Now, I'm not a huge Kerry fan. I like Clark a lot, and I think Edwards would almost certainly be a better general election candidate than Kerry. I have concerns about how the Bushies will run against him, and whether or not he really has what it takes.
But the basic fact is, he's very likely to become the nominee, and it would behoove everyone to start finding things to like about him, since we're likely going to be stuck with him for a while to come now. Now, I'm not saying vote for him in the primaries - if my state had a primary that actually mattered, rather than being Pennsylvania, I probably wouldn't vote for him myself. But we ought to start telling ourselves that Kerry can win, and convincing ourselves what a wonderful banner-carrier he is for the party. If he loses, we can start the beloved, beloved recriminations in November. Until then, let's start to build up the Kerry-love.
I suggest finding his testimony to congress from 1971. That's some powerful shit. But whatever. We need to start convincing ourselves about how great he is, is the basic point. And if he somehow manages not to become the nominee, we can abandon those positive thoughts in a heartbeat, and think about how silly we were, and get all excited about Edwards, or whatever. (I certainly did this with Dean, when Yglesias was pronouncing him inevitable, and tried to convince myself he'd be a good nominee. I've been able to renounce it since, but it's really not so hard to convince oneself of something, if one wants to)