Today’s Washington Post features a fascinating article reviewing the 2004 election.
In what is probably the most outstanding feat, Democrats almost met President Bush and the Republicans in total spending for the election:
“In the most expensive presidential contest in the nation’s history, John F. Kerry and his Democratic supporters nearly matched President Bush and the Republicans, who outspent them by just $60 million, $1.14 billion to $1.08 billion.”
However, our problem was spending it.
As Josh Marshall points out, there are two expenditures that stand out:
“[T]he Swift Boat ads (we’ll have long memories too) and some much less conspicuous spending on a data-mining company that allowed them to vastly improve the targetting of their voter outreach.”
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much we could do to control the Swift Boat ads–the right’s media machine (not just the MSM, but pundits, columnists, and talk radio as well) just had the better ability and access to spin the story the way the RNC wanted it spun.
And the Democrats reliance, or maybe simply the fact that there were more on left, on 527s and the new legislation that disallowed message coordination between the campaigns and the organizations left us with somewhat of a boggled message. The Republicans just didn’t rely on them as much, and that could’ve been part of their reasons for success.
As Marshall points out, it is indeed a “sobering, fascinating article.”
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