Election 2004: Now Kerry Blames Pamphlets & Edwards Blames Smoke Signals from Indian Girl for Loss

Steve Yuhas

When Senator John Kerry told the Massachusetts League of Women Voters, "Last year too many people were denied their right to vote, too many who tried to vote were intimidated,” I almost felt sorry for the loser and his running mate, former Senator and equally losing John Edwards. Then I realized that Kerry was talking about Americans being intimidated and not Iraqis or the people of Afghanistan and I have to admit – it brought a little giggle out of me.

The Democratic mantra every year is and has been this community or that community was intimidated or was not allowed to vote, unfortunately they never have any evidence of it and nobody can prove that they were turned away at the polls.

Every election there is something wrong with the machines and in the year 2000 – well it was the silly old people of Palm Beach County who had the nation transfixed on hanging chads until the Supreme Court finally ended the idea that a vote counted if it was dimpled or flexed, but not hanging or tilted.

Nowhere in the Democratic playbook does it ever come into their conscious that people simply didn’t like what they were selling and decided not to buy. For John Kerry it wasn’t that his military record (records that everyone is still waiting to see, but he has yet to sign Form 180 in order to release them all – like President Bush did) was questionable or that he flip flopped on issues to every audience.

At first Kerry blamed the bin Laden video tape that appeared the weekend before the election, but now it is safe to blame stupid Democrats.

My favorite line in Kerry’s speech is where he actually said that Democrats were too stupid to vote and didn’t even realize it was Election Day, “Leaflets are handed out saying Democrats vote on Wednesday, Republicans vote on Tuesday. People are told in telephone calls that if you've ever had a parking ticket, you're not allowed to vote," he said. You have to just ask yourself if the man is on drugs or if he actually believes that something like that would work.

The election in 2004 had the largest turn out ever, but Kerry is asking people to believe that leaflets, not actual news stories or media reports, convinced such a significant number of obviously stupid people that Democrats voted on different days than Republicans. Can you see this method working anywhere? Well, probably in some places, but the people in that trailer park don’t normally vote – they’re waiting for the mother ship to arrive.

When taken in context that the people of Iraq were threatened with their lives if they went out to vote (somehow those leaflets left by terrorists who said if they voted that they and their families would die were not mentioned by Senator Kerry) and that women in Afghanistan were not only allowed to vote, but were not taken out to a soccer stadium afterwards to be shot in the back of the head if they did not vote the way that their husbands told them to is an amazing accomplishment lost on Kerry.

Leave it to Senator (I like calling him Senator – has a much better ring than President) Kerry and John (has no title) Edwards to continue talking about abysmal performance and blaming the stupidity of their party members for their loss. It is comical to talk about intimidation in the form of phone calls and leaflets juxtaposed against threats of beheading and murder of the family in places where turnout was higher than in America where all you had to do was take a lunch hour to cast a ballot.

But let’s put all of the gripes in perspective: John Kerry and John Edwards consider it intimidating to try and trick people (obviously not nearly enough) that elections for Democrats and Republicans fall on different days and only people at CBS got that memo and it was passed to them by a person in a Denny’s parking lot somewhere in Texas. Then there are those phone calls that said if you ever had a parking ticket that you couldn’t vote – caller ID shows that the phone calls came from a phone in area code 914 (Chappaqua, New York) – any ideas?

One almost has to feel sorry for Senator “When I was in Vietnam” Kerry and John “I have no title” Edwards (even though everyone still calls him Senator despite the fact that he isn’t one and we are not a monarchy where titles are held forever) because they just can’t get beyond the fact that five months ago they lost the election fair and square – the Electoral College and the popular vote and they’re still sitting around trying to figure out what happened.

Here it is one last time fellas: you lacked good ideas. It doesn’t get much more difficult than that. You didn’t inspire people into voting for you. Everyone thought that with the Vietnam record of Senator Kerry (you remember Vietnam) and John Edwards’ hair that people would relate to the billionaire and his multi-millionaire “I feel your pain” running mate, but they didn’t.

You cannot inspire people to vote for you simply by telling everyone what you’re against. At some point you had to be for something and you never were.

To all those people who believed the mysterious CBS memos that told you Democrats voted on Wednesday – it is probably good that you didn’t vote and those mysterious phone calls late at night from a phone in Chappaqua, New York were just a joke, but obviously they worked. Can you see him there just making prank calls with Hillary in Washington and his dead dog in the backyard?

The election is over and it is nauseating to talk about it again and again, but these two just can’t get through it. Post traumatic stress disorder didn’t happen for Kerry when he was in Vietnam (did you know that he was in Vietnam? Some people might have missed that) and Edwards talked to juries through dead girls – if these two were not seeking the Presidency at one time it would have been good enough to replace Siegfried and Roy in Vegas.

Voter intimidation is what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan not what happened in Cleveland where a few blacks said they were told to vote tomorrow (even though these blacks remain nameless and faceless – Kerry knows who they are) and Edwards is giving a talk in New York while his daughter interns at Vanity Fair – one can only imagine who he will channel for her first story – probably some dead Indian who got a smoke signal saying that Indians could only vote on Thursday.

Steve Yuhas is a columnist and a radio talk show host on KOGO in San Diego. He may be reached at www.steveyuhas.com or steve@steveyuhas.com