Indeed it was a fraud- which is why I just focused on Ben Barnes. He went on the record in 2004 to say that he had used his influence to get Bush into the Guard in the 1970's. (He was also on the record as saying the same thing under oath in the 90's- but he was too close to George W. Bush at the time- and only the BBC noticed it. Bush's own publicly released National Guard files contained enough damaging information to sink him. One wonders why CBS needed anything else.Orville, please, not that fraud again.
Also, since no evidence exists that Killian ever wrote or saw those forgeries it might be polite not to tie an innocent man's name to the story.
I think that if Kerry had said that he voted for the Iraq war because he was lied to it might have energized enough of his base to make the difference.
If they were serious about capturing independent voters, they would have nominated a more moderate candidate than Kerry. No swing voter is going to vote for a Mass liberal, Dukakis 2.0. Kerry's problem can be summed up here: "I actually voted for it before I voted against it." The strange thing about 2004 was that Kerry was the most moderate of the viable candidates (Lieberman would be the strongest among indies + liberal GOP), since Dean was, well, Dean, and Edwards had his faux-populist script. If John Kerry was the most moderate candidate you can find in a highly polarized election where every Indie voter can possibly nab 270 for either side, it doesn't speak well of the Democrats' ideological direction. There was no rapid-response team like Bill Clinton had, no copying the most successful methods pioneered by Bush and McCain in 2000 with the 'Net, etc. Lastly: an image problem, as we saw with the yacht this week. Yellow spandex doesn't fly in Scranton.
Kerry would need lose the Frankenstein look about himself... his lack of charisma and sex appeal was very damaging... also his vote in favor of the Iraq war resolution made him look incredably two faced
I don't think he could win in a scenario that doesn't involve human sacrifice