The Democratic Primaries
I'm behind on blogging this week; I had a lot of work to do for the course.
I must be well on the way to being a full-fledged pundit; I was completely mistaken about what would happen in Iowa, to say nothing of the rest of the race. Kerry, who in some ways seems born to be the front-runner, is once again the front-runner in fact.
I am a faithful reader of Mickey Kaus, who seems to find it impossible to take Kerry seriously. Kerry often seems to show no genuine emotion, which would explain an extreme slipperiness on policy positions. Sometimes only his lips move when he speaks; he is expressionless, like the people Conan O'Brien forces to speak by moving "their" lips.
Update: Kaus seems to say this picture of stiffness combined with insincerity is already the "old" Kerry; the new Kerry has some of the same Bob Schrum lines that Gore used to use: big companies/the rich and powerful have shafted us, we're helpless victims. Perhaps not what Americans want to hear, in addition to not being true. Leaders have to make tough decisions, usually with some group of stakeholders angrily opposing them. So?
Clark seems roughly as dead as Dean. If so, he will surely wonder for the rest of his life what the hell happened. Why wasn't he another Eisenhower? (Of course he's a Democrat, he says: he's pro-choice, pro-affirmative action, pro-environment and pro-labor. He got off a nice line in the Thursday debate: "I voted for Bill Clinton and Al Gore. When I got out of the military, I looked at both parties. I'm pro-choice, pro-affirmative action, pro-environment, pro-labor. I was either going to be the loneliest Republican in America or I was going to be a happy Democrat." But in fact he has voted Republican until recently, and he really wants a party to join him, rather than the other way around. Eisenhower decided rather late in his life that he was a Republican, and then he had to learn to put down the "socialists" and "Reds" in the other party).
(Update: my favourite story about Eisenhower's trip to the presidency, which included a term as president of Columbia University. Supposedly the Board at Columbia asked the advice of Robert Maynard Hutchins, the famous president of the University of Chicago. Hutchins recommended "Eisenhower," meaning the General's brother Milton, who was actually a university president. This site on the history of Columbia says this story is unlikely, but it also confirms that the General was an unlikely fit with an Ivy League university).
Some are suggesting Clark will go down roughly in parallel with Dean: they were the outsiders, running against Washington insiders, known more as pissed off at Bush than as having consistent "anti-war" views. Anyway, Democrats seem to have decided that whether they are themselves anti-war or not, their nominee will have no chance if he is.
Edwards: Southern, a real-life version of a lawyer in a John Grisham novel, who can say he's battled big companies--and won (and sometimes put family doctors
A Kerry-Edwards ticket? Edwards-Lieberman (since Lieberman is clearly at least some help in winning Florida)?
Update: Kaus is all over the latest numbers showing that while Edwards is still behind, he may be enjoying the biggest upward surge of them all.
One question: Edwards is expected to do well in the South because he is from there, sounds that way, and all that. (There was always a sense that Gore had to practice his Tennessee accent in front of a mirror). But what about the religion issue? When Dean, during his time as front-runner, was asked how he would campaign in the South, he said something like: he could talk about Jesus if he had to. Will Edwards talk about Jesus? Wonkette says he is drawn to the Hare Krishna, of all things. (Link via Kaus and Instapundit. Wonkette is the work of Nick Denton).
Update on Wonkette: Nick Gillespie on Hit and Run very properly credits Ana Marie Cox as the mind behind Wonkette (hence the feminine form, which had puzzled me). Gillespie says Cox is "a pre-menopausal Lucianne Goldberg at the top of her game."
Kerry supposedly has said something like: We can win without the South. Gore could have won with one more northern state. (I can't find this quickly). I think it was Michael Kinsley who said: what the major media consider a gaffe is usually the telling of the simple truth).
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