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Politics : The TRUTH About John Kerry
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To: Carolyn who wrote (906)3/10/2004 3:18:49 PM
From: JakeStraw   of 1483
 
The titan John Kerry never was

Monday, Mar 8, 2004

By John Brummett

John Kerry's nomination happened so quickly and on such uncertain and scant reasoning that Democrats may come down in a few days or weeks with a touch of buyer's remorse.

But they should get over it quickly. They probably couldn't do any better if they took more time.

Never before had the Democratic presidential nominating contest been so compressed so early. Multiple states held rat-a-tat primaries that allowed no time for retail campaigning and placed a high premium only on one thing - the bounce enjoyed by the big winner from the primaries of the week preceding. Voters had no opportunity to know a candidate except by the superficial implications of the most recent Tuesday.

And never before had Democrats been so obsessed with avenging the perceived injustice of the last presidential race that they based their vote not on honest preference or sentiment, but almost solely on a strategic and thoroughly unempirical calculation of "electability."

Those factors made Kerry a prophecy that fulfilled itself with a rapidity setting a new political land-speed record. One state favored him because of supposed electability, and the bounce of victory and the mantle of electability propelled him seven short days later, and then again in another seven days, and so on.

First thing you knew he'd won 27 of 30 primaries and looked like the political titan he actually wasn't.

He remains the same man who in mid-December languished in the middle of the pack because he had no spark, no pizzazz, and who seemed to be running only on his war medals. He remains the same man who can't speak from the stump or work a crowd as effectively as John Edwards or Bill Clinton or Al Sharpton - or even George W. Bush. He remains the same man who carries a burden of Massachusetts liberalism, unappealing in the South.

Do I suggest the Democrats made the wrong choice? No, I suggest they made one so overwhelmingly and so precipitously that it is made to appear more formidable than it actually is.

Beyond the factors of front-loaded primaries and purely subjective calculations of electability, Kerry triumphed through simple and sudden attrition. Howard Dean melted down. Dick Gephardt was yesterday's candidate. Wes Clark turned out to be too politically inexperienced. John Edwards was the only sustainable rival, but he was tomorrow's candidate.

arkansasnews.com
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