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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (27205)	1/31/2004 5:46:03 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793928

I keep saying that Kerry is Dole. So does the Wall Street Journal. REVIEW & OUTLOOK Kerry Nation A Senate fixture and war hero heads for a presidential nomination. Bob Dole again? Saturday, January 31, 2004 12:01 a.m. What a non-surprise: The Democrats, often so unpredictable, appear to have decided to behave this year like those orderly, hierarchical, wait-your-turn Republicans. In handing John Kerry his second victory in eight days, Democrats are elevating a prince of their liberal establishment, a Senate fixture with a war record. In those latter two ways and others, in fact, the 60-year-old Mr. Kerry strikes us as the Democratic version of Bob Dole, the GOP nominee in 1996. This is no slap at either man. Both are substantial politicians with long experience, the likeliest candidates to unite their parties, and have a chance at defeating an incumbent President who is loathed by their party's base. On the down side, Mr. Kerry like Mr. Dole is hardly a fresh face with new ideas and will have to explain a lifetime of Senate votes and rhetoric. Not that any of this bothered New Hampshire voters on Tuesday. The exit polls show that Democrats favored the Senator precisely because he was familiar. The one-third of voters who said they were looking for a candidate with the "right experience" who could "defeat George W. Bush" chose Mr. Kerry by about 60%, compared with only 10% for second-place Howard Dean. The Massachusetts Senator also held his own with Mr. Dean and Wesley Clark among Democrats most concerned with the war in Iraq and national security. Just as in Iowa, Yankee Democrats this year may be angry, but not so much that they don't want to win. So they again jilted Mr. Dean, who led the field until he imploded under intense media scrutiny in Iowa. The former Vermont Governor is vowing to battle on, and he is now showing more campaign discipline (and replaced his campaign chief). But party regulars will begin to pound him as a spoiler if he doesn't win some primary soon. The voters also turned away from Mr. Clark, whose résumé was appealing but who has revealed himself to be inexperienced and lacking in judgment. His repeated refusal to disavow Michael Moore, the left-wing crank who called Mr. Bush "a deserter," is the low point of the campaign so far. If the former general wants a political career, he might consider some seasoning in the Arkansas legislature. As for John Edwards, the smiling trial lawyer has become the favorite of the Beltway media, who prize fluency with words more than voters do. But perhaps the Democrats who placed him a distant fourth detected a certain synthetic quality to his "two Americas" populism, not to mention having doubts about his relative youth (at 50 years old) and inexperience (first Senate term) in a contest with Mr. Bush. If he fails to win South Carolina next week, look for an early exit as he bids for the vice presidential nod. We'll admit to believing that Joe Lieberman, who finished fifth, would have the best chance of defeating Mr. Bush. The Connecticut Senator has been alone among this year's candidates in associating himself with the centrist policies of the Clinton New Democrats. He's a hawk on the war and a moderate on the culture, and he isn't afraid to risk catcalls by saying so. But that message clearly hasn't fit the mood of this year's primary electorate, which seems to prefer Al Gore-like riffs about "the people versus the powerful." First Mr. Dean picked up this populist anger management, and Senators Kerry and Edwards have also made versions of it central to their stump speeches. "I have spent my whole life fighting against powerful interests," said Mr. Kerry in his victory speech. The man whose wife is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate ketchup cash went on to deplore "the influence peddlers" and "the polluters, the HMOs, the drug companies, big oil and all the special interests who now call the White House home." Perhaps this Manichaean portrait of America will resonate in November with the great middle class, but count us as skeptical. In a general election, Mr. Kerry would also have to defend 20 years of liberal Senate orthodoxy. Now and then over the years Mr. Kerry has shown a glimpse of interest in challenging his party's status quo (say, on education) but he has always retreated under fire. He now offers no policy that would upset a single Democratic interest group. The Senator has voted to raise taxes on just about everything, notwithstanding his current proposal to raise them only on "the rich." He voted against the first Gulf War but for the second, only to oppose the $87 billion to finish the second. He once voted against the death penalty for terrorists, though he now says he's in favor of it. We could go on, and no doubt the Republicans will. In Mr. Kerry's favor, we should add that this record and his agenda do represent the Democratic mainstream. There is a reason beyond geography that he is draped with Kennedys on the stump. Like Mr. Dole in 1996, Mr. Kerry may well be the best default candidate his party can find this year. If he is the nominee, no one in the national Democratic Party will be able to claim a case of false advertising. Copyright © 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.