New parlor game: Who’s worse?
: Glenn Reynolds makes a few points in today’s anti-Kerry post that I feel compelled to address.
First, he quotes Hugh Hewitt saying that:
Kerry’s problem is that he is simply the worst major party candidate of my lifetime, period running against a likeable incumbent backed by a growing economy and a record of bold action in the global war on terrorism.
I’ll leave the last two-thirds of that to your judgment. But “simply the worst major party candidate of my lifetime”? Really? I thought Hugh was older than 8.
I offer for your consideration Michael Dukakis… Walter Mondale… Jimmy Carter (the loser)… George McGovern… Barry Goldwater (who cares if you love him; he made landslide a household word)… “Simply the worst major party candidate” of this generation? Naw, not yet.
And then Glenn says:
The Democrats’ problem is that the base, which, like bases do, cares mostly about emotional returns, wanted Howard Dean. But the leadership, which, like leaderships do, cares about status and connections and thus about winning, knew that Dean couldn’t win. They tried to split the difference with Kerry, whom they thought could fool the gullible folks in flover country into seeing him as a more-macho version of Bush, while winking to the base that he was really a tall Howard Dean with some medals. This was a dumb idea, and it hasn’t worked.
No, the Democratic base did not want Howard Dean. That’s why he never won a frigging primary! Give the people some credit! The Democratic base isn’t nearly nutty as Dean became.
This all came because BoiFromTroi speculated what things would be like with Gephardt instead (as I speculated the other day about what things would be like with Gore instead). And the moral to the story is still the same, I will readily grant: Kerry is neither an inspiring nor is he burning up the polls.
Oh, to have a Clinton….
