John Kerry goes ballistic

Now is not the best of times for John Kerry. Mickey Kaus is running a “Kerry Withdrawal Contest.” Josh Marshall has a long post about the Democratic nomination with the following on Kerry vs. Dean:

I had lunch today with someone who is not a politician but a fairly prominent Washington Democrat — certainly not someone from the party’s liberal wing. And in the course of answering a question, I said “If it [i.e. the nominee] ends up being Dean …” At which point, with the rest of my sentence still on deck down in my throat, my friend shot back : “It’s Dean.” It was effortless. He wasn’t happy or sad about it. He wasn’t trying to convince me — more like letting me in on something I apparently wasn’t aware of yet…. I like Kerry — I find the smarm attacks on him revolting. But, in a situation like this, it’s really hard for me to see how you can recover the support of voters that you once had in New Hampshire, but then lost.

What must be monumentally frustrating to Kerry (and Edwards, and Lieberman, etc.) is that he’s pretty decent on substance — earlier this year, I thought his foreign policy positions and rhetoric to be the best among the Democratic candidates. This is in contrast to Dean, who has been having difficulty with country names as of late. That was then. This is now, and Kerry’s in full pander mode. According to Eric Alterman:

Kerry sat down for two hours in Al Franken’s living room with about a dozen and a half journalists, writers and the odd historian, poet and cartoonist. It was all on the record and yet, it was remarkably open, honest and unscripted…. After the meeting broke up, Art Spiegelman tried to tell Kerry that he should just stand up, and in a clear, unmistakable fashion say, “I was wrong to trust President Bush with this war. I thought he would do the things he promised before embarking on this war but I now see I gave him more credit than he deserved. I wish I could have that vote back but I can’t. Now the thing to ask ourselves is where do we go from here and who’s the best person for the job?”

Now let’s click over to Kerry’s interview in the December 2003 Rolling Stone (NOTE: Kerry said the following before hearing Spiegelman’s advice). It would be safe to say that Kerry uses some very strong language to describe President Bush’s policy towards Iraq:

RS: Did you feel you were blindsided by Dean’s success? Kerry: Well, not blindsided. I mean, when I voted for the war, I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, “I’m against everything”? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to fuck it up as badly as he did? I don’t think anybody did.

When informed of the comment, Brookings Institution presidential scholar Stephen Hess told the New York Post, “It’s so unnecessary. In a way it’s a kind of pandering [by Kerry] to a group he sees as hip . . . I think John Kerry is going to regret saying this.” (link via Glenn Reynolds). Actually, there’s another passage of the RS interview that I found to be much more revealing of the tenor of the Democratic primary:

RS: What do you think of Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor of California? Kerry: Well, first of all, Arnold’s a friend of mine. I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s a capable guy. I mean, he’s smart and capable. I would have preferred that there had been no recall. I went out and campaigned against it. But I understand the anger that existed out there. RS: Do you think that same anger is propelling Dean’s candidacy? Kerry: Other people have to determine that. I’m not an analyst. I’m running for president based on my vision for the country, and I think I have a longer, stronger, deeper record of fighting against those interests, and representing that anger, than Howard Dean. (emphasis added)

The Democratic primary boils down to “representing that anger.” And there’s no way at this point that anyone will beat Dean at that game. The thing is, no matter how you slice and dice the opinion polls, the “anger” is still confined to hard-core Democratic primary voters. And the more that the Democratic candidates appeal to it, the more they risk alienating the rest of the voting spectrum. As Alterman himself observes, “I represent a tiny sliver of the electorate that can’t even elect a mayor of New York City.” If Kerry’s behavior is any indication, winning the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination will prove to be a Pyrrhic victory at best. UPDATE: William Saletan, reporting for Slate from the Florida Democratic Party convention, thinks the Rolling Stone epithet is part of “The New Kerry”:

He curses a blue streak. Having used the F-word in Rolling Stone (“Did I expect George Bush to f— it up as badly as he did? I don’t think anybody did”) and complained in New Hampshire about working people “getting screwed by special interests,” Kerry tells the Florida audience that FDR invited them to “sit on your ass” and that Bush will “kick your ass.” In his Q and A, Kerry swears, “The very first thing I will do is give a damn good inaugural address.” Unless, of course, voters tell him to go to hell.