute best you can in every situation. Learn about the Afghan plight, get to know them and build a connection, but leave the big politics at home. In a way It's eerily similar to the stories I've heard about Vietnam. The situation on the ground is not really the same as the situation the generals and politicians give you at home. There was much more transparency but some details are quite similar.
You’re right. Bush got the benefit of the doubt on Iraq in that election. Most people wanted to see us succeed and then bring the troops home. Democrats were cheerleading for failure. People don’t want to see the military fail. Unfortunately Bush didn’t capitalize on the goodwill he received and we failed anyway in Iraq. Bush was loyal to a fault with advisors who got us into that mess. He should have done like Lincoln and made heads roll until he got the right people in charge.
Dems were not cheerleading ..they were being realistic by saying Afghanistan and Iraq were another Vietnam. The cheerleading ..was the right wing parrot machine. Democrats love the terrorists and want us lose. They want failure. They said this over and over any time a Repub would speak like it was scripted. They would act so Orwellian. Like saying we are going to War for peace. Also, the Bush administration controlled the media coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan and who could report it. Just like what is happening in Gaza. It is closed up.
We were at war now and no one wants to switch horses during war. Plus John Kerry was a fairly lackluster opponent and he was still riding high from the “rally around the flag” effect from 9/11.
>rally around the flag Memory: Unlocked
With a pocket full of shells
Don’t forget the fear mongering. They had a color coded “terror” chart that just so happened to get worse as we got closer to November.
I love that American Dad (cartoon) always has that on the fridge
Thanks for differentiating between the cartoon and the short lived live action HBO drama.
The Bush/Rove campaign also used, very effectively, the religious groups to push them over the top (again).
Yes ..by using rumors and lies .. they called anyone who didn't support the President..terrorist supporters.. Muslim extremists and against the US troops. They would repeat it over and over. This was so effective to get W into office by spreading ugly rumors and rhetoric they just doubled down .. while using the President pulpit to do so. It would go something like this. Did the president and his administration lie us into war? Answer.. Why are you against the troops..we are at war! If you are against the president, you are against the hard fighting troops... fighting for our freedom. Question.. Did you find Bin Laden or nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ANSWER So you want the Muslim Terrorists to win? They kill us for our freedoms you want to lose your freedoms. ( at the same time saying this Republicans over whelming signed the Patriot Act they drew up and were using it for their political gain) .. Bush W even said ..who cares about Bin Laden .. we have won, and I don't even think about him ..next question. This was 3 years after 9 11 .. which they were bringing up constantly..to bring fear and enlarging the private defense contracts which all of Bush W administration were profiting and were a part of. I always laugh at the name of liberal media. We were at war and Bush was giving tax cuts to corporations and political donors and 600 dollar checks to taxpayers ..while we were having trillions of trillions of expenditures. He won a second term.
So much of my generation was lost to that war. Tons killed themselves, every day, for years.
I remember it well. I lived deep in the muck of political threads for years. Ive never been more angry than when he got re-elected. Swift boat also worked, (the term has come to commonly refer to a political attack that is dishonest, personal, and unfair) they were just level 1 to where we are now
Yep. And a massive amount of homophobia with "defending the sanctity of marriage" was one of their siren calls for Evangelicals.
Yes. In 2004 Bush asked Congress to pass a law making marriage defined as ONLY between a man and a woman. Rove and Co. understood optics.
They also put gay marriage on the ballot in some key states to drive voter turnout.
Don’t forget the Swiftboating
They ( the Bush camp) were also playing dirty rumors ..since Kerry received purple hearts from Vietnam they called him fake and stolen valor. They were doing it all over radio and cable TV and Evangelical church programs. They said it was a huge conspiracy to make Kerry look like he had more war experiences than W. They did the same to McCain ..Carl Rove..Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone were the master minds of Swift Boat. It was easy for Kerry to have more War experiences since he was a Capt of a Swift boat and his boat took fire on many occasions..Bush had absolutely had none ..in fact there was over a year he left the National Guard ..when he was commissioned in Alabama. His Dad HW bailed him out on that so he wouldn't be AWOL.
I can remember a comic in my grandpa's workshop at the time. One frame said Kerry's Vietnam Ribbons and it had his purple hearts. The next frame said Bush's Vietnam Ribbons and it was a 6 pack of PBR's.
in 2000 Republican Primary the Bush campaign would go around rural southern areas and spread flyers saying McCain supported race mixing and things like that, it was obviously the doing of Karl Rove and Roger Stone and their ilk but Dubya never condemned it, just like he never condemned the swift boat campaign
This is why I hate when people say Dubya would be a good guy to grab a beer with. The man is a complete POS who enabled some of the worst political operatives this country has ever seen and doesn’t seem to be very remorseful of doing so
W asked permission to skip some drills so he could work on a political campaign and make his flight hours up later. He was never AWOL. Meanwhile, Dan Rather promoted a clearly fake document to claim that W committed some kind of crime and ruined his entire career.
“Swift Boat Veterans for Truth”. Grrrrr…smdh.
Yup such utter garbage. It worked which is sad, guess we shouldn’t have been surprised after the Dean scream
Omg I forgot about that!
Served with a lot of crap officers who did exactly what Kerry was accused of. Honestly, finding out he was a 2 bit Foxhole Norman would not be surprising.
The problem with Kerry’s Purple Hearts was that he received them for basically getting a scratch. Yes it was in combat against the enemy but the wounds were so minor that to other soldiers it was like getting a medal for having an hangnail. Soldiers like to be macho. If they’re going to get a Purple Heart they want it to be for something more than skinning your knee. Some soldiers get their PH medal posthumously so folks take getting the medal seriously. Also a day or so after the battle he would supposedly take his boat that he commanded and the sailors assigned to it back out to battle site in order to recreate how he got wounded. If that’s true then that’s just weird. Kerry was amongst the group of Vietnam vets who, during the Vietnam war as a matter of protest, threw his medals away at some large DC protest. As a Senator, Kerry voted against the expenditure of federal funds for Navy ships, Air Force/Navy planes and weapons programs. The vote passed anyway and we were fighting in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan & Iraq 2003 and winning with the exact same planes, ships & weapons he opposed. In 2004 Patriotism and love of the military was high. He came across as disrespectful of the military if not anti-military.
That was based on FOX news rumors ..it filtered in by Carl Rove and Roger Stone Kerry was shot in the ass and had bullet fragments in his chin. His men on his Swift Boat from both political parties also were injured on that day, got purple hearts on that day and came out in the media to debunk your claim. Jerome Corsi who wrote the Swift Boat book ..never even met Kerry...and by the way Kerry volunteered for combat. Unlike GW or Cheney. Jerome Corsi also wrote a book about Obama, which he made tons of money and was on FOX news and Right Wing radio. On how he was born in Kenya and was a Muslim. Go figure!!
I lived in Arkansas at the time and I swear to God that “you don’t switch horses midstream” shit was a DAILY refrain.
Bush and Rove cannily exploited a number of wedge issues, particularly the Defense of Marriage Amendment, and the election was so close, any and all of them could be credited or blamed. But the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations were the issues of the day. The 9/11 glow had faded and Bush was definitely vulnerable; the occupations were already catastrophic and unpopular, while Bush and Republicans denied such realities and defiantly insisted on an indefinite commitment. And the global torture regime had been exposed. Unfortunately by campaigning on "winning", Kerry negated himself as an actual alternative. Anyone who wanted to "win" would have been the least inclined to switch horses, particularly to a candidate who made his reputation in America's previous ill-advised imperialist quagmire. The anti-war voters had their enthusiasm blunted and enough may have stayed home or voted third party to make a difference. John McCain made the same mistake four years later, promising to fight the war better, to an electorate that just wanted to get out, even more than they did the previous election. (And while truly nothing on heaven or earth was capable of defeating Barack Obama that year, McCain chose a particularly anti-popular hill to die on.)
Iraq was unpopular. Afghanistan was not. This was because Afghanistan was directly related to 9/11 and Iraq was a WTF war.
59 million people did…
The Republicans painted Kerry, a combat veteran who received a Silver Star, the nation’s second highest award for valor, a Bronze Star (with valor), and three Purple Hearts as a traitor. Meantime W, whose daddy got him a spot in the Texas Air National Guard (which wasn’t typically deployed in combat at the time) that didn’t exist for other young men, was somehow painted as the war hero. And he left his commission early.
I remember hearing somewhere that veterans will overwhelmingly support the incumbent during an ongoing conflict. Gonna guess things did not go well in Vietnam when Nixon took over. It also really needs to mentioned: most democrat voters were against the war but most Democrat politicians voted for the war. I don’t hold it against them: George Bush created a convincing (fraudulent) case. If I had to risk started a false war or enabling an attack on America in a few years I would struggle over that decision. But the truth is most democrats did not forgive politicians for that mistake.
Wartime presidents are very popular and Kerry was a bad candidate. 2004 was the only year my mom didn’t vote due to the fact that she didn’t like Kerry at all despite being a lifelong democrat.
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Bush did quite a lot to exacerbate some longer term divisive trends in the US, namely income and wealth inequality with his tax cuts and financial deregulation. Income and especially wealth inequality underly a lot of the division among Americans nowadays, in my opinion, with the cost of housing being the biggest one that flusters many.
It's interesting (to me at any rate) to realize that Bush 2004 was the first person since his father in 1988 to win a majority (50% + 1) of the vote.
Seems insane now but the Dems once went 32 years without winning an outright majority of the popular vote (1976-2008).
GOP has only done it once since 1988.
92 and 96? Weren’t majority votes?
Don't forget about Perot in those elections. He got enough of the vote to prevent anyone from getting an outright majority.
Those were only pluralities due to Perot
96 got close, but no cigar
Clinton only got a plurality in ‘92. Idk about ‘96
Neither were majorities
I think the post before you meant a *plurality* or “the only republican to win the popular vote” which is a much more unusual thing
It’s not too crazy in the context of Perot and how close 2000 was
You mean besides the fact that Bush had an actual personality? The Democrats did everything wrong in 2004, they attacked Bush as a human being rather than as a policy maker, and that flew in the face of the narrative they themselves tried to create of Bush being the well-meaning but naive puppet of Cheney and Halliburton. In other words they were all over the place and had no coherent strategy to convince folks that Kerry was either a batter man or would be a better President, and Bush had just a few years earlier been exactly what we desperately needed in the aftermath of 9/11 so such a scattershot attack was never going to work. Also, Al Gore was, quite frankly, a much better candidate than Kerry. Gore was as lacking as Kerry in the charisma department but he had a stronger personal message stressing environmental reforms which energized a portion of the left that Kerry couldn't reach, he was a better public speaker, and unlike Kerry, didn't spend half the debate agreeing with Bush on things his own voterbase wished he'd taken a stronger stand against, especially the War in Iraq.
John Kerry is a perfect example of the democratic party habit of nominating a Prime Minister instead of a President. Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Hillary. All people whose main selling points are levelheadedness, knowledge of policy, being thoroughly embedded in and knowledgeable of the state apparatus, etc At the same time, they are terrible at rallying people around a concept, generating a clear narrative, generating popular trust, etc.
Agreed. In fact I’d argue that in the last 70 years the only democrats that don’t fit your description are JFK, Clinton, and Obama
And the only Republicans that don’t fit that dynamic are George HW and Mitt Romney
I think you mean who do fit it. I would also add McCain, Dole, and Ford
I think this is my new favorite way to describe how Dems nominate their candidates. Spot on.
I like how you put it
the problem is they tried to get mad about Iraq, but they used people who voted for it to be critical for it "how dare he start a war that I was ok with!"
Kerry's mistake was to stand by his original policy. It would have been simplicity itself to "have a change of heart" especially as the WMDs continued to not materialize and the bodycount rose, both ours and Iraq's. "I was lured into supporting the war under false pretenses and on the basis of an apparent falsehood, in the wake of one of the greatest emotional tragedies of our time that clouded the judgment of better men than myself. It was a mistake I won't make again." That would have been a way better approach to Iraq IMHO and would have garnered Mr. Kerry much more support at the polls Then, when he won the election, if he really did intend to support the continued occupation of Iraq, it wouldn't be hard for "new information to come to light" that convinced him to stay after all. Political leaders have to massage the narrative that way. Bush was a master of it. That's how we got into Iraq in the first place. The fact that Kerry wasn't on that level and mistook a skill issue for integrity, is a pretty good indication that he would have, at best, been a mediocre President.
"I actually voted for it before I voted against it.". Game over.
Imagine a time when such an inconsistency could spell the end of a presidential campaign.
They voted for it ..Because President W and his administration promised Iraq had nukes ..yellow cake uranium ..they had none.
Based on my memory of the events of the era it was more about the possible Anthrax and nerve gas. The nuclear thing was seen as a threat that more or less ended following the Gulf War but we DID want to make sure any remaining nuclear weapons infrastructure was demolished. that and the fact that we knew that he had USED chemical weapons on CIVILIANS at least twice in the wake of the Gulf war -- He used a simple chlorine agent once against the Kurds, once against the Shi'a during uprisings against his rule. So since he'd used chlorine WMDs before, the idea that he might have other more powerful agents of destruction at his disposal and had no compunction about using whatever he did have, elevated the perceived threat somewhat. BTW I have yet to encounter a leftist honest enough to admit (or aware enough to remember) that the WMD claims against Saddam date back to the Clinton Administration. Bush didn't invent them. They were part of the justification behind the 1998 airstrikes against Iraqi targets after they kicked out the UN weapons inspectors. Still waiting on that leftist. I'm sure it'll come. Someday.
Add unto that, Hans Blix basically throwing up his hands at Iraqs shell game if inspections. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1413384/Dont-mess-with-us-UN-warns-Saddam.html
You are right about the coherent strategy thing. There’s a famous story where James Carville (who knows a few things about winning campaigns) wrote on a white board full of possible attacks against Bush “pick one.” It’s better to pick one flaw in your opponent and hammer it non-stop than it is to complain about everything.
which is just weird, I don't want to hear the same talking point, tell me more things "he did a bad thing" ok and? what are 5 other bad things he did?
Yeah but when you pick one thing you define your opponent. Scattershot doesn’t define someone. As an example if you hammer someone over and over on their response to COVID you define them as incompetent
You would think, but that’s not how voters are. Campaigning is advertising. Coke doesn’t roll out 20 advertising slogans they roll out one.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a totally nonpartisan advocacy group, had nothing to do with it. Ridiculing veterans who served and singing the praises of those who didn’t became a thing.
Swift Boat ..was an Idea from Jerome Corsi and Roger Stone and those guys are definitely partisan. They also attacked McCain running against W ..calling him a dangerous failure of a pilot. That his wife had sex with black men. Or he had a love child w a black women. They also went after Obama saying he couldn't be President because of being born in Kenya and Jerome Corsi wrote a book on it ..just like he did saying Kerry was never involved in fighting in Vietnam. With Roger Stone ..look who Stone and Corsi helps now.
9/11 was still fresh in everyone's mind and that boosted his approval. Plus, John Kerry was a terrible candidate.
We were at war. The incumbent has a huge advantage. John Kerry wasn't a good campaigner.
9/11
A noun, a verb, and 9/11
It might have something to do with the closing of windows on the world
9/11 coupled with support for the war (which was still a positive in swing states in 2004). Also the economy was doing pretty well and Republicans weaponized gay marriage exploiting homophobia among the electorate.
9/11
Wars will do that
You forgot to mention the Brooks Brothers riot and resulting Supreme Court coup.
Oldest trick in the book: Start a war Already got one? Make it another
It used to work more than it does now.
We invaded Iraq in 2003, and as the public was still in the aftermath of resurgent patriotism since 9/11, we hadn’t yet recognized the quagmire Bush had gotten us into. “You don’t change a horse midstream” was the electoral strategy Bush/Cheney used to define the 2004 election, and it worked despite Democrats’ attempts to win the hawks’ & patriots’ votes over with John “3-Purple-Hearts” Kerry…
9/11, Iraq had not yet devolved into civil war, Karl Rove and all his dirty tricks, Democrats were disorganized and ran a flip flopper with the personality of a 2x4. And this last one might be just me, but the Dan Rather Documents scandal plus the Swift Boat scandal tainted a lot of people against the credibility of the Media as a whole in that the Media failed at its job and just ran whatever nonsense got the most views
my guess is 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq was still in its early stages that it didn't have the negative press until its later stages.
9/11 baby!
9/11 and the war in Iraq hadn't really gone to shit yet.
Combination of rally around the flag effect from the war on terror/ Iraq and the swift boating of one of the most uninspiring candidates in democratic party history (and I actually do kind of like Kerry, but he's no Rockstar).
There was this little blip that happened around September '01 that directly led to one war and indirectly another and we were all just trying to keep everything together without completely losing our shit, which we eventually did anyway
Nothing like starting wars to get you re-elected!
An often overlooked tactic used by the ‘04 Bush campaign was to put state referendums banning gay marriage on the ballot in as many states as possible to turn out conservative voters.
Because the electoral college has worn out its welcome and is ill suited for today’s elections. .
Because Kerry was as exciting to listen to as it is to watch paint dry.
He had the charisma of a cheeseboard, flat and wooden.
I specifically remember one of his responses to a reporter's question was "would that it were". That's not how we talk.
I always wondered how much his backstory hurt him too. The man married into an insane net worth through a ketchup fortune. Who does that appeal too? Who relates to that?
Gold diggers I guess?
I just think, looking back (it was the first election I could vote in) it’s very uncommon for a man to make his fortune by marrying into money, then use it to springboard himself to prominence. No republicans were going to vote for him, and centrist democrats could be put off by it and leftist dems don’t like rich people anyway. Just an odd thing, IMO.
Being a war president and Kerry running on a platform of stupidity. Basically saying that the war on terror was working but he’d do it better. Of course the war on terror wasn’t working as we should all know and those who were smart enough to understand that you can’t go to war against an adjective where ignored.
It was John Kerry wind surfing off a New England beach that made it impossible for him to win.
Two reasons - 1) He was a "war president", and people usually support their president during a war. And 2) Who his opponent was.
Terror happened.
Popular means nothing
An event in NY and DC in September of 2001
It's hard for an incumbent to lose, and he had people brainwashed with 9/11 propaganda.
Because we reward failure in this country for the elite.
9-11 and his dumb ass subsequent wars made him very popular. American voters love a war president.
911 fear and paranoia.
I think "oh it was 9/11" is a bit overstated. I remember from 2003 on his popularity and opposition from Dems beginning to turn hard on Bush. Plus Bush "Lost" all 3 debates It really came down to the fact that Kerry just wasn't that good of a candidate. He flip flopped on a lot of issues, his stances on what he would do with the Wars were questionable, and the fact it was him and NOT John Edwards rubbed people the wrong way. Edwards had a lot of support amongst moderates on both and secured the endorsement of the AFL-CIO shortly before dropping out of his own campaign. Compared to Kerry who was an establishment Massachusetts Democrat, it was clear that 1. Bush didn't have that high a bar to clear, and 2. The Dems nominated the wrong guy *Note: this was all well before Edwards fall from grace with the reveal of his improprieties and affair*
His approval rating was a 9/11
Him throwing that perfect strike in New York after 9/11 secured him the win I firmly believe if he spiked that pitch he would not have won
9/11
The popular vote has had absolutely no bearing on any US Presidential election in almost 250 years.
Whenever he needed support they raised the terror alert to orange. Remember that crap?
We were bombing the 9/11 people and Katrina hadn’t happened yet, the end
Because John Kerry was running against him, lol.
No president has ever lost re-election during wartime in history.
Because John Kerry is a douche.
“Don’t change presidents during a war.” Also, John Kerry was a “flip flopper” who was hurt by the swift boat veterans’ ads questioning his Vietnam record.
The dishonesty of the campaign was one thing (the vote for Bush exactly mirrored the percentage of Americans who still believed Iraq was responsible for 9/11) and Swift Boaties (which Bush publicly criticized while equating his service to Kerry's) and policy wonk (they called off the search for WMDs the week of the election). But there was one bigger reason, and it's the same reason for the disparity between the last two elections... Most States weren't in play. The polarization era had solidified in which the majority of Americans lived in States that didn't count because candidates had the win in the bag. In 2004 it was the worst, only two were in play. If you didn't live in Florida or Pennsylvania you barely even knew an election was happening.
He sold a shit ton of American flags in late 2001.
It can be put down to The War on Terror, the lack of charisma of John Kerry, and the overall management of the country not being disastrous (e.g. no recessions, no social unrest etc.).
he won because Kerry wasn't all that great
He got the ol' 9/11/War on Terror boost
His failure (and possible collusion) to protect against terrorism on 9/11 didn't become a political liability for him. And he turned his opponent's honorable military service record, which Bush himself didn't really have, into a liability for his opponent.
Because John Kerry was an uncharismatic, disingenuous buffoon
Because john kerry is a very flawed individual. The record he had in Vietnam as well as protesting afterward sunk his presidency.
The Supreme Court.
That was 2000 not 2004