It is becoming ever more obvious that John Kerry is not the strongest candidate that the Democrat's could run. He seems seriously charisma and integrity impaired. No one really knows, from one day to the next, where he will stand on any given issued, except that he somehow deserves to be President.
The village voice has suggested that maybe Kerry will be pushed aside. The dream candidate for the Left of course is Hillary. I read one pundit tonight who thought that even if she were to lose this year, she would be unopposed in 2008.
I don't see that happening. First, Kerry has been running too long to give it up that easily. This is someone who gets angry. He pretty much played by the rules. Hillary sat on the sidelines. I don't see him going quietly. And if he doesn't go quietly, any sort of palace coup is going to alienate a large percentage of the Democratic base.
The only way to get Kerry to go quietly would be to have something to blackmail him with. It would have to be very very bad though. Proof positive that at that VVAW meeting he agreed to assassinate Senators backing the war? Or that he was a homosexual? But short of that? We already know that he embellished his record to get in and out of Viet Nam in record time, that he probably committed war crimes while there, that after returning, while still technically a U.S. military officer (he was in the reserves at the time), he committed treason, meeting with the enemy for his own purposes. We know that he lied to Congress about war crimes. We know that he blames the Secret Service for his falling while snowboarding. We know that he spent over $1,000 for a haircut before going on TV. We know that he has played games with his wife's money to stay alive politically, both this year, and against Gov. Weld in a previous Senate campaign. He even had his own mini-Bimbo eruption a couple of months ago (appears to have come to nothing though). What could the Clintons have on him that is that much worse than what is already out there on him? Hard to envision.
I think that it would take serious credible blackmail to get Kerry out of the election, and I don't think that anyone, most notably the Clintons and their operatives, have that type of dirt on him. He isn't going to give up his one big chance at the big prize just because they ask him nicely. I think that he would tear up the Democratic party first.
Secondly, Hillary is the only real alternative. Edwards and Dean lost to Kerry in the primaries and caucae. Dean has already shown that he is unstable. Edwards is inexperienced and made his fortune as a trial lawyer litigating cases that turned out to be based on falsities. He essentially transferred money from physicians to himself on since debunked theories.
But Hillary is not really ready yet. Her negatives are still high, for good reason. Her supporters point out that she deserves the nomination because of what she went through. I would suggest that a goodly majority of the population doesn't see things that way. My view, shared by many, is that she put up with Bill's indiscretions in order to live in the White House and to help push the levers of power.
She also promised the people of New York that she wouldn't run in 2004. There is a possibility that they would turn her out of office in 2006, should she turn out to have lied here. Most politicians could probably get away with this, but she has the added problem that she moved into New York to run for the Senate. I think that if she does run in 2004, enough NY voters are going to feel used by her that her 2006 reelection to the Senate would be in jeopardy.
No. She is running for 2008. That is her best shot - as long as the Democrat loses in 2004. Of course, the worse he loses, the better she looks in 2008. By then, her negatives will have resided enough to make her very credible.
Or as Kerry said, Bring Her On.
