John Kerry: The ideal presidential candidate - or another Al Gore?

[T_i_B]

Interesting article from the UK Independent. Make of this what you will.

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=440720

Construct your identikit Democratic Presidential candidate and you would come up with someone pretty much like John Forbes Kerry. Handsome, tall and intelligent. Jutting jaw and gravitas by the bucketful. A Vietnam war hero who devoted his career to public life, including almost two decades of distinguished service in the Senate. This sort of résumé is to die for.

True, opponents might bestow upon him that damning label of "Massachusetts liberal". But his particular specimen is no wimp. He owns a Harley-Davidson and indulges in macho sports such as ice hockey and wind-surfing. And not only are his initials the stuff of American political myth. He also owns the most perfectly sculpted thatch of hair of any Democrat since the first JFK inhabited the White House.

But something has gone horribly wrong. When Kerry travelled to South Carolina this week to formally announce his candidacy, it was not to "launch" a campaign that is already nine months old. His purpose was to revive one that risks being swamped by the astonishing insurgency of Howard Dean, Kerry's fellow New Englander, his natural rival and now his potential nemesis.

And so the former Vermont governor has become the acknowledged favourite for the nomination. He is eating into Kerry's natural constituency of liberals and educated professionals, and draining the fundraising pool at which every candidate must drink. With a politician's practised insouciance, Kerry says he expected such a challenge all along. In fact Dean was never in the script. Nor, it should be added, was Wesley Clark, the former Nato commander and Vietnam veteran, who would steal Kerry's best issue if, as many expect, he enters the Democratic race later this month.

[molly]

1. This says it all

For all the success of Dean, Kerry is the man in the current Democratic field that Bush strategists fear. They do not relish the prospect of televised Presidential debates pitting the relatively short and semi-articulate Bush, the swaggering chicken-hawk, against a tall, polished and thoroughly knowledgeable opponent who fought courageously in the war Bush pulled family strings to avoid. First though Kerry must win the Democratic primaries - and with the party's base in its current mood, his Vietnam record could be irrelevant.

[w4rma]

5. … said Dean is a candidate "our party needs to take seriously."

…
Republican political consultant David M. Carney, who ran Bob Dole's 1996 New Hampshire campaign and was White House political director in the presidential administration of George H.W. Bush, said Dean is a candidate "our party needs to take seriously."

"I think Howard Dean is our biggest threat," Carney said, adding that Senate and House members running for the Democratic nomination could be more "target rich" because they have cast hundreds of votes on controversial issues that could be used against them.

"He's a governor who for 11 years balanced budgets; there are a lot of businesses in Vermont who considered him a pro-business governor; he's got a 100 percent rating with the {National Rifle Association}," Carney said. "There's a passion there that's really scary. He could ignite people who haven't participated in the process. … He's certainly beatable on his positions, but I don't think many people think it's a slam dunk. I don't know anyone lately {who} thinks that."
http://www.post-gazette.com/election/20030907targetdean0907p2.asp

[rock]

2. The ideal presidential candidate - or another Al Gore?

The ideal presidential candidate = another Al Gore. You don't have a contrast in this phrase.

[blm]

3. That was my first thought, too.

Al Gore was only turned into a loser by the MEDIA who wouldn't give him an honest read EVER.

I am glad that Kerry doesn't suffer from any form of stagefright. He will shine consistently, but the media will still do its best to destroy him.

[kclown]

4. Kerry is good, but

he can't be said to be one who says what he thinks.  Nobody
could think as much peripheral bluster as Kerry often says.  

A big part of Bush's appeal is the straight-shooter thing.  

I don't think Bush will lose to subtlety.  

Dean has the issues right, but lack of experience is what got
us where we are today.  Same goes for Edwards.

I am ready to listen to Clark.

[Lindacooks]

6. What was wrong with Gore?

Besides the way the right wing media treated him, of course. He is an honest and intelligent man who was a wonderful veep and would have been a great president. I'm very sick of people belittling him, especially considering the crap that's currently squatting in the WH.

[T_i_B]

7. "What was wrong with Gore?"

Not enough supreme court judges mate. :eyes:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. Do you think any other Dem candidate will have any more...

...Supreme Court justices?

All Gore did was win the popular vote. And had he not been cheated out of the Electoral College majority that was seconded by 5 bought-off members of the Supreme Court, none of us would be sitting in this current mess.

"Another Al Gore"? We should be so lucky.

[T_i_B]

12. It was just a cynical quip mate.

There is a lot more to the article than Al Gore comparisons. Besides, I'm sure those comparisons apply to more than just Kerry. I'm getting worried that people are not nessessarily seeing beyond the headlines here.

[Sweetpea]

9. He'll only be another al gore if the election is stolen again.

[Larkspur]

10. John Kerry is no Al Gore

Gore opposed the proposed the recent Iraq War and warned Congress to reject the resolution last year. He warned that the Bush Admin was treating the Iraq War as a election strategy tool when he quoted Andrew Card.

Kerry voted FOR the 2002 Iraq War, which allowed Bush to initiate hostilities after making half-hearted attempts to win UN approval.

The only similarities between Gore of 2000 and Kerry 2003-04 is that Kerry has the same set of advisors who gave Gore conflicting advice on how to campaign.

[HPLeft]

11. Kerry and Gore

Fair story, but I remain convinced that John Kerry will be the next President of the United States. Dean will run strong, win several primaries, but at the end of the day, Kerry will get the nomination. Once we get to the General Election, Kerry will present Dubya with the kind of humiliating dressing-down that he has justly earned.

Secondly, I think Al Gore is a much better man that George W Bush can ever hope to be. Gore would have never dragged us into Iraq in such a boneheaded, cocaine-induced way. If a decision had been arrived at that somehow Hussein had become a serious impediment to peace, I think that the more more internationally-friendly Clinton-Gore approach would have found a way to bring most of the world along with it - as in Kosovo. But I seriously doubt that it would have been any kind of a high priority.

Islamic extremists have never had a better recruiting tool than dubious Dubya. When they finally get around to making an honest movie about the Bush Administration, they should call it "Ernest Goes To Washington".