Kerry Causing Cringes on the Left

Some on the left are finally starting to realize what a disasterous mistake it was to vote for nominating Kerry. All I can say is, what took them so long? Drudge had a link to this Village Voice piece.

John Kerry Must Go
Note to Democrats: it's not too late to draft someone—anyone—else

These are the same people who keep piping up with moonbat warnings about a "draft", but obviously they think a draft is the only thing that can get them a decent candidate. They're probably right. The field was made up of the most unelectable candidates they've ever ran. They had the usual joke candidates, like Mosley Braun, Sharpton, and Kucinich, which are normally weeded out very early. They had the candidates who ran because they figure they've been around long enough to deserve a shot, like Gephardt. They had Joe Lieberman, a serious candidate but one who wouldn't attract any attention from their base. Then they had the screaming governor from a state so small it would be the 88th largest county in the US, who attracted the early attention because he conveyed his party's inchoate notions and visceral hatred of Bush. They also threw in an ambulance chasing lawyer with almost no political experience, and the ultra-rich, ultra-liberal, self-confessed war-criminal turned anti-war protestor, who's never seen an issue he couldn't surround by taking all possible positions on it.

The Democratic campaign wasn't reflective of any carefully considered process of selecting the person who can lead the most powerful nation on earth. It was an exercise in the voters trying to guess the inclinations of their fellow voters. Any of them could've taken a close look at Kerry months and months ago. When the race first began there was a very good reason that Kerry lagged badly with Democrats. Yet in this process of trying to guess what other voters would go for, Kerry was merely the last person in the field to get carefully examined, and as we're now seeing, sumarily rejected. It may be that the Democrats should allow Republicans to nominate their next candidate, because we wouldn't fuck it up that badly.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— With the air gushing out of John Kerry's balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders in Washington face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party's got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can't exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.

His base is rejecting him. He's flip-flopped too many times, and it looks like he's no longer standing in for the "unnamed Democratic candidate" who might beat Bush in November. Now they're starting to see him for what he is, a deeply flawed and unelectable candidate who can't withstand the slightest objective scrutiny.

With growing issues over his wealth (which makes fellow plutocrat Bush seem a charity case by comparison), the miasma over his medals and ribbons (or ribbons and medals), his uninspiring record in the Senate (yes war, no war), and wishy-washy efforts to mimic Bill Clinton's triangulation gimmickry (the protractor factor), Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner.

That's a pretty forthright statement, and as more and more on the left come to perceive him as a 'goner' they'll also start to resent him for having seized the nomination from the person they'd been previously backing. Now they're stuck with him and there's no good way out. More and more cries from the far left will call for his replacement, and many of those voters will become disgusted enough to vote for Nader, thinking that since Kerry can't win anyway mere unity for the sake of unity is pointless, and that they might as well send a message against the war by going with Nader.

What to do? Look for the Dem biggies, whoever they are these days, to sit down with the rich and arrogant presumptive nominee and try to persuade him to take a hike. Then they can return to business as usual—resurrecting John Edwards, who is still hanging around, or staging an open convention in Boston, or both.

Now isn't funny that after years of calling George Bush the "selected" President they turn around and demand that their candidate be "selected, not elected". This isn't all that surprising though, considering that they've alternately insist that military service is irrelevant and draft dodging is laudable, during the Dean dream, to claiming Vietnam service is a requirement for a candidate.

If things proceed as they are, the dim-bulb Dem leaders are going to be very sorry they screwed Howard Dean.

Pretty obviously the article is authored by a disaffected Deaniac who's noticing that even screaming Dean makes John Kerry look like an unelectable, unpredictable loser. But that's what happens when the whole field was so unbelievably thin. Look at it this way, if you put former Governor Gray Davis up against this cast, he'd be the one with gravitas. Maybe next time around they should look at high-ranking officials and governors who at first blush look boring, because they're competent instead of just loud and bitchy.