James Verini, a volunteer for Kerry-Edwards 2004, put in over 300 hours of service to the campaign.

However, as we all know, the majority of voters put George W. Bush back in the White House.

After the election, people started criticizing 527s like MoveOn.org and ACT for losing the election. These people claimed the groups had a lack of coordination with the Kerry campaign (which, by the way, would have been illegal under federal law), and it costed Kerry-Edwards their victory.

This made Verini angry.

In his article, “It’s the incompetence, stupid,” Verini cites the lack of coordination within the Kerry camp and their focus on ‘de-throning’ Bush as reasons enough alone for losing the White House.

Most of the Kerry supporters I met on the campaign trail, meanwhile, were really just Bush-haters. The lack of knowledge or even curiosity about Kerry, his career and his proposals, was astonishing. Almost no one working alongside me had the slightest inkling of Kerry’s policy initiatives (clearly laid out on his Web site). No one knew what he’d done in the Senate. Many volunteers, even some paid staffers, didn’t know how long he’d been a senator.

The one thing everyone did know? Kerry was not Bush. For most, that was enough.

It’s so true. Think about all the organizations that were set up during the election to oppose Bush…”Run Against Bush“, “Bikes Against Bush“, “Librarians Against Bush“, “Women Against Bush“, “Cabbies Against Bush,” “Bands Against Bush,” “Republicans Against Bush,”…even “BlueTooth Users Against Bush.”

Finding a “_________ for Kerry” organization (which was not set up by the Kerry campaign) was much harder to come by. In fact it was my experience that finding a Democrat who would say “I believe in John Kerry” rather than “I’m not a huge fan of Kerry, but at least he isn’t Bush” was an even harder feat.
And I’m from Massachusetts.

Oh, and I still want my $50 back.