Did John Kerry really blow it in 2004?

[RRusso1982]

A lot of people say that John Kerry should have won in 2004 but he blew it.  I beg to differ.  It is very difficult to defeat an incumbent, particulary during wartime.  At the time of the 2004 election, Bush's approvals were not great, but not terrible.  He was at about 48% or 49% approval and about 46% or 47% disapproval.  Basically treading water.  Typically what an incumbent president gets in the popular vote is his approval rating plus maybe a point or 2.  The Iraq war was not very popular, but it had not yet become the quagmire it would later become.  The economy was recovering from the early 2000s recession, and was not great, but not horrible.  Basically the election was a tie.  In baseball, a tie goes to the runner.  In politics, a tie typically goes to the incumbent unless the challenger is a really great candidate.  If you look at John Kerry, definately not enough there to justify throwing out the incumbent.  The fact that he came one big state away from winning (Ohio) reflects well on him.  I don't buy the "It was John Kerry's race to lose and he lost" rhetoric.  I think that what should have happened on paper given the fundementals happened.  A narrow Bush win.  Any opinions?

[RRusso1982]

I think the biggest mistake Kerry made was really going too far in criticizing Bush over Iraq.  By 2004, it was clear that rationale for invading Iraq was based on bad intelligence.  I think that a good candidate could have used that error against Bush to beat him.  Instead, the Democrats accused Bush of knowing there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and deliberately falsifying the intelligence.  Kerry dialed it back a bit and would say, "Bush misled us into war," and would let other Democrats take it further with the "Bush lied, people died."  The problem with this argument was that it went counter to all the intelligence that had been presented over the years, including when Bill Clinton was President.  So Kerry and Edwards were put in a position of undermining a war they originally voted for based on intelligence that was consistent with the intelligence they were presented with long before Bush was President.

[RRusso1982]

I honestly think Bush had a better chance of winning by more than Kerry had of winning it.

I agree.  I think the fundamentals favored Bush winning albeit narrowly.  Beating Bush in 2004 would not be, in golf parlance, a 3-foot putt.  More like a 10-foot putt or a 12-foot putt.  Doable?  Yes.  But not more likely than not.  In other words, could a better candidate or a better campaign by Kerry have beaten Bush?  Very possibly, but not a given either.