The Bush smear machine is working, and John Kerry, if he is nominated by the Dems, will NOT win the presidential election this fall.
Unless the Democrats come up with a different candidate this July – and at this point, that seems unlikely – we are in for another epoch of misery surpassing even the Nixon years.
I must admit that I am not a big fan of John Kerry’s. He’s not been a particularly effective Senator, and he isn’t “likeable”, which seems to be the main, if not the only, criterion for election to national office.
Outside Massachusetts and California, being pegged a “Liberal” is the political kiss of death, and John Kerry has by all accounts one of the most liberal voting records in Congress.
Equally importantly, John Kerry has not shown any leadership in recent years on any important issue facing the Congress, whether it’s campaign finance reform, free trade agreements, the war in Iraq, funding for education, or Social Security/Medicare financing.
In spite of his much-discussed pedigree and his exemplary personal life, Kerry is pretty non-descript, known primarily for his association with Ted Kennedy and in those terms, considered more a working member of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation than one of its deans.
Similarly, his leadership team is also made up of non-entities, and it’s difficult to know what a Kerry presidency would look like, aside from the early promise to promote a few changes in the tax code for businesses. There is no sense of excitement or promise as there was in the Clinton candidacy, and no compelling rags-to-riches personal story to give voters a sense of the person and how his values evolved.
It seems, once again, that the political process leaves us with the choice of a mediocrity and a rogue, and there’s no question in my mind that the rogue always wins in that scenario.