In the caes of John N. Kennedy, he was accepted because he was the only alternative to Landrieu. Had Kennedy been elected in 2008 — he just couldn’t convince voters about Landrieu — the health-care bill would be one-vote short of cloture.
I know nothing about Grayson but am surprised to see that he is such a recent liberal Democrat, apparently more liberal than Kennedy, but maybe not.
Not exactly true, Kennedy did draw primary oppoisiton in the form of Jacques Boudreaux of Baton Rouge. It was a similar case to Bloomberg's GOP primary opposition in the 2001 NYC race, the mainstream media completely ignored the other Republican and the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Nevertheless, I would argue in both cases that the little known primary opponent was the only actual Republican on the ballot.
>> I know nothing about Grayson but am surprised to see that he is such a recent liberal Democrat, apparently more liberal than Kennedy, but maybe not. <<
Don't know enough about Grayson's Dem years to judge, but I researched Kennedy's Democrat days so I'm guessing you're wrong. Kennedy claimed to have "always been a conservative" and said he wasn't changing any of his positions when he switched parties. Anyone who remotely looked at his track record as a Dem knows this is completely false. At best, Kennedy had been a center-left Dem. He wasn't a moonbat, but under no stretch of the imagination was this guy ever "conservative" until he changed party's overnight. He ran to the left of centrist Democrat in the 2004 RAT primary (Kennedy finished 3 out of 3 as the more conservative Democrat beat him) and had been socially liberal and fiscally moderate throughout his career. He eagerly campaigned for Kerry in 2004 despite Kerry's slim chances of winning LA. He tried to spin this later on by saying he felt "miserable" doing that and only campaigned with Kerry because the RAT party officials forced him to. Of course the Dems refuted this in the general election by showing campaign footage of the "miserable" state treasurer very eager and passionately in favor of Kerry. IMO, Kennedy morphing from a liberal to a conservative overnight really hurt his credibility with voters because it was clear he wasn't being sincere and only running as a Republican to ensure he'd be on the ballot in November.
As Impy would put it, on a scale of RINO party switchers:
Endorsing Kerry in '04 and every Dem prior to that > Endorsing Clinton in '92
>> Had Kennedy been elected in 2008 — he just couldn’t convince voters about Landrieu — the health-care bill would be one-vote short of cloture. <<
You're probably right, although I suspect Kennedy would have been another Walter Jones in office and started off as a strong "90% conservative" politician during his early days in Congress, then slowly drift leftward back to his Democrat roots after he became an entrenched incumbent. I doubt he'd ever be as bad as Laudrieu though. I'd hold my nose for the guy in November but there would be no way in hell to convince me to vote for Kennedy in the primary.
I find it amusing how this guy decided to toss an "R" next to his name right before the '08 and got a pass from most conservatives while we're supposed to believe Coleman and Grayson are "closet Democrats" despite switching parties well over a decade ago (and siding with the GOP on most major issues since then).