From the NewsMax.com Staff

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Rendell: Swiftvets Did Kerry In

According to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, it wasn't the evangelical vote, or Karl Rove's brilliant strategizing, or Osama bin Laden's last-minute endorsement that kicked the legs out from under John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Asked Thursday what brought Kerry down, the former Democratic National Committee chairman blamed The Swiftboat Veterans and POWs for Truth.

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  "First of all, I think we lost all of our momentum when we didn't respond quickly to the Swift Boat attacks," Rendell told NBC "Today Show" host Katie Couric.

"How ludicrous is it that we had a legitimate war hero running against someone who didn't serve in Vietnam and that that became a liability for us."

That happened, said Rendell, because we temporized and we didn't strike back quickly."

He also credited the fact that the U.S. hadn't been attacked by terrorists since 9/11, calling it Bush's "ace in the hole."

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