I voted for Kerry in 2004, but I ain’t gonna lie: I was not thrilled. While I had respect for his resume, intelligence and professionalism — and certainly his testimony as a veteran urging Congress to end the war in Vietnam — I did not like him as a candidate. His personality is famously wooden. He comes off stiff and patrician. He had the kind of political instincts that centrist Democrats lose elections with: overly cautious, underwhelming oratory, policy proposals designed to not anger Republicans (yet do so anyway), and unwilling to play hardball politics.
That last issue would become a serious problem when the Bush campaign deployed the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004. Aside from Kerry’s legitimate foreign policy bona fides (however much one may argue with his positions), his main appeal as a candidate to Democrats at the time was his status as a conscientious war hero. This cut the difference between opposing an unjust war and supporting the troops that seemed so important to political strategists back then. Anyone could see (if they looked) that the US invaded Iraq on false pretexts, and the mission was starting to look far from “accomplished” as 2004 wore on. Kerry joined 28 of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate to approve the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq in 2002. I remember his speech on the Senate floor, voicing his concerns about the intelligence yet feeling the need to trust the BushAdmin only a year after 9/11. I rolled my eyes, but this was prevalent among centrist Democrats back then. (Even a few farther left liberals like Michael Moore, who had argued for General Wesley Clarke earlier in the primaries.) Kerry as a veteran who came out against the US War in Vietnam appealed to those who wanted a commander-in-chief and patriotic candidate to run against war president Bush.
To effectively counteract Kerry, Bush needed to undermine his reputation as a truth-telling war hero. Cue the Swift Boat Veterans who charged Kerry with lying about his service, about war crimes he witnessed in Vietnam, and about swift boat operations in particular. None of it was true, it was an blatant smear campaign, but it worked. Kerry failed to recognize the threat their disinformation posed to his campaign, assuming that the obviousness of their fabrications would make them easy to dismiss. By the time he realized how much influence they had on political discourse, it was too late. And “swiftboating” entered the lexicon of presidential politics.
As for the last panel, Democrats will forever blame Ralph Nader for the shortcomings of Al Gore, a pattern you will see again years later when stans for Hillary and Bernie start arguing.
