Zev Chafets thinks Kerry is in a no-win situation:
John Kerry is not a bad man. He probably wouldn’t make a bad President. But he is a bad candidate in a terrible situation. He represents the wing of the Democratic Party that is imbued with a sense of its own moral, intellectual, cultural and social superiority. In short, he is the standard bearer for the unbearable.
It does seem increasingly likely that Kerry will lose, and I suspect the main reason will actually be a poor organization. He’s used to campaigning in a tiny state with only one media center, where he can sit at home and tinker with his message until he gets it just right, and then spring it at the last minute. That strategy won’t work in a national campaign, especially now that he’s up against the Big Boys.
Fortunately.
But that being said, Kerry doesn’t stir any anger in me, and in many ways a Kerry presidency wouldn’t be all that bad. Sure, he doesn’t get the fullness of the Islamofascist threat, and he’s a tool of the radical left, and his supporters push all kinds of junk science just like Clinton’s, but at least he’s not a hothead like Howard Dean. But while there’s not much to hate or fear in Kerry, there’s also not much to love, so I believe he’s going to have a hard time getting his people to the polls on election day – they’re going to burn out before then, and probably just take an extra shot or another reefer instead of bothering with the whole complicated business.
UPDATE: Mickey Kaus sees the same problems with Kerry:
The problem is that it is Kerry who has to wage that “successful fall campaign”–and what the convention may have told us is that voters, despite agreeing with the Dems on all sorts of matrixes, don’t find Kerry personally appealing even when they see him give a good speech. At least not appealing enough to vote for him. That bodes ill for Democrats this fall, no matter how well Kerry has “set himself up.”
In essence, Kerry’s just not a regular guy.
UPDATE: According to the SoxBlog analysis, Kerry’s not very bright either:
…we can reasonably infer that Kerry did not get in to Harvard Law. And that?s remarkable. Given his family connections and his post graduate work both in the war and later protesting it, his admission should have been a given. The only thing that would explain Kerry not getting into Harvard would be that he performed dreadfully at Yale. Indeed, he would have had to perform at a level that would have raised the prospect that he couldn?t handle the work at Harvard. His efforts were probably so weak, they could even be described as sub-Bushian.
I’m reminded of the New Yorker article about how hard Al Gore worked to appear bright, and wonder if Kerry hasn’t employed similar techniques. Frankly, that Teresa person doesn’t appear to be any prize herself; saying silly things in five languages isn’t nearly as impressive as saying sensible things in one.
