[Mb-civic] Don't run, John Kerry - Ellen Goodman - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Don't run, John Kerry

By Ellen Goodman  |  April 28, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

I HAVE LONG believed that any columnist who writes about a presidential 
election more than two years before Election Day should have her fingers 
peeled from her keyboard and be taken off to a rehab clinic for 
political junkies. The only reason I risk that fate now is to soothe an 
escalating series of anxiety attacks that range from ''Uh-oh" to ''Oh, 
no" to a shrieking ''YIPES!"

The signs that John Kerry is going to run for president in 2008 are 
rising faster than the pollen count. There was the requisite New York 
Times op-ed -- How many days late? How many dollars short? -- on getting 
out of Iraq. There was the Globe op-ed that preceded the speech 
supporting war dissenters at Faneuil Hall to an audience of groupies 
yelling ''Run" and ''2008." There was Ted Kennedy's remark, ''If he 
runs, I'm supporting him."

And then there was his op-ed in The Manchester Union-Leader defending 
New Hampshire's place as first-in-the-nation primary. A true profile in 
courage.

All of this leads me to blurt out: ''Stop him before he kills (the 
Democrats' chances) again."

I am not an opponent of Senator Kerry. I'm a constituent. I've voted for 
him six different times. On Nov. 2, 2004, I briefly wished that the 
Constitution let us pick a president by the early exit polls.

Moreover, I fully understand Kerry's longing to take it once more from 
the top. After losing an election, you wake up at night thinking about 
how you shoulda woulda coulda done it betta. You nurture the 
irresistible fantasy that next time you'd do it right. This is why 
serial lovers keep getting into the same sort of relationship. Now I've 
got it!

But let's go to the 2004 videotape. In the primaries, Kerry was 
Everydemocrat's second choice. After Super Tuesday, the common wisdom 
was that Kerry won because he could win. An Ohio voter even told a 
reporter, ''This guy just looks presidential. And in this country I 
think it's all about the image." It wasn't a presidential primary, it 
was a presidential casting call.

Democrats are cute when they get pragmatic, but not necessarily 
successful. This time, the stalwarts were convinced they'd found a 
moderate who couldn't be polarized. But he was. They thought they found 
a decorated veteran -- three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver 
Star -- who couldn't be trashed. But he was.

Kerry is not the only one who still imagines a thousand belated 
rejoinders for the swift boat attackers. He's not the only one who 
cannot believe he actually said of Iraq war funding, ''I actually did 
vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."

In ''Politics Lost," Joe Klein blames ''the pollster-consultant 
industrial complex" of focus groups and strategists and market-tested 
messages for the current state of politics. But he also says, damningly, 
that in 2004, ''Kerry proved weak, indecisive, and, yes, aloof."

Remember Bush versus Anybody But Bush? Remember websites like 
KerryHatersforKerry.com <http://KerryHatersforKerry.com/> announcing, 
''He's awful and I'm for him"? In the end, a majority of likely voters 
thought we were on the wrong track and voted for the conductor anyway. 
In the end, the president who lied to us about war and weapons of mass 
destruction looked like the straight talker. That's how bad it was.

Kerry had many fine moments. I saw some of them on the trail and in the 
debates. But as many have said, Kerry is a politician who has more 
policies than ideas. Ask what he believes in and the answer is a 
10-point plan. He ran a cautious campaign against a reckless commander 
in chief. And while caution is not a moral failing, Kerry's gut seems to 
have a surgical bypass through his cranium.

This time he'd get it right? What the Democrats need this time out is 
not a messenger honed to squeak on the margin of undecideds, but a 
vision of what's gone wrong and how to right it. As Michael Tomasky 
writes in The American Prospect, they need a liberal message of the 
common good that trumps the conservative message -- a view that we are 
in this globalized, post-industrial, post-9/11 world together and must 
''pull together, make some sacrifices, and, just sometimes, look beyond 
our own interests to solve our problems and create the future."

John Kerry is a good, honorable, thoughtful man. And a lousy 
presidential candidate. He couldn't do ''ideas" the first time. He 
wouldn't do them the second time. It's just not in him.

Watching his warm-up, I'm reminded of a parking place in my 
neighborhood. It looks open and tempting. But over it is a sign that 
warns: Don't Park Here. Don't Even Think About It.

John, please. Don't even think about it.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/28/dont_run_john_kerry/
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