What could John Kerry have done differently overall?

[Pericles]

He shouldn't have given the GOP the "I was for it before I was against it", that helped define him as a flip-flopper. He failed to respond well to the Swiftboat attacks (and was a bit similar to Dukakis in this area), which hurt his ability to use his Vietnam experience as an asset, and arguably over-relied on his Vietnam experience in the first place. This could be a symptom of him lacking a clear message and vision. Kerry was may have been hurt by voting for the Iraq War, as he was left campaigning on 'managing the war' and was therefore an uninspiring candidate with a similarly uninspiring message, though him being stridently anti-war would have been risky and could also have backfired. A lot of Kerry's support was just ABB(Anyone But Bush) voters, and he was probably too cautious. I don't think him picking Gephardt would necessarily have done much, John Edwards looks worse in hindsight because of his scandal four years later, though Gephardt could have helped marginally by flipping Iowa to Kerry (which wouldn't have been enough for Kerry to win of course unless Kerry got another state).