Kerry's Appeal

It was a throwaway comment I made but it struck a nerve, so I'm repeating it here:

I think I finally figured out why Kerry has the appeal he does.

For months, we've had polls where an "Unnamed Democrat" beat Bush in 2004, even though Bush beat all of the named candidates head to head.

Kerry's the only one smart enough to realize that the unnamed democrat outpolled every democrat.  He's making himself as bland as possible to get the "unnamed democrat" vote. Kerry symbolizes nothing except for "Not Bush", and that's why people are voting for him. Bush has bullied everyone for three years into a state of learned helplessness, and they're stumbling through with barely enough wits about them to blindly reach for the most obvious Not Bush candidate out there.

All the rest of the candidates make these voters think. They don't want that. They just want a generic, obvious, Not Bush guy so they can get on with it already.

I don't think this augurs well.