Electability Ain’t Kerry

It’s interesting, he left out what his mainstream values are: surrender U.S. national security to the United Nations, expand the federal government at all costs, get the government in charge of as much of people’s lives as possible, cut national defense, eliminate weapons systems, destroy and cut back on intelligence gathering operations. Those are the mainstream values of John Kerry, Tennessee and Virginia. Not yours.

I also played for you a Jeff Greenfield sound bite from CNN, where he compares Kerry’s speech to Clinton (which I didn’t hear) and also says that Kerry is ‘striking general election themes.’ That’s mainstream press code language for moving to the center.
But, if he’s already beginning to run a mainstream general election campaign, my friends, code lingo for moving to the center, are the nation’s liberals going to want to hear that? They haven’t cared about any of that; they haven’t even been listening to Kerry on issues. There’s not a one of these voters that can tell you one thing Kerry stands for because it hasn’t mattered. All they’re voting for is somebody that they think can beat Bush. If he’s already going to start moving to the center, you’re going to have a bunch of liberals who think they have been scammed. Once these Democrats get over the Christmas-morning rush of opening their presents with the guy they think can beat Bush, the cavalry is going to fight back here, and there are going to be some things about Kerry these people don’t know yet.

In the audio link below, I read heavily from a piece by William Saletan at Slate.com, headlined, “Kerried Away.” Part of Saleten’s point is that Kerry is not actually more electable than John Edwards, but that Democrats have glommed onto Kerry, because he won a few primaries. What he’s setting up here is that Democrats may be nominating the wrong guy in terms of real electability, based on who’s got the broader appeal elsewhere. It’s really Edwards. They’re going with Kerry simply because Kerry has demonstrated he can win, they think, because he’s won a couple of early Democrat primaries.
I’m guaranteeing you that Terry McAuliffe is on the phone begging Edwards to stay in but don’t run against Kerry. He must be telling him to run to set himself up in the future, but keep the horse race going so the media will continue to cover these primaries, continue to cover the big states, Super Tuesday, then California, New York. <i>We need press coverage on this and we’ll pay you back here for this, little Johnny, but just make sure that Kerry is opposed so it looks like he’s really fighting off some contenders and really winning big so we can really sway what’s happening out there.</I>
That’s what’s at stake here. And you know, it may well be that John Edwards is the worst thing that could have ever happened to Hillary Clinton, too, because before all this is said and done, John Edwards may be the preferred nominee next time around, not Hillary.