BOSTON, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Tuesday's presidential election caps a campaign season that bruised the reputation of one of the top television networks, saw the rise and fall of one candidate's future based on a scream, provided saturation and oversaturation of mud-slinging advertisements and left the country's future in the hands of Americans trying to decide between two candidates who had polarized the rest of the population.
The results of the 2004 presidential election likely would be settled by the success of voter-mobilization efforts as the country remained split over President Bush, a Republican from Texas, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., while busloads of voters headed to battleground states to plead on behalf of their candidates.
For Bush, the election looks to be eerily reminiscent of his contested win in 2000, while pundits predicted an even more protracted and uglier legal battle to decide the outcome. Tens of thousands of lawyers were poised in teams around the country to provide legal challenges, while both candidates charged voter intimidation and voting irregularities.
For Kerry, his campaign officially began July 29 when he accepted his party's nomination at the national convention in Boston. It was the culmination of a three-year quest for the Democratic nomination that was never assured and appeared unlikely from the beginning of the party's primaries.
Bush and Kerry sprinted across the country Monday, with the president making appearances in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Iowa and Texas and the Democrat hitting Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio.
A last-minute video from terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden endorsed neither candidate but threw events into chaos as journalists worked to figure out its likely effects. Polls after the Friday release indicated voters were unswayed by the video and the knowledge that bin Laden appears to be alive and well despite a three-year global manhunt to find him "dead or alive."
On the sidelines stood a handful of Democratic hopefuls who were waylaid in their ascent to the party's nomination, and several third-party candidates who were shunted aside by an electorate hungering for a clear win.
Kerry's trajectory to the nomination was marked by a combination of luck and strategic planning. He was not the first to enter the field -- that was former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who filed papers with the Federal Election Commission in May 2002.
Initially dismissed as too liberal for the electorate, Dean's exhaustive grass-roots network combined with unprecedented Internet fundraising propelled him to the front of the pack and made him a media favorite.
Kerry filed papers in early December and was followed a month later by John Edwards, a one-term U.S. senator from North Carolina who promised to represent the "real America." A week later House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., launched a presidential exploratory committee, while Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., former running mate of Vice President Al Gore, announced he was seeking the nomination on Jan. 13.
Perennial favorite Al Sharpton announced Jan. 22 he would seek the party's nomination, promising to represent the country's disaffected voters. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, filed papers in February, followed by former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, who said she likely would run for the presidency.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., announced his candidacy Feb. 27, only to drop out in October 2003 because, he said, his campaign was not viable.
Four-star Gen. Wesley Clark rounded out the list of likely candidates in September when he announced his intention to run after a months-long "draft" campaign to get him into the race. Campaigning was rocky for the former NATO supreme allied commander, who did not take naturally to partisan politics, at one point telling supporters, "I am not a Democrat."
The candidates attacked each other in debates throughout the fall, largely ignoring Bush and the backdrop of the war in Iraq, launched on March 19, 2003. Attacks increasingly centered on Dean, who had emerged as the front-runner and beat out all the other candidates in campaign fundraising.
Dean won a key endorsement from Gore, who announced he was endorsing the former governor in a move that surprised many, including his former running mate, Lieberman.
Gore's specter loomed large over the election. Between his endorsement and his initial announcement he would not seek the party's nomination, he emerged as a surrogate capable of humor and fiery rhetoric.
Despite Gore's endorsement, however, Dean crashed spectacularly in the first voting tests of the campaign season, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries. His star in part artificially elevated by an enamored media, Dean did not have the numbers necessary to carry the states, finishing third in the Iowa caucus and second in New Hampshire.
The surprise win went to Kerry, whose resurgence just prior to the elections came from a major overhaul in the campaign. Kerry fired campaign manager Jim Jordan and replaced him with Mary Beth Cahill, the force behind the campaign's decision to throw all its resources at the first two primaries, including dwindling funds augmented by Kerry mortgaging his house.
The bet paid off as Kerry took both states, setting him up to continue dominating the primary field.
Second in Iowa was Edwards, who launched a strong campaign despite his relative inexperience in politics. Wide speculation held that he was holding out for a vice presidential nod, but Edwards repeatedly said he was running to become president of the United States.
Behind them, candidates began dropping out of the field. Moseley Braun exited the field in January, as did Gephardt after failing to secure Iowa, neighbor to is native Missouri. Lieberman and Clark abandoned their bids in February after poor showings in early races, as Kerry closed in on the nomination, racking up delegates through each victory.
Although Dean held out a bit longer, he ultimately left the race in February, disappointing loyal fieldworkers throughout the country. Much of Dean's infrastructure shifted into a progressive organization, Democracy for America, and the former candidate vowed to be the voice for progressive candidates around the country.
Democrats were aided extensively by third-party groups using soft funds to campaign against Bush. The groups, called 527s based on their filing number with the Internal Revenue Service, brought to bear massive amounts of soft funds forbidden to the candidates or parties themselves.
Republican attempts to close down the groups were blocked, as the FEC ruled it would not judge their legalityuntil after the 2004 presidential election.
Republicans began trying to launch their own 527s, but their groups never reached the hundreds of millions of dollars raised by groups such as the left-leaning America Coming Together and the Media Fund.
By March the field was narrowed to two viable candidates -- Kerry and Edwards -- with Kucinich and Sharpton playing around the edges.
Despite Kerry's overwhelming majority in the primaries, Edwards remained in the race until Super Tuesday, March 2. Kerry won nine of those 10 contests, ceding Vermont to former candidate Dean, and Edwards announced March 3 he was pulling out of the race.
Determined not to repeat the mistakes of the 2000 election, in which Gore won the popular vote but Bush carried the Electoral College, Democrats rallied behind their candidate. "Unity" events were convened featuring such disparate party figureheads as former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, Gore, former Texas Gov. Anne Richardson and each of the previous contenders.
Kerry was a compromise candidate few Democrats were excited about, but he was the beneficiary of the ABB movement: "Anybody But Bush." The confluence of massive amounts of soft money with unprecedented Democratic unity and righteous outrage against Bush's policies kept Kerry afloat, while the addition of Edwards as his running mate helped bring charisma to an otherwise flat ticket.
Independent candidate Ralph Nader announced his candidacy in February but was almost universally shut out by Democrats smarting from their defeat in 2000, which many blame on Nader's presence in the race.
From a field of plenty peddling dreams, it narrowed into a fight of character vs. intelligence. Supporters from both sides spewed forth each campaign's condemnation of the other candidate, calling Bush stupid and reckless, while Kerry was deemed wishy-washy and a flip-flopper.
An opponent in sight, Bush was able to frame the election in terms of national security and his ability to provide it. Kerry sought -- successfully, according to the polls -- to present himself as the stronger candidate on domestic policy. Despite his work on international relations, however, polls indicated voters continued to feel safer in the war on terror with Bush at the helm.
War became the center of the debate through the Democrats' convention in July, which was centered on Kerry's experience as a combat veteran in the Vietnam War. The war in Iraq and the war on terror, the backdrop of every one of Bush's appearances, were shunted aside for a period as Kerry faced attacks on his record.
Some of Kerry's former crewmates, in a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, asserted Kerry did not deserve the commendations he received for battle. The group quickly gained widespread media attention -- and financial support -- for its advertisements and its anti-Kerry campaign.
In the face of the growing storm, the Kerry campaign did nothing. And it was reflected in the polls, as the "Swifties" and Republicans mounted an increasingly aggressive campaign impugning an experience Democrats had trumpeted as the defining one of their candidate's life.
The Kerry campaign's failure to respond resulted in a changing of the guard among the top advisers, with Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary for Clinton, assuming responsibility for much of the overall strategy.
When the furor over Kerry's Vietnam record died down, the media turned their attention briefly to reports about Bush's own record. CBS went out with a story that Bush had received preferential treatment in his placement in the Texas Air National Guard, creating an uproar pounced upon by Democrats.
The documents on which the report was based, however, turned out to be fraudulent, causing CBS anchor Dan Rather to issue a retraction and an apology for his report.
Both controversies fell out of view as supporters ramped up mobilization campaigns and prepared for the presidential debates. Kerry was the perceived winner in his three match-ups with Bush but received a black eye in the final debate when he gratuitously referred to the sexual orientation of the vice president's daughter, Mary Cheney.
The issue topped all headlines, and Republicans held it out as further proof Kerry would say or do anything to be elected president. Both parties dug into increasingly bitter, personal attacks, as Democrats called Bush a liar and the GOP said Kerry was amoral.
Hundreds of votes during the course of his service in the U.S. Senate were thrown up at Kerry, while both Democratic senators have scrambled to explain why they oppose the Iraq war after voting for it. Both sides express indignation at the viciousness of the attacks and continue digging in for their candidates.
Outside the party loyal, a slim margin of undecided voters continued to ponder their choices, presented in increasingly stark terms. The race has come to rest on several key battleground states where, with fewer than 24 hours to the election, they worked to decide what both sides have called the most important election of our lifetime.
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