"It makes me wonder what the point of the candidate is. I thought it would be the candidate's views that would then be expressed and refined via his staff."
You would certainly think so.
However: It is becoming clearer and clearer since the Clinton days that to the liberals, it is ALL about POWER: - gaining it, holding it, exercising it, and fighting to the death to keep it.
The DNC campaign is just an advertising strategy to convince the sheeple to vote THEIR guy into POWER.
It doesn't matter WHO their nominee is. It doesn't matter WHAT he actually believes, or says to the American people. It is all fluff and spin, an ELECTION MACHINE.
The nominee only has to be someone they think can WIN. They'll take care of what he actually DOES in office later . . .
AND as we are seeing clearly before our eyes, if the selected AD strategy is not working (IE Kerry's campaign being based upon his VN war record) -- then you try something else.
Lying, forging, etc. Well, it is all fair game to them, because their success is GAINING POWER; and the end justifies any and all means they think they can get away with using . . .
Another way of looking at it is that Clinton, Gore and Kerry don't have any views other than a lust for power, and so they can freely have them manipulated.
This has always puzzled me. Why do people lust for power if they have no clue what they stand for or what they want to do with it? I would only lust for power if I had a program I want to implement.
We could say that the private jet and the glamourous lifestyle might be reason enough to want power, but if Kerry wanted his own private 747 he could afford it on his own without going through all the pain of a campaign.
The best thing I can think of is that Kerry wants to be President purely as an ego trip, and that's really not gonna fly.
It does make me appreciate Bush, who I know governs based on his beliefs. How anyone could pick Kerry over Bush boggles the mind ... and yet I see many Kerry bumper stickers in my neck of the woods (Southern California).
D
And CBS News is just another 527 group there to help them. No different than MoveOn.org.