Republicans 'Outorganized and Outthought' Democrats

Submitted by Laura Miller on

The 2004 presidential race was the most expensive in history. While Republicans did outspend Democrats -- $1.14 billion to $1.08 billion -- the difference wasn't that much. "Despite their fundraising success, Democrats simply did not spend their money as effectively as Bush," the Washington Post's Thomas Edsall and James Grimaldi report. "In a $2.2 billion election, two relatively small expenditures by Bush and his allies stand out for their impact: the $546,000 ad buy by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Bush campaign's $3.25 million contract with the firm TargetPoint Consulting. The first portrayed Kerry in unrelentingly negative terms, permanently damaging him, while the second produced dramatic innovations in direct mail and voter technology, enabling Bush to identify and target potential voters with pinpoint precision. Those tactical successes were part of the overall advantage the Bush campaign maintained over Kerry in terms of planning, decision making and strategy. The Kerry campaign, in addition to being outspent at key times, was outorganized and outthought, as Democratic professionals grudgingly admit."

Main Source: 
Washington Post, December 30, 2004
Topics: 
Politics

Comments

karpinski replied on

False and hurtful material such as the Swift Boat crap and the flip-flop accusations and the purple heart bandaids clearly hurt Kerry and "helped" Shrub. Even worse was the second stealing of a national election. I don't know if people were paid, but I believe that, just as in the Ukraine, the exit polls in six states were not wrong, the votes were stolen.