Thursday, January 25, 2007

Alas and Alack

Senator Kerry has declined to run for President in 2008.
Hard to put into words one's disappointment although his refusal is perfectly understandable given the current toxic political climate.
There are the usual triumphant noise from on and off line lout who so hate losing that they will make life pretty miserable for anyone who dares to actually lose.
Fortunately, John Kerry is bigger than that...but then he has heard real gunfire at close quarters what does all this yapping mean to him, patently nothing.
Ahh but this begs the question as to how these other candidates will deal with the sort of abuse and fraud that JK was faced with back in '04?
There is the political challenge of getting the nomination, the electoral challenge of winning the election and then the ideological challenge of dealing with the institutional biases against democrats within and without the opinion industry.
Candidates who don't get that and don't have a plan to deal with that won't win no matter how fervent their on or off line support.

Well we will find out won't we?
Meanwhile Kerry isn't running and something intangible is lost to the debate (such as it is) as a consequence.
Clinton has a pedigree, Obama gives a good speech, Edwards is energetic and optimistic, Vilsack, Biden, Richardson and Dodd are all keen as razors, but Kerry had gravitas, he was a serious man with a serious mind.
And the fact that is no longer considered an advantage in a presidential contest is a loss for us all.
Dunno how we will handle it, but we're gonna have to.

John, I'm sorry fer yer troubles (as my esteemed ancestors put it)...don't let the sniveling bastards get yuh down.

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