Time To Bash Kerry

If you're asking the Democrats, it is. Check out the article by the great Jonathan Last who opines that Kerry wasn't such a bad candidate, as far as candidates per se go.

It was well written and argued, and I agreed with a good bit of it, insofar as Kerry was great on paper and on the stump, but his campaign was a wreck, where very talented communicators like Tad Devine, Chad Clanton and others were tossed to the sharks from August on.

The real death of Kerry was done by the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, but more really his failure to respond to them. They would have harmed him nonetheless, but they could have been a flash in the pan if Kerry had countered them. It's not like the campaign didn't see them coming.

But more to the point of this post's title...Remember what I said earlier about the value of efforts done for a losing campaign. The Democrats throw flaming hot nails at members of their own party who don't win elections because they committed the cardinal sin of getting too few votes. Gore was excoriated for his failure to win in 2000, and the list of ways he blew the election were chronicled. Mike Dukakis was persona non-grata at the convention this year, and Walter Mondale, resurrected after his historic drubbing by Ronald Reagan in 1984, was finally euthanized in 2002 after losing to Norm Coleman for the Minnesota Senate. Shooting your own wounded isn't all that honorable a practice.

Kerry was a better man than his own party now gives credit for. But it makes you wonder why anyone would want to vote for any Democrat, given that his own party will barbecue him if he loses, no matter how close the election.