HIS LAST DAY AS A SENATOR:

C-SPAN Highlights

Tonight
* Democratic National Convention (8pm) - LIVE
* Sen. Kerry Accepts Nomination
* Speakers Include: Madeleine Albright, Fmr. Sec. of State, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
* Alexandra & Vanessa Kerry, Daughters of John Kerry

John Kerry and War (NY Times, 7/29/04)

When he accepts the Democratic presidential nomination tonight, John Kerry needs to give the nation a clearer idea of how his choices would have differed from President Bush's - particularly when it comes to the war in Iraq. The nation deserves to be told whether Mr. Kerry would have voted to authorize the invasion if he had known that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction.

A palpable sense is developing--even in organs of the far Left, like the Times--that the Kerry campaign is auguring into the ground. With polls having been unmoved by the Edwards nomination and actually slipping as they headed into a convention that America has tuned out en masse, while the economy continues to improve and Iraq fades from view, it gets harder to summon a rationale for a Kerry victory and the stories today about all the things he has to pull off with his speech tonight bespeak a major rethink about his chances.

On the plus side, the Kerry team has stolen a page from the Bush playbook and lowered expectations so far that if he doesn't make you want to Elvis your tv he'll seem Churchillian. But it's asking an awful lot of a man who's devoid of human warmth, nevermind charisma, to create a connection with the few viewers who'll be tuned in. He needs a dramatic gimmick and he needs it very badly if he's going to dominate the headlines through at least the weekend. He seems steadfastly opposed to offering any coherent policies and the old "I'll go to Iraq" won't work now that we've already turned over sovereignty. There's really only one option left: he'll announce his resignation from the Senate, casting it as self-confidence in his inevitable victory and dedicating himself full time to the campaign to save America from the forces of darkness.

It's a brilliant move, giving people their first impression of him as confident, bold, aggressive, and optimistic. It's surprising enough that the media will buzz about it for a few days and be forced to show that Convention clip, if no other, on the Sunday shows. (Oh, and it helps that the MA legislature is overriding Governor Mitt Romney's veto of their bill tomorrow which forbids him from naming a replacement.) It's a done deal.

MORE:
-The Heaviest Load Is for Kerry Alone (Ronald Brownstein, July 29, 2004, LA Times)

For three days, Democrats have built a frame for their nominee. Now, John F. Kerry has to fill in the picture.

From the Rev. David Alston, a Kerry crewmate in Vietnam, to vice presidential nominee John Edwards and a procession of retired generals Wednesday night, Democrats have systematically portrayed their candidate as principled, politically courageous, optimistic, forward-looking and, above all, tough and decisive enough to protect America in a turbulent time.

But many analysts agree that praise may quickly fade in voters' minds unless they see those qualities in Kerry when he stands before them, alone, in his acceptance speech tonight.

-
Why a Conflicted Kerry Voted Yes -- and Later No -- on Iraq (Janet Hook, Mary Curtius and Greg Miller, July 29, 2004, LA Times)

Late one night in September 2002, Senate Democrats were bitterly debating whether to authorize war with Iraq. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) had been agonizing over the issue, but now was urging colleagues to support a compromise that would still give President Bush much of the power he sought. Liberals were steamed.

"Why would you trust the president?" asked Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Despite such objections, Kerry two weeks later voted for the congressional resolution paving the way for the war. And no issue has dogged him more than that single vote, which has come under fire from the left and the right.

Many Democrats have criticized him for supporting the war. Republicans have accused him of changing his position for political gain.

A look at how Kerry made up his mind on the war vote indicates that he was conflicted before he cast his vote. The concerns that apparently plague him — the questions he asked at public hearings, the caveats and reservations he voiced on the Senate floor before casting his vote — reflected his ambivalence as well as his ambition. And that ambivalence sowed the seeds of Kerry's future shifts on the issue, including his vote a year later against a bill providing $87 billion in aid that went mainly to Iraq.

The ambition didn't?
-Is the Wunderkind so wonderful?: John Edwards may be the toast of Boston. But he has weaknesses nonetheless (Lexington, Jul 29th 2004 The Economist)

IT WAS not hard to find Democrats in Boston this week who were willing to admit, strictly in private of course, to doubts about John Kerry. The great fear hanging over an otherwise jubilant convention was that the Party of the People had managed to nominate the least people-friendly New Englander since Michael Dukakis. (Mr Dukakis, incidentally, was strangely not invited to take the microphone at the Fleet Centre, despite living nearby, and despite having once been Mr Kerry's boss.) [...]

Mr Edwards brings strikingly different qualities to the Democratic ticket from his boss—natural talent rather than storied experience and southern charm rather than Yankee gravitas—and, as an added bonus, he makes Mr Kerry lighten up in his company. Mr Edwards is also matched against a vice-president who is widely reviled as a symbol of everything distasteful about this administration, from blinkered ideology to crony capitalism.

But is the Wunderkind really so wonderful? Though a love-struck media may now want to strew more rose petals in his path, he has two big vulnerabilities that the Republicans will be sure to exploit. The first has to do with things he has done; the second, more serious, has to do with the things he hasn't.

Mr Edwards has had two successful but controversial careers: first as trial lawyer and then as an economic populist. Republican attempts to paint him as an ambulance-chaser may be a little crude: Mr Edwards's clients included plenty of children who were horrifically harmed by corporate negligence. But they are right to say the country's tort litigation system is a monster. The litigation industry consumes some $230 billion a year—or $3,000 for every family of four—in higher prices and insurance premiums. The industry also adds to the soaring costs of health care because of “defensive” tests and procedures. (Mr Edwards made some of his fortune suing obstetricians.)

Mr Edwards's presence on the ticket gives the Republicans a chance to make tort reform a highlight of their campaign, which business will appreciate. [...]

The bigger problem for Mr Edwards is the list of things he hasn't done. First, his public service adds up to only six years in the Senate; there, his record for attending roll calls (partly spoiled by campaigning) has been poor, and he has no serious legislation to his name.

The impression of a young man in a hurry is compounded by the fact he got the presidential bug so early. [...]

This lack of experience is particularly striking in foreign affairs, where his resumé is as short as Mr Cheney's is long.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 29, 2004 2:30 PM