...Democrats keep getting votes. Because voters like you can't tell the difference between actual competence and politicians just endlessly going on about how competent they are.

Kerry spent years in the Senate, largely as an anonymous drone. Or if you're less generous, Ted Kennedy's buttmonkey. The foundation of his campaign was that he was better, smarter, had more ideas, and talked with more clarity than Bush. The latter was the only item on the list for which there was any objective evidence at all.

But his backers, including a lot of the media, figured that if they kept saying how competent and brilliant he was, it might rub off on less-discerning voters.

There's a reason that the only campaign policy they had was coming up with some way to wreck Bush. Their own guy was an empty suit.