Why Kerry won

The election's been over for almost a week, so I think it's time to look back at what lead to the Kerry landslide:

  • Kerry's win in Arizona - something that would have been incomprehensible in August or before - was clearly due to his support for Prop. 200. See also "Arizona Calling: The brewing immigration backlash" and "Fighting back". Supporting 200 (and thereby opposing the elites of both parties) was a very gutsy move on Kerry's part.
  • Kerry's constant discussion of Bush's "guest worker" plan played the predominant role in his easy win in Ohio. Ohioans realized that their situation would get much worse with a plan to bring millions of foreign workers here to take American jobs.
  • Recall during the final debate when Shieffer asked about the flu vaccine shortage?

    Bush answered with an excuse: "Bob, we relied upon a company out of England to provide about half of the flu vaccines for the United States citizen..."

    Kerry responded by bringing up that it appears the flu vaccine shortage was due to FDA incompetence. And, he said that under his administration he'd make sure that everyone knew they had to do their job or they'd get fired. He also discussed things like he would be open to all forms of input, even if was something that he didn't want to hear. And, he forcefully said he wouldn't try to blame-shift.

  • And, finally, Kerry overcame Bush's supposed security advantage by talking about border security. Remember how Kerry went to Texas and did those photo-ops with Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), a congressman who's been warning about border infiltration and terrorists forming alliances with a cross-border gang? Remember how that turned the tide on Bush's homeland security advantage, and people realized that Bush has apparently decided that cheap labor is more important than homeland security? Remember how Kerry kept making the point that Bush's DHS has released thousands of Middle Eastern illegal aliens into the U.S., and how the DHS doesn't know how many of those could be terrorists? Remember how Kerry kept saying that he'd make sure to both take the fight to the terrorists and keep the homeland secure while preserving our civil liberties?

What's that you say? Kerry did none of those things? Oh.

UPDATE: I added more links to the post.