According to Slate's Saletan, exit polls show that voters actually prefer Edwards on the issues. So Kerry is NOT the true first preference of Democrats; they are lemming-like in following the media's admonitions that the winner of two small states out of 50 is the man to go with. He certainly has nothing of Edward's awesome charisma. He is a true protege of Michael Dukakis, whose lieutenant governor he was-and similarly as exciting as mud. No Kennedyesque or Clintonesque smile on this guy. And the New York Times slandered Clark today by saying that results showed that he was not as he claimed, the most electable candidate in the South. No, a party primary shows only the behavior of party members, not swing voters, and not members of the opposing party, who might be peeled off of their party's ranks if they get fed up with their own man, and see things they like in the other guy, as Clark might have been able to do. Through its incompetence and corruption, the Democratic Party has managed to alienate up to 80% of all white men. A huge proportion of this group are concentrated in the South. Carter and Clinton were able to get through to the general electorate. Kerry may not. George McGovern was a WWII AAF veteran, even bombed Ploesti, but people came to see him as weak and flaky on defense. Wait until the Republicans find out that he voted against the First Gulf War, which almost EVERYONE agrees was necessary. Kerry is a Cartoon Liberal, the kind that no matter what ANY kind of question you ask him about defense or foreign policy gets a glazed or startled look and babbles "Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam...", and then goes on to compulsively pander to the gods of Political Correctness on issues like gay marriage, as the Republicans grin and lick their chops like hungry wolves. Some months ago, I predicted that the Democrats would nominate a McGovernesque fool of a candidate. I regret that it's looking like I was right. And before my previous critic goes into his tribalistic Cartoon Liberal mode, and denounces me for hating the Left more than I hate the Right, let me say I take no joy in watching the only alternative to George Bush flub yet another election......

I am not sure who the "best candidate to beat Bush" is - the eccentric Michael Moore argued Clark; the wacky Ted Rall argues Dean; you seem to be arguing Edwards....

The problem that most voters have with Edwards is not where he stands on the issues. The problem is that he has served only a short period of time in government. He can be attacked on "inexperience", and some of those attacks will stick.

It was my impression, talking to people on Caucus day here in Michigan, that Clark and Edwards were pulling from the same pool of voters. I was left with the impression that if Clark dropped out, many of his supporters will switch to Edwards (and, to a lesser extent, that many Edwards supporters would switch to Clark). If I am right, Edwards will likely start drawing enough voters to accumulate additional delegates, and will have the opportunity to reinvent himself as the alternative candidate or as the best choice for Vice President.

In no small part, events in Iraq and the performance of the economy will dictate the result of this election. If both seem to be going swimmingly, as the Bush Administration has long hoped, it is unlikely that any Dem could beat Bush. If the economy is sputtering or takes a turn for the worse, if there is no recovery in the employment market, if the situation in Iraq doesn't improve... there will be issues which are likely to lead the "political center" to seek alternatives to the incumbent.

That's not an argument for "hoping for the worst on the economy and Iraq" - I hope that all goes well and the Dems can still take back with White House. But it'll be harder.

     How about starting with the fact that Southerners and only Southerners have been able to run on the Democratic ticket with a strong civil rights record and platform? Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton. What is it that your typical Northern activist left-liberal extremist does not understand? How do these people keep missing the fact, brought up over and over and over again these days, that the place from which to get a candidate for president is the South? That the biggest reason for the breakup of the New Deal coalition is Richard Nixon's Southern strategy of appealing to the worst in America's hiden racist id? That in 1976, George Wallace was going to come to the Democratic convention with 45% of the delegates, until neutralized by Carter? That Northern Democrats who initially supported Carter in '76 were not closet racists, as sneering Cartoon Liberals endlessly loved to accuse them of being, but in fact people who grew up outside of safe elitist sneering liberal enclaves, and who REALLY had to deal with racists and racism every day, and often had to put up with verbal and physical intimidation and harassment every day that they stood up for their beliefs? That they wanted someone from the worst region notorious for racism presenting leadership and a role model for something different? That since him only Clinton made it to the White House? That we now look to people like Edwards or Clark (a "Twofer"; Southerner + Military experience) first with hope and then with desperation as a jackass like Kerry announces that he can win without the South, and then a week later goes South and campaign? Of course, Kerry won some Southern states in a Democratic primary. 80% of all white males no longer identify with it. The only people left voting in Democratic primaries are blacks and white "leftovers". OK, lets let the Northeastern liberal (whose state party didn't have the brains or the spine to tell the gay marriage special interest group to just lay low until after the election) run there and in Reagan Democrat country in November. As usual, his supporters can congratulate each other on how clever and representative they are at the convention - and get stomped in November. Wait until the Jewish-America voters find out that when Saddam's gas-laden Scuds were falling on Israel, Kerry was spinelessly voting against the First Gulf War (so much for the claim that Jews control the media-which has been useless in covering Kerr's voting record on military issues). But of course, Kerry is the candidate Democrats are congratulating themselves for voting for because he has a military record-not that "creepy" (neo-conservative and racist Mickey Kaus's language and smear) Wesley Clark. Yeah, right.
     Bush until 2009-the prospect makes me actually physically nauseous. Actually, our host here, Larry, is an Edwards supporter. I'd like to hear from him on Edwards.

KBK, you are expressing that the "typical Northern activist left-liberal extremist" is keeping an open mind, while you are operating on prejudice. ("Blacks and white 'leftovers'"? C'mon. You oppose Bush - which are you?)

I'm sure you have noted that, to date, all Presidential nominees and all Presidents have been white men. That does not mean that it would be either unwise or inappropriate for a party to nominate a woman or a member of a minority group as their Presidential candidate.

   I am a Northern leftover. There, I freely embrace the term, and to tell you the truth, am proud to say it. (I suppose that makes me prejudiced against myself, according to your definition). I believe in the old saying that a TRUE fan supports the home team even when it is down. I believe that when things that you support or treasure fall apart or hit hard times, and most people run away, that you roll up your sleeves and go to work to put them back together. I also think that sometimes you have to take a hard look at what you believe in or the strategies and tactics you're using to achieve them and engage in some honest self refelection and constructive criticism. True friends of the Democratic party and its historic goals have been and are doing that now more than ever. Hey, when I was working at the caucuses for Larry Saturday, all I heard from people was 1. They would vote for whomever they thought was best able to beat Bush 2. They truly felt frustrated by the media resources that average Americans rely on in putting together the data they need for that decision. They found the corporate media either a captive of the Republicans, or shallow and sensationalistic. None of the people expressing this opinion felt quite secure in their choice. I think that this also was why Kerry was helped; the nominating schedule, and the media's compulsion to declare a front-runner created a lemming march to a Kerry nomination. The tradition of treating politics as a sporting event instead of an intellectual exercise in civic duty is a media given. I have stated before that the primary schedule should begin in states where the party is weakest, not strongest.
     Obviously, there are more "leftovers" outside of the South than in it. Most political observers say that the South is now almost all Republican. Does speaking this fact make them prejudiced? When Kennedy considered MLK's requests, he told his people that granting them would require extreme political caution and skill. Did that make him prejudiced? When LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act, he turned to his aides and said "there goes the South". Did this mean that he was prejudiced? No, it just meant that he was as pragmatic a political observer as he was idealistic about civil rights. Please be careful whom you call a bigot. Leadership does not always consist of preaching to the converted; it often involves listening to people who think differently from you and then trying to bring them around to your point of view by persuasion. And why do advertisers hire likeable spokesman like sports heroes or individuals similar to people in their target market?
     Your point on women and minority candidates is a good one. I believe that history and experience have shown that on the local or state level, women and minority candidates are either no different as to electablity, and occasionally a better choice than a white male, in certain situations. But I also believe that there is something unique about the U.S. presidency. Besides the regioanl/racial anxieties we've talked about,the solitary national office of U.S. president unfortunately involves a psychological element of supreme warlord or Caesar or big daddy/grandfather/protector. Women as heads of nations have to deal with different dynamics than femal regional governors or legislators. Look at female national leaders overseas or in history: Hatshepsut, Cleopatra, Catherine the Great, Indira Gandhi, Margeret Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto - all tyrants or even nastier than the men around them. As for an African-American President, I would say look at Colin Powell. He'd have to be a kind of black Eisenhower. He'd probably have to be a Republican, an above-partisan kind of guy with military credentials, moderate views, likeable personality. I think that the reason why Powell never ran is because he knew that the Republicans have not merely adapted Nixon's Southern Strategy, but have remade themselves with it to the point that there is little left of their party and themselves but it. This is their party's element of self-destructive irrationallity. In 1976, polls showed that the only vice-presidential choice who could have saved Jerry Ford would have been Massachusetts Senator Edward W. Brooke. Ford took Dole, and lost.

As of today, your google search returns 41 hits. You may have given them some ideas...

Impeach Kerry next year. I don't think so! Kerry should be impeached now. He should never have gotten into the Senate. I was amazed in 1974 when he had the audacity to start a polical career. He is a self admitted war criminal. I watched while the people of Mass. made him a Senator in the early80's, thinking where is the drive to keep him out?
It's no surprise that John Kerry has devoted so much time and energy questioning George W. Bush's record as commander-in-chief. Nor is it any surprise that he recently launched a campaign calling on Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld to resign after a handful of military personnel humiliated al-Qa'ida terrorists in Abu Ghraib prison while attempting to obtain actionable intelligence about their plans to kill more of our troops.

These political attacks are just the latest round on Kerry's long list of black-bag antics designed to undermine America's military strength and resolve.

Kerry, who fancies himself a war hero, has spent much of his political career denigrating American military personnel and the nation they defend. But his anti-American actions preceded his first campaign for Congress -- indeed, they were the platform from which he launched his political career.

Like his comrade "Hanoi Jane" Fonda and so many other Leftist protagonists from the Age of Aquarius, Kerry was a child of wealth and privilege. Today, he is the wealthiest member of Congress (the "F" stands for "Forbes," after all) but don't expect that to be a central theme of his "man of the people" campaign. (In fact, the top five wealthiest Senators are all Democrats.)

Kerry grew up hobnobbing with the Massachusetts Cape glitterati, a life of leisure including all the accoutrements -- the best schools, the best vacation homes, the best yachts, etc. He socialized with the rich and famous, especially the Kennedy clan elites, where he was taken under the wing of his future patron saint, Teddy. He attempted to emulate John Kennedy's PT-109 heroics by joining the Navy and using his connections to obtain an assignment for a short tour on a swiftboat in Vietnam. Kerry then went on to collect three Purple Hearts in just two months -- all of dubious merit, but requisite for a ticket home to pursue his political aspirations.

Unlike John F. Kennedy, however, when John F. Kerry got home, there was no hero's welcome. The nation was in turmoil over our continued role in Vietnam, the result of limited but well-publicized Leftist protests against the war. So Kerry, ever the opportunist, endeavored to become the Left's most "useful idiot" (as Lenin called Western apologists for Soviet propaganda), collaborating with Fonda, et al., and leading protests accusing his "brethren" in Vietnam of all manner of atrocities.

Kerry was (and remains) an effective spokesperson for his Leftist cadre. His anti-war protest period culminated with his 1971 congressional testimony, after which he told the press, "There are all kinds of atrocities and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free-fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. I used 50-caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people. I took part in search-and-destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare. All of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions...."

Regarding the substance -- and source -- of Kerry's claims, Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to defect from the Soviet bloc, says "KGB priority number one at that time was to damage American power, judgment, and credibility. ... As a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet satellite of Romania, I produced the very same vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost word for word and planted it in leftist movements. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov managed our anti-Vietnam War operation. He often bragged about having damaged the U.S. foreign-policy consensus, poisoned domestic debate in the U.S., and built a credibility gap between America and European public opinion through our disinformation operations. Vietnam was, he once told me, 'our most significant success'."

As for the success of Kerry's anti-democracy protests and his leadership of the VVAW and association with Fonda's Winter Soldier Investigation, General Vo Nguyen Giap, Vietnam's most decorated military leader, wrote in retrospect that if not for the disunity created by such stateside protesters, Hanoi would have ultimately surrendered.

But the consequences of Kerry's actions should not stop with the fall of Saigon.

Kerry, by his own account, violated the UCMJ, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Code while serving as a Navy officer, and he further stands in violation of Article three, Section three of the U.S. Constitution.

Upon entering the Navy in 1966, John Kerry signed a six-year contract (plus a six-month extension during wartime) and an Officer Candidate contract for five years of active duty and active Naval Reserve. This indicates that Kerry was clearly a commissioned officer at the time of his 1970 meeting with NVA Communists in Paris -- in direct violation of the UCMJ's Article 104 part 904, and U.S. Code 18 U.S.C. 953. That meeting, and Kerry's subsequent coddling of Communists while leading mass protests against our military in the year that followed, also place him in direct violation of our Constitution's Article three, Section three, which defines treason as "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of warfare. (As General Vo Nguyen Giap is his witness....)

Thus, we refer our readers to the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, which states, "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President ... having previously taken an oath ... to support the Constitution of the United States, [who has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."

It is for this reason -- for his record of giving aid and comfort to the enemy while a member of the U.S. Armed Forces in violation of his oath -- that we insist John Kerry resign his seat in the U.S. Senate. He has dishonored his family, dishonored his state and dishonored our nation. He is not fit for public office at any level of government, much less, the highest office in the land. John Kerry should resign.

to KBK: Since when is Harry Truman from the South? As far Impeaching Kerry - make sure you take Edwards with him. To the mediator: I do not wish to badger nor displease anyone to the point of complaints. I've toned this down in an extreme way (twice) before posting. So I hope it's ok for posting.
As for Kerry; is this just a power trip financed for his pleasure? Also, Edwards seems to doing this for kicks. Who's shirt tales did he float in on? This is turning into "election 2000" all over again. Forget the Money people - better search your conscience before anything else. What is righteous is going to take charge over all this immorality real quick. Some people are going to be really amazed how being a "hard core" liberal is going to completely destroy this nation. Within our own households, everyone knows the reality for being conservative. We hope to look forward to those several days of vacation, we can take to have fun with the kids at Disneyland or whatever. So there are times when you can practice a somewhat liberal (financial) side. But if you expect to take vacations whenever the mode strikes, you will find yourself short of funds when the rent comes due. Liberals haven't shown that they get the message here. Time outs for bad behavior is killing this country. The puishment must fit the crime. Too many panty waisted citizens expecting to run this nation according their misinformed spoiled ways. They will only run it into the ground. This is not meant to sound hate filled. Just speaking my opinion. On the other hand we have serious problem with deception. Nothing new there, it seems. Don't tell me you are going to work on my medical coverage, then through every piece of the political agenda on a back shelf because of a war - only to expect to be reelected on manufactured fabrications. Knowing that the competition is incompetent doesn't mean you've won. The whole election is in jepardy right now - because it's becoming increasingly clear, that there is no true worthy candidate. All four of these men (by the laws that would convict J.Q.Public of a crime) should consider their actions as political figures for a moment. Cart blanc is geting thin. Some accountability is due! From ALL candidates

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