I voted Bush 04, but people are way too hard on Kerry. He ran a solid campaign against an incumbent POTUS just a few years after the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. He crushed Bush at the first debate. But ultimately, Americans were not willing to change ship during a time of war.
Nah, Kerry was a pretty bad candidate in 2004. He was a bland liberal Northeastener who only won the nomination because Democrats were terrified of being called traitors and terrorist appeasers after 9/11 so went for who seemed to be the most electable: a war hero with extensive foreign policy experience! Never mind he was charisma-less, lacked geographic appeal, voted
for the Iraq War ("I was for it before I was against it") and NAFTA, was liberal enough to energise the conservative base and didn't have much appeal with independents while also not being left enough to excite progressives. But all that said, 3 Purple Hearts in Nam would make him impervious to any GOP attack on his patriotism, right? Then he got swiftboated and the Kerry campaign made a complete mess of responding to the attacks which completely nullified that advantage, and let's not forget the cringeworthy "Reporting for duty" moment at the DNC. Yeah Kerry won the debates but it was a bit like Romney in 2012 where both went into the first debate 6 or 7 points behind, won it and closed the gap, but still came up short. His campaign sucked until October.
Bush was very beatable BTW, after Abu Ghraib and Fallujah happened in the spring that year his approval rating was underwater (50/50 on election day) and he was particularly vulnerable in the Midwest where voters were more anti-Iraq war and the economic recovery was bad, kinda like 2016.
One telling stat is that 70% of Kerry voters said they cast their vote
against Bush rather than for Kerry.
