I've been thinking a lot about why I don't like John Kerry so much. He basically agrees with me on most issues, and probably more consistently than my #1 candidate, Howard Dean. I don't really care that he's a Boston Brahmin or part of that rich New England class (skull-and-bones and all that.)
My main beef with him is that he's part of this old, Democratic leadership that really managed to run our party into the ground over the past decade. Kerry is an elder, influential Democratic partisan that oversaw the complete collapse on all levels of government: Congress and governorships in 1994, and finally the Presidency in 2000. Bill Clinton staved off disaster for a little while, and he still confuses the issue - Gore's near-loss as a Clinton Democrat still meant that just sticking to Bill was viable, and it took until 2002 for the Democrats to finally get hit with the fact that they don't have a message.
Kerry's come a long way, but he still fits into that category, along with Gephardt, Tom Daschle, Max Baucus and Terry McAulffie. I have no patience for their continued leadership in the party, and the sooner they're out, the happier I am.
This brings us to Howard Dean. Dean was the one who really, really, represented a brand new Democratic party. His policy wasn't substantially different from the others running, but his style was. This was a pugnacious Democratic party, one we all thought was going to play to win and even if we lost, it was going to be a good fight. If we have to lose in 2004, it'll be a lot more fun with Dean on the top of the ticket. He'd be the party spokesman for the next four years no matter what happened in November, and get a good chance to shake up the DNC before that. Senators and Congressmen would be elected to that wing of the party, and current ones would join up. Dean's the iconoclast: he didn't need the old-fashioned Dems or the Clinton Dems, and that's why he stuck to this Perot/McCain theme: those three are all guys that gave a break to the kind of politics their constituents were sick of.
To a lesser degree, Clark and Edwards both represent a similar motive. Clark's a true outsider, which give us an entirely fresh start as a party. Edwards is young, idealistic, and fresh - not someone who owes favors to the old regime. Any of those three could give us a Newer Democratic party, and, as frustrated partisans sick of losing, really appeal to the blog community.
Kerry and Gephardt were the iconodoules of the campaign, guys who articulated the party line and worked traditionally. Kerry's success, in part, is due to the fact that he's the recognizable face of the Democratic party.
This leaves us with Joe Lieberman. Lieberman is a "third way" kind of Democrat, one who would really offer a changed ideology to the party and turn it into a centrist group. This makes him the most ideological candidate of the top group, and one whose ideology we all disagree with fairly sharply. He's conservative in a political sense and reactionary within the party: someone who wouldn't only maintain the status quo, but actually make it more so.
Dean and Clark showed a lot of activist strength for the Iconoclastic Democratic community, and it's a group that could easily keep growing if the party again falters in 2004. The voters aren't there yet, and neither candidate was quite right for the job. If ex-Deaniacs turn their energies locally, there's a new wing in the party opening up.