This Washington Post notes that "despite their fundraising success, Democrats simply did not spend their money as effectively as Bush."
In a $2.2 billion election, two relatively small expenditures by Bush and his allies stand out for their impact: the $546,000 ad buy by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Bush campaign’s $3.25 million contract with the firm TargetPoint Consulting. The first portrayed Kerry in unrelentingly negative terms, permanently damaging him, while the second produced dramatic innovations in direct mail and voter technology, enabling Bush to identify and target potential voters with pinpoint precision.
Those tactical successes were part of the overall advantage the Bush campaign maintained over Kerry in terms of planning, decision making and strategy. The Kerry campaign, in addition to being outspent at key times, was outorganized and outthought, as Democratic professionals grudgingly admit
Outorginazed and outthought? Yup, that’s what they say. Now it’s official. The whole long piece is worth reading.
It is true that the Democrats were outorganized, but this once again shifts the focus from the real problem: they have based their campaigns - and their public policy agenda - around unpopular ideas. Kerry and Daschle did not lose because they were disorganized, or because they failed to target their money properly. They lost because a majority of the population has a differing vision for the future and a different set of ideas about the role of government in American life. The rest of this talk about "values voters" or "outorganized" or "swift boat ads" is all a series of red herrings propped up by liberal writers who still cannot accept the fact that most voters disagree with their left-wing worldview.