If you were Kerry's campaign manager what would you have done differently

[Lunar]

Kerry actually ran a very solid campaign and one cannot point to any mistake on the scale of McCain halting his campaign or even the pick of Palin.  The biggest mistake Kerry made was when he gave the infamous "voted for, before voted against" thing on the war funding bill, so I guess my #1 change would be to:

1) Do not let him talk about the ins and outs of individual pieces of legislation.

Although that's with complete hindsight, natch.

other things...

2) No windsurfing, no doing anything that rich people do.
3) No pretend-hunting and whatnot.  Keep your dignity but without reminding people that you have tens of millions of dollars.

4) Edwards was a tool.  Pick someone better.  My 2008 research on potential VPs was extremely in depth, not so for 2004, so I don't have any good ideas.  Maybe because Kerry's campaign was doomed to lose if it was just "solid" (as fixing 1-3 probably wouldn't have made him win Ohio), the "right" choice would have been a bold, *cough* Palinesque approach?  Jeanne Shaheen?  Whatevsky, something bold would have been key here.

[Lunar]

Yeah, politics is sort of ironic like that.  The entire reason we elect representatives is that the average person is too stupid to understand the complexities of legislating, yet we expect our legislators to be people "like us."  Meh, I'm pretty sure Intro to Psychology 1 has that all covered.

I can't help but think Kerry should have selected a woman "just to shake things up" or what have you.  Kerry ran a boring, textbook campaign because Bush's approval ratings were poor enough that he really didn't have to do anything else.  He lost, but at the time, he probably made the correct decision.  In retrospect, a solid campaign was insufficient and a great campaign, requiring risks (or perceived risks, like selecting a female VP, go figure), was needed.  Meh, it'd need to be a woman who didn't highlight Kerry's perceived super-liberalism... like I said, I have no idea.  Landrieu maybe?  Maybe she'd contrast too much with Kerrydawg.  Someone to placate blue collar men and women in Ohio, basically.  The pick of Edwards ("son of a mill worker") was attempted to be that but he came across as he was, an empty prettyboy.   

I don't really think 2008 would have been the year to go after the Mountain West.  It took the repudiation of the Iraq War for those states to enter play in a close race, which didn't happen until 2006...

[Lunar]

screw it, I might have just done Kerry/Kerrey