So after I put a comment in a front page item about Kerry pleading that he not be nominated in 2008, the only responses I got were pleas for its removal and getting called a troll. I suppose this could be because I haven't posted much on DKos recently (I've been doing more over at
TPM Cafe on
my blog), or because I don't have "karma" built up (I still don't quite understand that bit), or just because I called Kerry a "wet sack of crap." Well, I'll admit I read here a lot more than I write, but I promise I'm not trolling.
I just really, really don't want Kerry as the nominee again.
I believe it was SusanG's entry, talking about how Kerry is coming out swinging on the war, or some such thing. Forgive me, I want to hear this kind of talk all the time, not just when the President is under 35%. Some around here are hailing this as some sort of courageous stand, or Kerry as a "fighting Dem," or whatever. Me, I see it as yet another example of Kerry pandering to the political whims of the hour. Back in 2003, Kerry miraculously discovered that he had Jewish grandparents, and made hay about it in the news. Now, I realize that this kind of thing happens all the time -- many Jewish families kept it somewhat hidden after immigrating. But funny how it happened right in the middle of primary fundraising season, when enthusiasm among Jewish donors could be key?
Well, now apparently one of his handlers got a hold of the Kaine campaign script, and we've got garbage like this coming out. What does it make me think of? The politician in the very forgetable movie version of the book "Striptease," who dances the hora in a yarmulke at the wedding of the son of a major donor, the day before enthusiastically singing along with "Onward Christian Soldiers" at an evangelical rally. When he says this garbage, he doesn't even sound sincere. I could forgive him if he were trying to make a heartfelt point and just not doing it very well, but after all of this back and forth, how the hell am I supposed to take the man seriously? Of COURSE I would rather have him for President right now. I'd rather have any Democrat, no matter how trite, condescending, and unctuous. But to channel Kos for a moment, now, in 2006, is the time to hash out the goods on our nominee choices, and wait until 2008 to rally around the eventual pick.
The man ran the most inept major party campaign in decades. And it wasn't just the idiots who decided it was a good idea to make an eight month tour of duty the ONLY issue in the campaign. It was the fact that Kerry seemed to insist on being the one to tell us how brave and bold he was, while keeping a blanket on Edwards for fear of being upstaged by his veep. (Whatever his faults, and they are many, Edwards is unmatched in his ability to tell someone's life story and make you feel for them.) And his idea of damage control after the windsurfing fiasco was to preen for the cameras in his Gucci hunting outfit to show how down to earth and outdoorsy he was. Please. Kerry's dead weight at the top of the ticket probably single-handedly sank Erskine Bowles' chances of holding Edwards' Senate seat. I can't tell you how many North Carolinians I met who were sick of Bush and sick of Republicans, but refused to even talk about the Democrats as long as Kerry was the face of our party. I might as well have been selling bikinis in Antarctica.
So now he's discovered his voice in criticizing the Bush administration, and I'm somehow supposed to be impressed? Sorry. You want to do something, get your butt out of the Swiss Alps and back onto the floor of the Senate and do something about it. Your senior Senator has been doing it for decades, if you'd pay attention and try to legislate for a change.
And you want to run for President again, pretty boy? Fine. Go get yourself elected Governor of Massachusetts and show us what you can do as an executive, and then we'll talk.
In the meantime, please quit embarrassing the Democratic party by showing us that faux-stern mug on national television, making our positions on issues sound stupid and contrived just by repeating them, embellished with your own idiocies. And come 2008, if it looks like JFK Lite has any chance of the nomination, I'll be throwing fistfulls of money and volunteering my time for anyone, ANYONE else. I'd prefer someone like Warner or Gore or Feingold, but I'd take Richardson or a DLC shill like Vilsack or hell, even Clinton. But please, for the love of all that's good and right with the progressive movement, don't make me call that gasbag the leader of my party again. It was humiliating enough the first time.