Early lessons from the primaries

[question everything]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/02/05/opinion/editorials/2_4_0420_08_19.txt

By: North County Times - Editorial

Americans want to like their president as a person. That simple fact may have sent George W. Bush to the White House in 2000, rather than his opponent, Al Gore, who despite his sterling resume was a hard guy to like.

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If Republicans are worried today, after the early rounds of the Democratic primaries, it's probably not so much at the front-runner, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, an experienced but dull and noncharismatic campaigner, but at the spirited run of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. Edwards is relentlessly optimistic even as he savages the Bush administration. His Southern drawl alone would make a Kerry-Edwards ticket a threat in the South.

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For most voters, deficits are not likely to trump a war ---- but the economy's effects upon voters' daily lives very well may, as the first President Bush learned to his cost. So that's still a wild card.

The Democratic losers offer lessons to both parties. Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt couldn't lure voters with protectionism. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who dropped out Tuesday night, demonstrated that Democrats do not want a candidate who runs as Bush Lite. And Kerry's showing among black voters in South Carolina, where he swamped the Rev. Al Sharpton, reminds us again that most of the votes still lie in the political center.