Posted on 11/13/2004 5:47:59 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
So it's come to this: I'm John Kerry's last defender.
Two pieces of conventional wisdom emerged from last week's election. (1) Republicans owe their victory to anti-gay marriage initiatives and a massive values divide; and (2) John Kerry was a lousy candidate. Both are wrong.
David Brooks has fairly dispensed with the first trope, I'll tackle the second.
Writing in the Progressive, Matthew Rothschild complains that Kerry "never could give a decent speech." Since November 3, other Democrats have seconded this notion, and more. In Salon, Farhad Manjoo called Kerry "a pretty poor candidate"; Alexandra Pelosi went one further, pronouncing him "a terrible candidate." Mark Halperin laid nearly all of the blame for Tuesday's loss at Kerry's feet, saying, "John Kerry had a lot of problems too. ...the Kerry campaign, with a bad candidate, a worse candidate, was not good enough to win."
Martin Peretz has recently written an entire ode to his dislike of Kerry.
And even before the election, people like Mickey Kaus and Noam Scheiber dumped on him from the beginning of his candidacy until almost the very end. This caterwauling is silly and unfair to John Kerry.
Did John Kerry Run A Poor Campaign? Yes. Kerry never articulated where he stood on Iraq or, more importantly, how -- exactly -- he would be tougher than Bush in the war on terror. Every other issue -- from taxes to gay marriage -- is frosting. Had Kerry emulated John McCain's handling of his Vietnam record, taken a single position on Iraq, and come up with a single, detailed plan for combating terrorism, he might well have won.
Was Kerry A Bad Candidate? No. I have to assume that many of these critics never actually followed the candidate around, because close-up, Kerry was a pretty good candidate. I saw Kerry blow away crowds in New Hampshire. He gave a very good convention speech. He was excellent in the first presidential debate (but for the "global test" line, which haunted him afterwards). His day-to-day performance on the stump was also very fine -- I saw him handle tough questions from voters with aplomb; and when he was interacting with a crowd, his rich and haughty caricature disappeared completely.
And let's not forget his résumé: volunteered for service in Vietnam, saw combat, served as a prosecutor and then for two decades as a United States senator. In many ways, Kerry was a better candidate than Bush.
Was There A Better Democrat In The Field? Maybe. Dick Gephardt would have been a formidable opponent for President Bush -- and perhaps a better candidate than Kerry. But he's about it. Joe Lieberman had a better chance of winning the Republican nomination. Howard Dean would have been an unmitigated disaster. Ditto the not-ready-for-prime-time Wesley Clark, and the oddball Sharpton/Kucinich show.
And how about that John Edwards? If his performance as a vice presidential candidate is any indication, he might have been as bad for the Democrats as Dean. Edwards' only electoral victory came in his 1998 Senate race against a 70-year-old first-term senator. Then he lost every presidential primary save South Carolina, delivered a disappointing convention speech, was beaten in the vice presidential debate, and was an ineffective campaigner for Kerry down the stretch. His supposed strength was that he could connect with Southerners, but forget carrying his home state: Edwards couldn't even carry his home precinct. Never has so large a reputation been created by so little actual success.
Did Kerry Do Anything To Damage His Party Structurally? No. In fact, he did quite the opposite. At a time when all of the cultural tension was pulling Democrats toward the lefty fringe, Kerry, for the most part, resisted. A Howard Dean-style campaign -- based on isolationism and pacifism -- would have been truly disastrous for Democrats and might have realigned American politics for a generation.
Granted, Kerry didn't help the party as much as he could have by jettisoning the Michael Moore wing. Had he done so, he would have done for Democrats what George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole did for Republicans in the '90s by throwing Pat Buchanan overboard.
But that shouldn't overshadow Kerry's very real accomplishment: He stood his ground as anti-Americanism and knee-jerk pacifism roiled the base of the Democratic party. He prevented the main body of his party from giving in to the Moores, Deans, and MoveOns of the world. And in doing so, he has given them the chance to fight again another day.
There are a host of reasons John Kerry lost, and he bears his share of responsibility for the defeat. But the liberals heaping scorn on him today and insisting that because of him, their enterprise was doomed from the start, are looking for an easy alibi. They're doing a good man disservice. And they're not doing the Democratic party any favors going forward.
Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard and runs the blog Galley Slaves.
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Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) react after he delivered his concession speech 03 November 2004 in Boston, MA. Kerry urged newly re-elected US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) to heal the anger and rancor cleaving America.(AFP/File/Hector Mata) |
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Oh, I dunno....I would have given this award to Hillary. After all, she slept her way to the top.
What kind of dope is Mr. Last smoking???
John Kerry was a fraud, a phony and a traitor and those whose wanted to foist this POS on us are either domestic enemies or useful idiots. End of story.
No John Kerry was and is a raging anti-american communist traitor. Not all the nuancing (dissembling) could hide that.
Oh, give me a break. He set up Michael Moore's special seat with Jimmy Carter during the convention! He coordinated with MoveOn for millions of dollars of Bush slander.
He supported the enemies of America in a time of war.
He is beneath contempt.
John Kerry Accomplishments and Achievements!
Why do you think that is?
Remember how he was touted as a great closer?
He articulated his many positions much better than any average man.
And he did get 57 million votes.
That proves how good he was.
Kerry was such a great candidate that five women at work who had never voted before asked me how to register so that they could vote against him. LOL
He had to try to appeal to voters who despised everything he stood for. He only did as well as he did because of massive support from the mainstream media building him up and tearing down the president.
This article should be renamed, "Lying for the liar"
This shouldn't be posted here, we don't need kerry promotions
I keep asking myself, how in the hell did Kerry get that many votes?
If a frog had wings.......
Kerry was an all around terrible candidate and GWB was and is excellent.
Anyone know if Hillary is a war hero... if so, I might consider her in 2008.
Kerry was a phony traitor who always had a plan for everything but never could explain just what his plan was.
"And let's not forget his résumé: volunteered for service in Vietnam, saw combat, served as a prosecutor and then for two decades as a United States senator. In many ways, Kerry was a better candidate than Bush."
He was a much better candidate? Is that why he won the election?
Reality check: The better candidate is in the White House and he's going to stay in the White House for four more years.
Put this on your résumé John Kerry: Rejected by over Six Million Americans.
Doesn't his failure to do any of those things make him a bad candidate? Remember, he had the LSM carrying his water, huge 527's and every other conceivable advantage.
For the past 20 years, I felt Kerry was a poseur, a total phony. The LSM failed to accurately portray his speciousness, his hollowness. His phoniness was accompanied by particular artfulness or cunning, it was laying there out in the open for all to see.
He may have been a better candidate than Dean, in some ways, but at least Dean was a phony.
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