Kerry has been on a one-week vacation, and so, apparently, has his entire campaign.
The Republicans have a built-in advantage in running their campaign. Quite simply, there are more of them than there are of us. There's Bush and Cheney. Then you have people like Rice and Powell representing the administration (and hence their political reelection battle) in the Sunday shows and cable news channels. Not to mention Rumsfeld, Snowe, and other cabinet officials.
On our side we have -- Kerry. And if he's skiing, well then, there's no one else. As Tom Schaller wrote last summer in the WaPo (yeah, he's everywhere):
Often during the 2000 presidential campaign, I heard some variant of the following refrain from reluctant supporters of Texas Gov. George W. Bush: "I'm not sure he's ready for the job, but at least he surrounds himself with good people."
And surround himself he did: Colin and Dick, Condi and Daddy. All were on display -- visibly, but not too prominently -- as part of the Bush ensemble. During the campaign and the recount, political adviser Karl Rove essentially built a rump cabinet around Bush for the nation to inspect and admire.
On the other side stood Al Gore, alone. Yes, he eventually brought Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman on board, if for no other reason than to assure voters that he didn't have designs on both jobs. And yes, Gore needed to establish himself as his own man after eight years as Bill Clinton's sidekick. But Gore distanced himself so much that he effectively made the election into a referendum on himself. Is Al too stiff? Is Al too wonky? What a mistake. Maybe the election wouldn't have hinged on Florida if Gore had been less of a lone wolf.
So it's time to steal a page from Bush's 2000 handbook and build our own shadow cabinet. Make the Veep pick explicit, the rest don't have to be as much.
Voters already know what the Bush administration looks like. And, the multitude of personalities helps deflect blame to those individuals when necessary (such as with Clarke's explosive charges). It's time to surround Kerry with capable and high profile men and women that will help carry the battle to their Bush Administration counterparts.
This idea is so logical, so common sensical, that I hope it's already in the works deep inside Kerry campaign HQ. Let's get a veep nominated quickly, and build out from there.
And no time is better than now.