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Years ago I interviewed Mike DiSalle then Governor of Ohio. He was running for relection in a race he lost.

He told me it was difficult to gauge public reaction to his proposals... He said he never met anyone opposed to his views.

I think that is very true of most candidates. They are met by the party faithful who reinforce their beliefs. Rarely does a candidate get to learn the views of the centrists that decide their fate. No handler wants a candidate in a situation where he is confronted by people who are opposed to his views. So candidates live in a world isolated from accurate views of public opinion.

As Mike pointed out, the danger is that a candidate will believe his own eyes and ears and not the people who do the polls and conduct the focus groups.

Kerry strikes me as a man who "knows it all". He is the most likely candidate to ignore good advise and follow the bad advise of his gut. I don't think Kerry is going anywhere. Kerry appears to me to always be thinking of his strategic position. What he says is based on what he thinks of his current situation. Since he has no real beliefs he can't remember what he said in the last stategic situation. And he has as many opinions as he has situations.

It would be fun to hear the media jokes about Kerry. Bet your bottom dollar there are a lot of them.

Years ago I interviewed Mike DiSalle then Governor of Ohio. He was running for relection in a race he lost.
He told me it was difficult to gauge public reaction to his proposals... He said he never met anyone opposed to his views.

This reminds me of Bernard Goldberg's story about the Upper West Side chatterer who wondered aloud how Nixon had beaten McGovern in 1972. She claimed that "no one she knew voted for Nixon".

Echo chamber.

I wonder how one compares Kerry to Dean. Dean appears to be driven by his own convictions, although I strongly suspect that he is malleable enough to try to make himself presentable for a general election campaign. Can Dean pull off a Nixon and tack to the right? I'm not sure. Remember that the people around Nixon were very good, and their boss had a political instinct that I have yet to see matched by any other politician, with the possible exception of Bill Clinton.

Agree with you on Kerry, btw. Sort of like a jumped up version of John Edwards: there's no there there. One thing about Dean, though. I'm not sure that he's getting the feedback he needs to be a better general election candidate. Recalling your admonition that the people will tend to vote for the candidate who is trying to solve the problem, I'm not sure that Dean brings a lot to the table other than a jazzed up base.

No one wins elections on anger alone.

Be Seeing You,

Chris