The large residual of political skill

Man, is the left half of the blogosphere going to town on Richard Gephardt. Guest-posting last week at Talking Points Memo, both Ruy Teixeira and John B. Judis say that picking Gephardt would be a mistake. Belle Waring is even less enthusiastic:

Gephardt? Gephardt??!! Please, God, don’t let the Democratic party snatch certain defeat from the jaws of potential victory by choosing Dick Gephardt as the VP candidate. Pleasepleaseplease. Anybody but Gephardt. If the DP makes me cast a vote for a Kerry/Gephardt ticket I’m going to…well, crap, just put out like a straight-ticket ho. They could put a can of processed cheese food on the ballot against Bush, and I would vote for it. But I’m not going to enjoy it! And no ticket with Gephardt on it is going to win, ever in a million years!

Waring links to this post from Fafblog, which provides the most honest assessment I’ve ever read about Richard Gephardt’s political magnetism:

Gephardt would have an amazing pull with loser voters, voters who like losing the House to opposing parties, voters who have a long history of being supported by decrepit and dying labor institutions in failing political campaigns, just people who generally like to lose. He could swing loser states, such as Wyoming or Rhode Island, or put states with a large loser population, such as Nevada or Alabama, into play. The upside to having a Kerry-Gephardt ticket is it would take all those people who go into shock in the voting booth thinkin’ “Oh dear god we nominated Kerry?!” and push them just far enough over the edge with “Oh dear god we nominated Kerry and Gephardt?!” that it would sort of jar them into a feeling of complacent somnambulism that would render them susceptible to voting for Kerry-Gephardt anyway. The downside to this is that such a hypthetical waking sleepstate could also get them to vote for Nader.

So who do these people prefer? If you read Judis, Teixeira, and Waring, it’s John Edwards. Here’s the thing, though — just how different is Edwards from Gephardt? On policy positions, both of them lean strongly protectionist, and both of them voted in favor of the war in Iraq. Both of them championed the down-and-outers during their primary campaigns. Edwards is from the South and Gephardt is from the Midwest, but I’m betting the reason Gephardt is still in play is because Kerry thinks that the Midwest will be the key battleground, while the South doesn’t matter. If one were to choose based on political experience, even Edwards would have to concede that Gephardt’s twenty years in DC outranks John Edwards’ single term in the Senate. So is there a difference? As one of those still on the fence, yeah, in my mind there’s a difference. If Kerry picks Gephardt, there’s no chance in hell I’m pulling the donkey lever. If he picks Edwards… I dunno. When I see Richard Gephardt on television, all I can think of is, “idiotic protectionist.” When I see John Edwards on television, I think, “Hmmm… seems like an OK guy, maybe he’s not as much of a protectionist as I suspect.” Why is this? Policy is not the only thing that matters in making political choices. There is such a thing as political skill. For example, the most important gift in campaigning is the ability to say something a voter disagrees with while making that voter think you’re still a good guy. Reagan had it. Clinton had it. Edwards has it. Gephardt doesn’t have it. UPDATE: Thanks to Howard Kurtz for serving up an approving link to this post.