Did John Kerry really blow it in 2004?

[UWS]

I think some of the reasons why President George W. Bush did so well in Florida is, along with the increase of his support among local Hispanic voters, an increase of his support among FL's Jewish voters who represented 5 % of the FL electorate in 2004 after they massively backed Al Gore in 2000. In fact, Dubya won 20 % of FL's Jewish voters and here's how I guess he managed to do so.

Kerry flip-flopped on the Israel Security Fence, calling it a barrier to peace before he called the fence "a legitimate act of self-defense," and saying George W. Bush "is rightly discussing with Israel the exact route of the fence to minimize the hardship it causes innocent Palestinians."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kerrys-top-ten-flip-flops/

Before the 2004 election, Israel also faced multiple suicide bomb attacks whom sponsors and parts were generated by Saddam Hussein's Iraq who paid $25000 to the families of suicide bombers. And the Republicans attributed the reduction of suicide bomb attacks in Israel to the Iraq War.

https://www.debates.org/voter-education/debate-transcripts/october-5-2004-transcript/

And as Zell Miller noted in his Keynote Speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention, John Kerry opposed the Patriot Missile that was crucial in shutting down Saddam Hussein's Scud missiles over Israel.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/text-of-zell-millers-rnc-speech/

As a result, I guess Jewish voters, especially those in FL, saw George W. Bush as the better choice to keep America safe in War on Terror and to stand up for Israel, which might have resulted in George W. Bush winning FL so comfortably by 5 percentage points

[Pres Mike]

No, George W. Bush nearly blew it. It should never have been so close to start

[Dan the Roman]

I honestly feel that 2004 was what a French-style runoff in January of 2001 between Gore and Bush would have produced. Something like a 51.2-48.8% Bush victory.

There is no period of American history where more words were wasted on trends that did not exist and developments that did not matter. The reason things appeared significant is that everyone exaggerated the impact of previous data. Democrats misread coming off on the wrong side of a coin-toss that had already come down almost unbelievably in their favor in 2000(look at the Senate races and Gore winning Iowa, Oregon, New Mexico, the polls etc) and rather than concluding that they were lucky but not lucky enough, they concluded they had been cheated of some sort of clear popular mandate. That then led them to over-read 9/11 and especially the 2002 results, which distorted analysis of 2004.

Gore did not do as well in 2000 as everyone decided to pretend post-Florida. That in turn meant that Bush was never as strong as both Republicans and Democrats, for their own separate reasons, pretended before 2004. Kerry was not as weak as was remembered after 2004.

Both elections were fairly decent measures of generic Democrat versus generic Republican circa those years. That measure produced results close enough that without an incumbent, the outcome could be determined by the weather or ballot design in 2000, and in 2004 by the increased media and narrative resources of incumbency.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The Reagan funeral brought Bush W back and along with the Edwards pick he should of picked Gephardt made it hard for Kerry to win

[wnwnwn]

Maybe Kerry with midwestern VP could have won
#ProtectOhio

[Blair]

Other than the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice it's hard to see the benefits of a Democrat winning in 2004 compared to the electoral benefits of the 2006 & 2008 waves that helped Obama get such a large majority.

In a similar vein to how Clinton winning in 2016 would have risked the GOP getting 60 senate seats by 2020.

[President Johnson]

Other than the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice it's hard to see the benefits of a Democrat winning in 2004 compared to the electoral benefits of the 2006 & 2008 waves that helped Obama get such a large majority.

In a similar vein to how Clinton winning in 2016 would have risked the GOP getting 60 senate seats by 2020.

Definitely, 2004 in a sense was poisoned chalice. And Dubya lucky that he was already in office for two terms. I guess any president running for reelection in actual 2008 would have lost.