March 21, 2005

IN MUCH THE SAME WAY WILLIAM CHESTER MINOR WAS AN OPTIMIST:

The Eternal Optimist: John Kerry is on the road again, listing excuses for losing in 2004 and looking like a 2008 campaigner (PERRY BACON JR., Mar. 28, 2005, TIME)

It seemed as if the campaign had never ended. There was John Kerry standing on a chair in a blue neighborhood of Atlanta, in the Democrat-friendly tavern Manuel's, speaking to 100 folks, many of them wearing Kerry-Edwards T shirts. The Massachusetts Senator insisted that he wasn't "one to lick wounds," but then he did: he noted that Bush had won with the smallest percentage margin ever for an incumbent and complained that the Republican team had six years to develop its electoral strategy while his had only eight months. And although he claimed that "my focus is not four years from now," he made sure his audience knew just how viable a candidate he had been--and could be again. "We actually won in the battleground states," Kerry said, adding that his loss in Ohio was so close that if "half the people ... at an Ohio State football game" had voted differently, he would be in the Oval Office now.

Kerry's words and moves suggest that he thinks Nov. 2, 2004, was merely a detour on his road to the White House.


Optimism would be one name for it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 21, 2005 11:34 AM
Comments

According to Kerry: America's economy is the worse since Hoover, Iraq is a Viet-Nam quagmire, America is adrift w.o. a compass and only France and Germany can point the way...

Why do we confuse optimism with narcissism?

Posted by: Moe from NC at March 21, 2005 12:42 PM

If I remember correctly, the main battlegrounds were FL, PA and OH. Kerry won only one of them, probably because 150 % of the dead turn out to vote in Philly and Pittsburg. He lost in OH despite high turnout among the dead in Cleveland and he wasn't even close in FL, despite all those NY elderly voting there. Beside all of this, he really, really won though. I wonder where Theresa hides his pills.

Posted by: Peter at March 21, 2005 12:46 PM

He won PA with less than his margin in Philly. IOW, without Street pulling in the graveyard, felon and wino votes, Ketchup Boy would have lost it too.

He got stomped into a mudhole in Florida.

Posted by: bart at March 21, 2005 1:16 PM

"if 'half the people ... at an Ohio State football game' had voted differently"

If my aunt had...

Posted by: Rick T. at March 21, 2005 1:51 PM

democrats (that manage to keep a straight face) must be the politest people in the world. the next election will see all the shady voting practices from 2000/2004 cleaned up and a real landslide produced for the republican candidate.

kerry won't even be alive by 2008.

Posted by: cjm at March 21, 2005 1:58 PM

What? You don't see the grandeur?

Posted by: ghostcat at March 21, 2005 1:59 PM

Eight months?!? Who is Kerry deluding? He has been shaping his political message since 1969.

Posted by: jim hamlen at March 21, 2005 3:22 PM

He may not comprehend it yet, but Kerry's setting himself up in 2008 to be Hillary Clinton's tackling dummy and the national media's comedy relief in general for the primary season. He'll be a source of derision among his own party members by Groundhog Day of that year, while Republicans may even feel sorry for the guy by then.

Posted by: John at March 21, 2005 3:43 PM

Harold Stassen, your successor has arrived!

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at March 21, 2005 3:57 PM

I don't personally know a single Democrat that even wanted Kerry as the nominee in 2004, and no one I've talked with thought he did a good job as a candidate. I imagine that when he runs in 2008, there will be many Democrats who are quite hostile. People generally don't like someone they consider to have lead their team to defeat.

Posted by: Chris Durnell at March 21, 2005 4:55 PM

Delusion is another name for it.

Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at March 21, 2005 10:53 PM

Chris,

You are 100% right. I've never understood the appeal of John Kerry. What exactly is his constituency? He's not a pseudo-intellectual anti-labor policy wonk like Dukakis, he's not a brand-name like Kennedy, he's not a labor union or certainly a teachers' union guy. Who is out there who would really say 'John Kerry is my man?'

Posted by: bart at March 22, 2005 7:27 AM
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