John Kerry Sucks

From Ryan Lizza's Campaign Journal at TNR:

John Edwards has been doing his best recently to reach out to Howard Dean and his supporters. But not surprisingly, an endorsement is unlikely according to a former top Dean aide who is in touch with the governor. Here's what this person says:

On the one hand, the sentimental favorite around Burlington is John Edwards. But on the other hand, do you really want to lose twice? And do you want to seem like you're just trying to get even with John Kerry?

It's the sentimental favorite versus the cold hard reality of politics. There's a feeling that John Kerry is going to be the nominee and everyone better fucking get used to it.

Man, not even the Deaniacs are idealists anymore.

That's just sad. Kerry just sucks the life out of everything, doesn't he?

And speaking of sucking the life out of everything, my flagship site, This Is Not Funny is down again, due to problems with the hosting company. Anyone have any recommendations for better, more robust hosting companies? This is happeneing way too often.

Mickey Kaus--new hero of Kerryphobes everywhere--has been harping on Kerry's vulnerability to charges of "flip-flopping", "waffling", and "making shit up" for a while now. To wit:

The predictability of Kerry's flip-flopping gives him an odd sort of meta-consistency. You could set your watch by this guy! And I do think Kerry's pandering flips, of which this is an example, are comparatively benign. In an all out panderflip, after all, a politician is telling a group of voters "You're the boss." He's treating them with respect. Too often Kerry practices a different, more fraudulent, kind of pander--e.g. ostentatiously declining limited PAC contributions while loading up on unlimited "soft" money--that treats voters as imbeciles who are easily fooled.

And so forth.

Now we have a(nother) nifty story in today's WaPo (Page A1! On a Thursday! Just below the fold though, but still!) on just that. Take it away, "Diamond" Jim:

...Kerry has accepted money and fundraising assistance from top executives at companies that fit the candidate's description of a notorious traitor of the American Revolution.

Executives and employees at such companies have contributed more than $140,000 to Kerry's presidential campaign, a review of his donor records shows. Additionally, two of Kerry's biggest fundraisers, who together have raised more than $400,000 for the candidate, are top executives at investment firms that helped set up companies in the world's best-known offshore tax havens, federal records show. Kerry has raised nearly $30 million overall for his White House run.

Again, the Kerryphobe is stunned. Head...spinning...I may have to lay down.

The point of all this is not that Botox takes more money than anyone else--he doesn't, he's ranked something like 92nd in total outside contributions; then again, it helps to be personally wealthy, an incumbent, and a Democrat in Massachusetts. But I digress. The point is that attacking Kerry is relatively easy, and the Rethuglicans know it. The man doesn't stand for anything. Who cares what his voting record is? All that does is to horrify the base into showing up. The real attack is going to be how Kerry is a dishonest, "Washington" politician (as opposed to the other kind) who'll say anything to get elected.

The choice for the majority of the simpletons who vote is going to be: Bush = jackass, but honest. Kerry = jackass, but dishonest. Yes, I know that Bush's approval rating is sinking, and more Americans are viewing his as a liar, but only because the media is currently concentrating on the Democratic race, and calling Bush a liar is part and parcel of that race. Once the nomination is over (set your watches, people), the media dynamic is going to shift significantly in Dubya's favor, and the Rethugs are going to be able to have an unfettered outlet by which to paint Kerry as a smarmy, Eastern liberal who'll say anything to get elected.

One last point. Being liberal won't preclude him from being elected; most Americans agree with the positions liberals tend to take, if not as absolutely. Being from the East won't preclude him from being elected; most Americans outside of the Confederacy don't give a rip where someone is from, because most people these days are far more mobile than in the past. Being a flip-flopping panderer who says calculated, political things however, will prevent him from being elected. That fact alone allows Kerry to slip comfortably into the stereotype of Dems that Rethuglicans have carefully crafted since Carter.

Being boring doesn't help, either.

So, the great and courageous John Kerry--war hero, Senator, Vietnam Veteran, war hero, did I mention Vietnam?--had this to say in response to Dubya today:

“While I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, for 200 years, this has been a state issue. I oppose this election year effort to amend the Constitution in an area that each state can adequately address, and I will vote against such an amendment if it comes to the Senate floor.

“I believe the best way to protect gays and lesbians is through civil unions. I believe the issue of marriage should be left to the states, and that the President of the United States should be addressing the central challenges where he has failed – jobs, health care, and our leadership in the world rather than once again seeking to drive a wedge by toying with the United States Constitution for political purposes.”

Protect gays? Hey asshole, this isn't about protecting gays you empty shirt! This is about EQUAL RIGHTS!

Kerry should have gone out and said that the FMA discriminates against gays, which is wrong. Period. What the hell would he say if Alabama--or some other bumblefuck, backwoods, Red state--outlaws gay marriage? What if they reword sodomy laws to get around the SCOTUS ruling to, in effect, ban homosexuality? What the hell is he going to do, say "Okay, well, gays just shouldn't go to Alabama."?

What did the federal government do with the Jim Crow laws in the south? Did they say: "Well, blacks just shouldn't live in the south."? No. They said that discrimination is anti-American and that the rest of the country would not put up with it. The South said that little black children couldn't have the same rights as little white children, and the rest of us said: "Ah, think again, cracker."

THAT's what I want my president to say. That's what I want John Kerry to say: "Think again, cracker." I want a leader in the White House, not a mealy-mouthed pussy. The Republicans aren't afraid to come out swinging on this issue, and we should not have a leader of the Democratic Party who runs from a fight. Any fight. Fuck it, let's go.

Kerry's new slogan--market-tested by the Preznit and everything--is "Bring. It. On." Well John, he brought it. Hiding behind state's rights isn't going to cut it. What are you gonna do?

...with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

(My first anti-Bush post over here at JKS. This is why you can detest John Kerry, but you have to vote for him anyway. I'll have a reaciton to JK's bullshit statements in a minute.)

I am engaged to be married. As I pointed out a while ago (in a moody, rambling post, which shall not have a link here), the TINF Webmistress said “Yes” to my meager proposal to get married last Christmas. We’ve set a date—August 22nd—we’ve booked a place, caterers, a photographer, we’ve registered for gifts, and we’re inviting nearly 200 friends and family to take part and celebrate with us.

For us, marriage has nothing to do with tradition, religion, or some ridiculous plan laid out by society to ensure survival of the species. We don’t live on a farm—or in the 18th century—so I don’t plan on siring a team of indentured servants to milk my cows, or anything. And our parents, while terribly thrilled with us, didn’t care one way or the other that we were living together, but not married. So why bother to get married?

For us, our wedding will be a celebration for everyone close to us to take part in. We want to formally let the world know that we are committed to one another, and will be so forever, in this life and the next. We want our closest friends and family to come to our wedding to celebrate and rejoice in our commitment and our love. It sounds corny, and of course it is—it’s supposed to be. When you find the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with, intellectualized, measured discussion is of little use in light of the fact that your heart is ready to leap out of your chest.

I, for one, am excited to get married. I love the idea of calling this person “my wife.” Not my “partner” (though she is—a completely equal partner), not my “girlfriend”, not my “friend” (though again, she is—my best friend); she will be my wife. This is a huge deal. Everyone understands “wife”, “spouse”, “husband”. THAT is the level of our commitment to one another. THIS is the measure of our love. Not just girlfriendwelivetogetherandhavebeenfortwoyearsnow, but “spouse”. Period. Forever.

Of course, with something so beautiful and personal as marriage, we can rely on George Dubya Bush to come in and fuck it up.

While watching his popularity drop in the polls, dissatisfaction in the conservative, bigoted, neo-Confederate base, and the general incompetence with which his administration has been conducting itself, Generalissimo Bush and Commandant Rove decided to come out blasting, using this divisive wedge issue as the tip of their spear.

Writing discrimination against gays into the constitution—the very bedrock on which the republic stands—shows, more than any other singular issue or event, just how appalling and awful this administration is.

Most good, blog-reading Americans have by now read Andrew Sullivan’s Rage Against Homophobes piece on his site. Sullivan, who’s something called a “Gay Republican”, whatever that means, sums up the Preznit’s attitude on the matter nicely:

He is proposing to remove civil rights from one group of American citizens - and do so in the Constitution itself. The message could not be plainer: these citizens do not fully belong in America. Their relationships must be stigmatized in the very Constitution itself.

Correct, Andrew. One might hope that Sully is reconsidering his “Republican” belief system, but we’ll just sit and wait for that.

Sullivan, however, isn’t the best person to describe the bottomless pit of pig shit from which this administration has crawled. For that, turn to this letter from another one of these “gay Republicans”, sent to Jonah Goldberg at NRO:

On the other hand, someone like you (and who is more like you than you?) should offer words of reassurance to gay people like me who are Republicans and generally support -- indeed, admire -- the President, but can't help feeling he's just announced that we're not fully welcome to our place at the table. It's not that I think support for gay marriage is a no-brainer. Andrew's just deluded in thinking that way. But he's right that the FMA singles out one group of Americans for permanent exclusion from an important civil institution, as if we were the lepers of the American polity.

No, I didn’t post the first half, because it made no damned sense. The second half is what I want to point out.

A note to the writer: He has. You are.

Republicans are exactly saying that gays are not welcome to a full place at the table, and further that they are indeed lepers of the American polity. What’s so hard to understand about that? The Republican Party might have evolved into a true big-tent party, with everyone welcome at the table, so long as they supported small government, strong defense and whatever the hell else that Republicans support that isn’t discriminatory and downright mean. But the fact is that they didn’t. The Republican Party is a party of small-minded, Conservative Puritans whose chief contribution to the national political debate is intolerance and hate.

By throwing the weight of the White House behind an effort to amend the LAW OF THE LAND to isolate and discriminate against a specific group of Americans, we see that Dubya is willing to stick it to citizens of his own country for political gain. More than corporate welfare, more than the military-industrial complex, more than selling out the poor to the rich, the FMA shows the utter bankruptcy of morals of the Republican Party.

This is because the FMA discriminates and subjugates based on who a person is. It’s sole purpose is to deny the joy of marriage to a class of people, simply for being. Republicans make gays the lepers of the American polity for no other reason than they can. There’s no profit in it: the corporatists and capitalists gain nothing from discrimination against gays. The social Conservatives are under no attack, nor is their “way of life”—sad, demented and Stepford like as it is—in danger of going away. Simply put, the amendment discriminates for the sake of discrimination. For the sake of hate, Republicans will amend the constitution.

It’s not as if the Constitution, as written, doesn’t discriminate. The 3/5 clause (Note: did you know that there are Americans out there—mostly conservatives, who don’t know about the 3/5 clause? Scary.) codifies discrimination and slavery in the fabric of the republic. But every time we’ve amended the constitution, we’ve done it to expand the blanket of rights and freedoms to Americans. What Republicans are saying with the FMA is that the American experiment is over, and the liberties and rights that have been evolving in our society have gone far enough.

As I said, I’m thrilled to be getting married. I’m the luckiest person in the world to have found the person I’m to spend the rest of my life with. What the Preznit is suggesting today is that only people like me are allowed to be this happy. Whatever you might think of homosexuality, Republicans, politics or the constitution, the FMA is simply wrong, if for no other reason than everyone should be as happy as I am.

NOTE: This is cross-posted at This Is Not Funny.

Via Kos, comes this great comment:

Kerry combines the ruthless, driven, hard-nosed campaigning style of Gray Davis with the personal charm, charisma, and warmth of Gray Davis.

by eyelessgame on Thu Feb 19th, 2004 at 00:44:51 GMT

Word.

From &etc., earlier today:

My own hunch is that what we're seeing is an important divide between less sophisticated voters and more sophisticated voters. Just about the only thing less sophisticated voters...know about John Kerry is that he's been winning...he's a longtime Senator and a Vietnam veteran. On the other hand, more sophisticated voters...have probably paid attention to the campaign long enough to know that, in addition to these things, Kerry's from Massachusetts (not exactly a presidential breeding ground of late), tilts to the liberal end of the ideological spectrum, and tends to be kind of boring and long-winded. Which is to say, less affluent, less educated voters are looking at John Kerry's string of primary victories and concluding from them that he's electable. More affluent, better educated voters are actually watching debates and reading newspapers. And they're concluding from these things that Edwards--who is neither from Massachusetts nor a liberal nor boring--is actually more electable...

It's a phenomenon that's actually very similar to what goes on in the stock market. Less sophisticated investors just pick the stocks whose prices they've heard are going up. More sophisticated investors actually do some research about the companies they plan to invest in. Up until yesterday, Kerry was that tech stock that the girlfriend of the cousin of the guy down the street said was a can't-miss opportunity, while Edwards was the unheralded stock of a company with a little-known but solid product.

Judging from the way Kerry timed his victory speech last night to bump Edwards off the air mid-sentence, it sounds to me like he's getting scared. And he should be. John Kerry is riding a bubble, and bubbles have a nasty habit of popping.

Shorter Entry: People who know their head from their ass like Edwards. Not so much? Kerry.

The concern that Edwards supporters should have is this: Kerry fights dirty. Very dirty. Karl Rove and George Bush dirty. Edwards does not. So now that Kerry's concerned about his stock falling, what sort of nasty tactics is he going to pull out of the Torch's black box to end Edwards' political career?

My only thought on this is that Edwards should take every opportunity to point out Kerry's...shall we say, malleable ethical fiber...and use it to piss off the Deaniacs enough to get them to support Pretty Boy just to stick it to Botox. Just a thought.

First things first: Dean's kinda, sorta, but not really-ish out of the presidential race. The link to DFA is staying up, though, because his name is still on the ballot, and frankly, I love the idea of irking Kerry supporters who wander in here by accident.

Second, with a welcome like this, who wouldn't want to join the Kerry camp?

Looks like the Deanies are up in arms again. Reading through some of their comments here it's really striking how little they know about the Dr. Dean, let alone anyone else, the political process or the world around them.

They believe they invented progressive democratic values yesterday moring when they woke up, without ever checking to see if any prior work existed. They worship a Rockafeller Republican who plays an FDR democrat on TV, in one's words, "because he makes sense." And I suppose theres some truth the that.

A lot of the things Dean said did make a certain kind of sense -- the same kind of sense it made when Nancy Reagan said, "Just say no." Who was it that said "For every complex problem, there is an answer that is simple, reasonable and false?"

In fairness, there was a time when I believed in such things as simple answers to complicated questions. For that matter, there was also a time when I believed in such things as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. You live and learn.

Posted by CalFromProvRI at February 18, 2004 01:15 PM

Well. Feel the party love already.

This little gem is from this particular entry and is just one of...248 or so posts, the vast majority of which are dripping with bile toward the Good Doctor and his supporters.

Now yes, I run a John Kerry Sucks website. Guilty as charged. But a couple of points:

• I'm not running for anything.
• It's not my job to hold a major political party together
• It doesn't effect me one way of the other if people support this site or not
• I didn't just knock out an important player in the Democratic Party and am now looking for support

Kerry and his supporters have had the same attitude since 2003: "This nomination is ours, so give it to us." It's the same snotty attitude that Dubya had when McCain beat him in New Hampshire. The "Why didn't anyone tell him that I'm the leader?!" sniveling. There's too much Dubya in Botox by half.

Furthermore, I don't understand what, if anything is to be gained by telling the most vocal and active members of the party to "fuck off." Do they really think that Dean's supporters don't matter? When the last contest was decided by less than 1,000 votes in Florida, can they really afford to suppress voter turnout from the Democratic base? Interesting. I've read comments from that blog that denegrate Dean supporters up and down for everything from being children, to being stupid, to being too liberal (interesting, that one), to being "fooled" by the evil mastermind that is Howard Dean. Great way to build the party, guys. Truly excellent.

The bottom line is that taken as a whole: Kerry, his supporters, his fund raisers, his staff, and his major supporters really don't like the base. They're firmly in the party of things-are-just-fine and rocking the boat isn't just not allowed--it's reviled. Dean and his supporters represented something very frightening, and now they'll be made to pay for their impudence by the Kerry Kamp.

I know I said to vote for Kerry, even though he sucks, but if this is the new face of the Democratic Party--the seething, arrogent, obnoxious "told you so" face of Al From and CalFromProvRI, et al--I might be persuaded to stay home on election day.

Now I'm off to check out things at ChangeforAmerica, Edwards' blog, and DFA. I hope y'all do the same.

"We respect all of our opponents in this race, and we know that the people will ultimately decide who they want to take on George Bush in November."

"The plethora of candidates in the race is good for democracy, good for Democrats, and bad for Bush. We look forward to continued debate moving toward the convention in Boston."

"We've seen that American want a national discussion about ideas, and issues and the direction that this country should be heading. We're proud to be a part of that discussion, and look forward to continuing this process."

Or something gracious, praising, and befit a front-runner who wants to unite his parry behind him for what will be the most brutal fight of his life.

Instead, the Kerry camp had this to say about Edwards' second-place finish last night:

...Mr. Kerry's advisers scoffed at the notion that Mr. Edwards had a legitimate claim on being part of two-man contest.

"I don't see this as a two-person race because we're running against someone who has won one state," a senior Kerry adviser said. "This whole idea that you sort of cherry-pick the states you are going to compete in — that's a vanity game, it's not a real game."

Alright, so no one's surprised that Kerry and his team feel entitled to this nomination; that they're arrogent, condescending, and--in a word--assholes. But really! You'd think that this group of self-proclaimed "electable" Democrats would have a bit more political savvy than to disparage John Edwards, who just came within 6 percent, and is set to start doing a whole lot better now that Dean is suspending campaigning.

Let's try to think before we speak, people.

And P.S.: Just who in the hell do they think they are by calling Edwards' candidacy "vanity"? Pot, meet Kettle.

Count me in the "stands up for what he believes" and "has positions I agree with" camps.

One-third said that in deciding how to vote, they were more focused on finding someone who can oust President Bush than backing a candidate who agrees with them on major issues -- similar to results in exit polls in the earlier 2004 primaries.

There's absolutely NO way of telling if Kerry is the best guy to beat Bush. I guess we'll roll those dice together.

Thanks to corrente, we have a new phrase to describe Botox and the rest of the Democratic Party establishment:

Oh, come on:

Howard Dean said today that the chairman of his presidential campaign, Steven Grossman, had left the team ...

The comments by Mr. Grossman, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee who has known Mr. Kerry for 34 years ....

...

When a DNC operative and a friend of Kerry sticks a fork in Dean's back, I have to raise a question.

Make no mistake, I'm glad Kerry can play rough—he'll need to do that to win the election and even more to deal with Congressional thuggery—but a party that really wants to win should be thinking of a way to use Dean's undeniable talents, even if as a section 527 outsider. This whole affair stinks of rank Heatherism.

Heatherism: the practice of devolving behavior into that of privliged, spoiled teenage girls; see: Democratic Leadership Council

It's hard to tell, exactly, what John Kerry's nomination will mean for the Democratic Party. He's certainly of the Rockefeller-wing of the Party, and his internal support lies not with any sort of grassroots support, but with the establishment politicios, and the institutional fund-raisers. Being attached at the hip to Ted Kennedy is more than a mere campaign tactic:

"Kennedy is helping his Massachusetts colleague court an informal network of hundreds of major party donors across the country in hopes of erasing President Bush's huge money advantage."

Which isn't to say that raising money is a bad thing, but merely to say that something like 80% of Kerry's dollars come from special interests, wealthy donors, and businesses.

What Kerry is not, is any part of this new-ish movement, as exemplified by Howard Dean, of moving the Democratic Party to be in close touch with its grassroots. Even Kennedy, the Party's most beloved liberal, has little interest for the grassroots/left-leaning base of support that's currently trying to figure out how to have more of an impact on the Party. As liberal as Kennedy is, his function is to bridge the gap between Kerry and the big-money, not the Party faithful.

And so what this leads to is a disconnect between the Party's head and its body. As much as people don't want to hear it, the distance between Kerry and the people the Democratic Party is supposed to help is about as far as Bush and the average American. There's no connection between rhetoric and reality in the top of the Party, and furthermore, there's a real resentment among the Party leaders toward the uppity grassroots, who dared to threaten to overturn the Party leadership and replace them with people who might have their hands dirty.

So while I recognize the use in having a Democratic President--if only to stop the bleeding from the headwound this country has taken--I'm not convinced that joining the Party as a loyal subject is the best move for progressives, liberals, union members, and average Americans in general.

What exactly, has this DLC wing of the Party done for us? Don't tell me that the DLC has no power. If the Kerry-McAuliffe-Clinton group is the Party's head, the DLC is its brain. Policy ideas and advocacy come from the DLC, and saying they have no power is like suggesting that PNAC had nothing to do with invading Iraq.

Kerry's people actively rejected the anger of the grassroots, until he figured out that he could co-opt it for his own use. But back when he was being honest with us, he wasn't pissed off at the state of the country, he felt that it was his turn to run for President. He had no compelling reason to be president, because he wasn't articulating any sort of change, because he and his donors and insiders were doing just fine. They were out of power, but personally, they weren't hurting. They weren't pissed off about the war, because they didn't care one way or the other--their cynicism didn't allow them to vote against the thing in the first place, so why would they?

So given this sort of disconnect, and this annoying story of how Dean-supporters are quietly being purged from the Party, and the fact that Kerry is still the same man who didn't really give a damn about your average, grassroots, Democratic voter, what is to be gained by becoming a loyal Party member? Not bloody much.

By blindly following the Party, the marginalizing of the base will be allowed to continue, unabated, which would be disastrous, especially at a time when there's a real appetite for the Democratic Party to morph itself into something more than just a shell of principles.

While primary voters aren't necessarily voting for their principles (from Lieberman's campaign director, in a note to Clark's: "Our polls showed--and I am sure your polls showed the same thing--that people were willing to vote against their own beliefs as long as they believed the person they were voting for was "electable" against Bush."--emphasis added) there was--and remains to be--a feeling that the Democratic Party should be about something, and that something should be the average American; those pesky grassroots. That desire would be strangled in its crib if the grassroots merely continued to go along with John Kerry and Terry Mac.

The grassroots, while voting for Kerry in the general, should busy themselves this year by taking over local Democratic Party apparati. An internal revolution is just what the Party needs in order for real change to occur. Third parties won't do it--in fact, it might be argued that the Green Party challenge in 2000 just made the Democratic Party more insular and elitist--it must come from within. Luckily, entering the Democratic Party isn't difficult (otherwise, how would Al From call himself a Democrat?), and people would be shocked how easily it was to become a local Party insider.

In an ideal (and completely possible) situation, the supporters of the losing primary candidates would toil locally, working for local representatives, congressional races, and working to change the party locally from within. Assuming Kerry wins, he'll very quickly find that the Party he's now the leader of is very different from the one that he's been a member of. The Democratic Party he'd inherit would be stocked with energetic populists with new ideas and lots of savvy on how to implement them. Kerry would have to adopt the mantle of progressive reform for the country, because he's the leader of a party that's made it their raison d'etre.

Now let's assume Kerry loses in November--a possibility that's a hell of a lot moe likely than anyone's admitting--the grassroots takeover of the Democratic Party is also a good thing, because now you've got a Party who's leadership was weened on fighting the good fight, not rolling over for political gain. You'll need the strongest opposition party in history to combat the disastrous policies of an untethered Republican administration. Only the energy provided by a grassroots revolt will deliver that.

In the end, voting for Kerry in the general is a must-do for everyone from the center to the left. But supprting him and taking orders from his campaign is probably the worst thing that progressives could do. Taking over the party, acting locally, and delivering a stronger, more active, positive, and idea-friendly Democratic Party should be the goal for the base this year. Kerry will eventually get the support of the base, but it should be on our terms. They've been in charge long enough.

He's lots of things, and I stand by nearly every horrible thing I've said about him. But he's not stupid:

There's one more Bush analogy that may be instructive. During the GOP primary, polls showed that GOP voters thought Bush would be more likely than John McCain to defeat Al Gore. To any objective observer this sentiment was simply insane--McCain had far more support among moderates and even liberals than Bush, and could have benefited from the cultural backlash against Clintonism without being dragged down by Bush's unpopular domestic agenda. I remember asking Slate's Will Saletan how voters could possibly be so stupid. Will told me to look at it from the voters' point of view: All they had heard about Bush for a year was that he was raising ungodly sums of money, winning over the party establishment, and trouncing his foes. Why wouldn't he seem like the strongest candidate?

True that.

His point is well-founded; there's certainly ample evidence to suggest that voters make their decision based not on any sort of rational compariosn of candidates, but simple who's been winning in the primaries. If a candidate wins in Iowa, they're a winner, and voters in new Hampshire want to vote for a winner, so the candidate wins in new Hampshire. Voters in Delaware don't want ot be left out, and clearly this guy is the most electable--I mean, he's won TWO contests already!--so they too, vote for a winner. Here's Peter Beinhart's take on it:

In other words, when voters say a candidate is most electable in the general election, what they often mean is that he's most electable in the primary. In 1989, an Emory University political scientist named Alan Abramowitz measured perceptions of electability in the 1988 Democratic and Republican presidential primaries. His article, in the November 1989 issue of The Journal of Politics, concluded that "students of the nominating process may find it somewhat disturbing that primary voters base their evaluation of a candidate's electability almost exclusively on his performance in earlier primaries and caucuses."

Disturbing, indeed.

So essentially Iowa voters picked a candidate for us, based on the fact that he wasn't Gephardt or Dean, and Kerry's team ran an incredibly dirty campaign that no one reported on. New Hampshire voters picked Kerry because he won in Iowa, and Dean's speech was played 633 times (on cable alone), which freaked them out. It was all downhill from there.

In other words, when Dems were paying attention to issues, they rejected Kerry. Now they're going to get stuck with him, because he won Iowa. It's not like the man's changed at all: he's still the guy no one wanted (or wants). How nice that he'll be the standard-bearer of the Party.

By the way, the irony of quoting The New Republic(an) isn't lost on me. I've come to realize, though, that TNR basically dislikes Democrats and what they stand for, so they've got a pretty good idea of how Dems can/will be beaten. Take notes, Kerryphiles.

From the Milwaukee debate:

GILBERT: Let me turn to you, Senator Kerry ...But you did vote to give him the authority, so do you feel any degree...of responsibility for the war...?

KERRY: ...I will beat George Bush, because one of the lessons that I learned -- when I was an instrument of American foreign policy, I was that cutting-edge instrument. I carried that M- 16....

...There was a right way to do this and there was a wrong way to do it. And the president chose the wrong way because he turned his back on his own pledge to build a legitimate international coalition...

..."I did everything in my power to prevent the loss of your son and daughter, but we had to do what we had to do because of the imminency of the threat and the nature of our security. " (Note: It goes on. And on. And on.)

GILBERT: But what about you? I mean, let me repeat the question. Do you have any degree of responsibility having voted to give him the authority to go to war?

AVERAGE CITIZEN: Zzzzzzzzz...

Good grief, this man is dull.

But more than that, he’s painting himself into a corner again. The patrician style of meandering in the hopes that the interviewer loses interest in the question is going to lead to charges that Kerry’s little more than a Washington drone in a navy suit. Bush’s tactic is simple: “Well, Sen. Kerry served his country honorably in Vietnam. But this sort of politician who isn’t like you and me, isn’t the kind of person we need running the country.” And then on and on to “tough decisions”, and “leadership”, and “not waffling” ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

Kerry’s shown an ability to morph his message into whatever the current popular thinking is. Fine. This makes him a decent candidate, because this is what politics is—reading the popular landscape, co-opting it, and repackaging it as your own (also the way to sell Britney Spears albums, but I digress). The problem is that because of the momentum he’s got, HE is the dominant message, and this allows him to lapse back into his true identity: the dull, patrician, silver-spooned Senator of Privilege who can’t give a straight answer to anything, for fear of not having a backdoor out of his own statements.

So this is why we need John Edwards to remain a formal candidate for president. No, not Howard Dean—not exactly--which will be the subject of another post.

Kerry needs to get slapped around some more. The man can’t run against Bush, because when it comes down to it, if the primary is over now, you’re going to see the Bush v. Kerry “hypothetical” race turn upside down by the end of March. Why? Because Bush will have grabbed the airwaves back with a $100M ad blitz to move the numbers, and paint Kerry as the aforementioned SOP. Kerry won’t be able to handle it. He may say: “Bring it on.” But he’s talking about voting records and war experience. Good for him. But guess what: in October, none of that is going to matter, because he won’t be able to wash the stink of SOP from him in time to make his case.

If he’s got opponents: Kucinich to attack from the left, Edwards to attack from the plain-spoken, sonofameeeeelworker center, and Dean to attack...well, the way Dean attacks (again, not as a formal candidate, but as something else), Kerry can spend time honing his message to incorporate what works with the electorate—which is something different than what he is.

Of course, further attention on the horse-race also helps Dems, because as soon as it ends, the press will get bored and will need to be fed. $100M buys a lot of press feed.

Anyway, anointing Kerry would be the worse thing for him (big deal) and the Party (an actual BIG DEAL), because he’s not ready to take what BushCo is going to give him. Even with Daschle becoming more aggressive, the press doesn’t give a rip about congressional leaders. They care about presidential candidates, and Kerry needs more time in the ring with the trainers before the big fight.

So I say to you Democrats: kick Kerry’s ass! It’s the only way he’ll be able to defeat Bush in November.

You know what's wrong with Drudge? Everything. Every-damned-thing you can think of is wrong with Drudge. He's odious. He's repellent. He has (from what I hear) poor personal hygene habits. He represents the caricature of everything that's wrong with the media.

Sadly, lots of times he's right.

So there's this "report" over at his site, which goes like this:

CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS: KERRY FIGHTS OFF MEDIA PROBE OF RECENT ALLEGED INFIDELITY, RIVALS PREDICT RUIN

**World Exclusive**
**Must Credit the DRUDGE REPORT**

A frantic behind-the-scenes drama is unfolding around Sen. John Kerry and his quest to lockup the Democratic nomination for president, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.

Intrigue surrounds a woman who recently fled the country, reportedly at the prodding of Kerry, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

A serious investigation of the woman and the nature of her relationship with Sen. John Kerry has been underway at TIME magazine, ABC NEWS, the WASHINGTON POST, THE HILL and the ASSOCIATED PRESS, where the woman in question once worked.

A close friend of the woman first approached a reporter late last year claiming fantastic stories -- stories that now threaten to turn the race for the presidency on its head!

In an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, General Wesley Clark plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." [Three reporters in attendance confirm Clark made the startling comments.]

The Kerry commotion is why Howard Dean has turned increasingly aggressive against Kerry in recent days, and is the key reason why Dean reversed his decision not to drop out of the race after Wisconsin, top campaign sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Here's the link, which may or may not work--hit refresh if it doesn't.

Want my take? Sure you do. Drudge is a right-wing shill, and the majority of his "scoops" come from sources inside the vast, right-wing conspiracy. So on its face, this looks like an Olson/Scaife-style smear against Botox because Dubya is going to be dogged by AWOL, and Valerie Plame, and the 9/11 commission, and Iraq WMD, and the economy, and Health Care, and Social Security, and the environment, and gay marriage, and going to Mars, and Texas redistricting, and...well, the list continues.

This is the most obvious answer, and the one that I'm sticking with until someone with more than a thimbleful of credability proves otherwise.

The problem is that while I'd love for the press to pick up lots of other, substantive stories about Botox and run with them, so we might have a glimpse of issues during the primary, that just ain't gonna happen. This one might, which pisses me off more because even though I loathe Kerry, I'd hate for this to be the thing that brought him down.

All I have to say is: It better not be true. I swear to God, if this story is true, the Democrats should tie Kerry up and set him on fire because this sort of thing is why people don't trust us in the first place. Republicans were able to take Clinton's infidelities and wrap it around the neck of every Democrat in the U.S., and if it happens again... I don't want to think about it.

Until further notice, this story is bullshit. And because it is such bullshit, it just may be the thing that unites even the Kerryphobe with all Democrats in rallying to send Kerry to the White House.

Damn.

I'm a morning person, and because of that, I typically don't get too fired up over anything until after breakfast. I like to enjoy my morning. Sip some tea. Read the paper in a very impassive, academic way. So while I enjoy my morning haze, I'll send you over to some delightful satire at Salon:

Does the candidate seem...

• electable?
• inevitable?
• Inna-gadda-da-vida?

Remember, the more inane the consideration, the more weight you should give to it! In the Olden Days, the electability of a candidate depended only on the number of votes he or she received. Today, we media savants would never let you fall for a ploy like that! To distinguish who "seems" electable from who merely "is" electable, compare the candidates' records, use your best judgment, and then for chrissakes, don't vote for that guy! He's the unelectable one! Pick the other guy! The "other guy" is always electable!

The Boondocks is pretty good today, too.

Continuing with the theme of John Kerry as a corrupt, duplicitous, sleaze comes this extra bit from BushOut.TV:

Hudson of The Columbia-Union notes another connection between AJHPV and Kerry in the comments. Kenneth Gross, a founder of AJHPV, is a partner in the law firm Skadden, Arps. Employees of Skadden, Arps are the largest group of contributors to John Kerry's presidential campaign to the tune of $101,800 as of 4th quarter 2003, according to Open Secrets. Skadden, Arps employees were also generous donors to Kerry's Senate campaign in 2004: $116,150.

Okay, so getting back to the purpose of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Law...

Campaigns are expensive, especially when one wants to run truly disgusting ads against one's opponent. Therefore, one must raise money.

The easiest way to raise said money is to ask wealthy donors to give it to you.

Said donors usually want something in return. If you (candidate) are willing to give them what they want, they will ensure that you either keep your present job, or get a new one.

This particular something is almost never in the interest of the republic, and therefore, we need strict campaign finance laws, because a very small group of wealthy donors are seeing to it that legislation passed benefits only the few, not the many.

Seems logical to me. Further, one might suggest that any candidate who collects money from wealthy donors (or, for whom said donors set up massive slush funds with which to destroy the candidate's opponents) this easily might have a history of delivering on certain promises. N'est pas?

So, regardless of Kerry's overall voting record, I think it's pretty freaking likely that this guy deals in some serious quid pro quo, or else, how is he getting this much scratch from these unsavory characters?

And P.S.: If Kerry is mostly on the up and up, why in the hell did he put The Torch in charge of raising money? The man is corruption incarnate. He makes Boss Tweed look respectful. The fucking Torch. Whatever.

I can't say it enough: if John Kerry is the nominee, the two most powerful politicians in this country will be him and George W. Bush. This will be our lowest point in a long time.

Fuck John Kerry AND Dick Gephardt AND the DNC.

There, I said it.

How, how HOW could anyone with any amount of decency be party to running an ad showing a fellow Democrat next to Osama Bin Ladin? Well, it's because Dean threatened the cozy, iron-triangle relationships that the Democrats have cultivated with big business. They were afraid of a Teddy Roosevelt-style leader taking power and cleaning house, and so they took him out with the worst, most sleazy political tactics since W's 200 primary campaign. From the AP, I've pulled quite a lot of the story:

Labor unions, former Democratic Sen. Bob Torricelli and one of presidential hopeful Howard Dean's own donors were among big givers to a group that ran ads criticizing Dean in three early voting states.

It drew some big donors, including two giving $100,000 each.

They are Slim-Fast Foods tycoon S. Daniel Abraham of Florida, who also contributed $2,000 each to Dean and several other Democratic hopefuls; and Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network LLC, a New York-based sports cable channel that televises New York Yankees' baseball games. The network's chief executive, Leo Hindery, contributed $2,000 to then-Dean rival Dick Gephardt.

Abraham wasn't the only Dean donor giving to the group. California attorney Ken Ziffren gave $5,000 to the Jones group and $2,000 each to the campaigns of Dean, Gephardt and John Kerry. Abraham and Ziffren did not immediately respond to messages left at their offices by The Associated Press seeking comment.

Torricelli, the former New Jersey senator who is now raising money for front-runner Kerry, donated $50,000 from his Senate campaign fund to the group.

Now all of these cockroaches are scurrying for cover when the press calls, looking for comment.

Why, some might ask, am I tarring Kerry with this brush? Well, "The Torch" now works for Kerry, and there is no possible way that Botox didn't know what was going on in Iowa. Just like all the push-polling, prank phone calls, robo-calls, and vandalism perpetuated by the Kerry campaign, perhaps he wasn't told directly, but I'm sure Cahill just said: "Don't worry about it, we have Iowa under control."

John Kerry, by being even within an arm's length of this organization wears the shame of the lowest form of political scum. He is firmly in the camp of "politics as usual" and in this respect, he differs not at all from pResident Bush.

One of the most appalling aspects of this is the fact that these assholes funded a couple of campaigns, playing multiple colors on the roulette table at once, while fixing the game. These power brokers are exactly the people the Dean campaign was formed to exterminate from Democratic Party politics, and they slithered into the primary process to protect their own parochial interests. They are not patriots, they are not Democrats, they should not be welcome in any circle where decent human beings are found.

There is still time for voters to come to their senses and realize what kind of man John Kerry is, and nominate someone else. Let's hope that this story gets more play over the next couple of days and is the news that exposes Kerry for what he is: an opportunistic weasel who does nothing but damage to republican democracy the longer he remains in public life.

Comtempt certainly makes them, as my agreement with a conservative clearly demonstrates.

I despise the National Review, reading it only because I believe Sun-Tzu was right when he described that the general who knows himself and his enemies will win 1,000 battles. But be that as it may, I must say that John Hood's peice this morning on the Democratic nomination battle being over too early makes some very good points. Here's the closer, but I think all Democrats should read the whole thing, at least to get an idea of what we're in for:

It's going to be a long wait from now until the summer conventions and the fall general-election campaign. You can be sure that the political class will fill this vacuum with something. Barring a new international crisis or some other compelling news event, what will probably ensue is a bunch of media scrutiny of Kerry's personal life and political career, some inevitable hand-wringing and Democratic gripes about an increasingly centrist-sounding Kerry (perhaps leading to another Ralph Nader candidacy), and a GOP effort to frame the debate and fix an unattractive picture of Kerry in the voters' minds. Why was it a good thing to wind down the Democrats' national Bush-bashing infomercial/party early for this? And why should party leaders be pleased with a process that, once the voting actually started in Iowa, took a scant few weeks to pick an unexciting, blue-blood left-wing senator from Massachusetts as their standard-bearer?

The way Kerry was annointed by the party and the media seems an awful lot like Dole in 1996, and Bush in 2000 (after the slanderous campaign waged against another popular populist, John McCain), with neither of those guys winning a plurality of votes. "Electibility" during the primaries doesn't always mean "electable" in November.