I have no inside knowledge at all, but the best I can guess is that Kerry decided he was going to run this thing as a carbon copy of his statewide races in Massachusetts. Either he is so unapproachable, even to his own intimates, that no one was willing to tell him, "that's not going to work, Senator," or someone did tell him and he was too stubborn to listen, or too stupid to understand why.
However this may have come about, the incompetence of this campaign is of such magnitude as to be, in itself, a clear indication that the candidate is incompetent to hold the office of President (which absolutely requires considerable managerial skill and strategic aptitude).
If Kerry somehow pulls this off, I'm genuinely frightened, and not just because Kerry is liberal, feckless, weak on defense, and so on. This goes beyond ideology or party. There is every reason to believe a Kerry administration would lead to even greater disaster than could be achieved by wrong policy alone.
It would certainly be one gigantic green light for muslim terrorists to mobilize.