We have to look at this coming election in the context of the historical trajectory of American politics over the past few decades. We should ask ourselves not just how to get Bush out of office, but how we got to the point when someone like Bush could be president. How on earth did that happen and what will prevent this from happening again?
Conventional wisdom says that the nominees of both parties must move towards the center during the general campaign. Over the past 30 years, every time a Democrat won the presidency, he governed from the center. However when a Republican won, he governed from the right. The result is that during the next electoral cycle, the entire spectrum of official politics would shift to the right. So what is considered the center today (after several electoral cycles) is much further to the right than it was three decades ago. With each cycle the electorate shrunk (on average), partly because official politics offered them less of a choice.
The result is that a man like Nader, who thirty years ago was regarded as a mainstream liberal, is now thought of as ultra-left. As for Dean, his proposals sound a lot like what was being suggested by the right wing of the Democratic party three decades ago. Yet the "experts" call him a liberal. Back then, someone like Bush would have been deemed an extremist proto-fascist. Today he just a neo-con.
It is in this historical light that my appraisal of Kerry is being made. This tragic trajectory of official politics will only accelerate with a Kerry presidency. Yes he is not like Bush, but the Republicans will nominate an outright lunatic next time around, and Kerry will campaign towards the "center" again. The whole spectrum of official politics will move to the right again. The official punditry will dismiss Ralph Nader as a loony socialist, and the electorate will shrink again. Soon enough a Republican president (and/or congress) will make today's neo-cons look like hippies.
What we need is a president who will halt the rightward path of official politics by governing to the "left," even if that "left" is more like the center of 1974. That president is not a man like John Edwards, or Wes Clark and certainly not a man like John Kerry.