Reply #28: LOL! The Lurch comparison... [View All]

...is one I've been using for months. But Gore Vidal, as usual, still has the best line: "Kerry reminds me of Lincoln. . .after the assassination."

In his essay in this week's Guardian, Raines is perfectly right to argue that Kerry needs more than cosmetic tuning. Kerry needs a message on which he doesn't hedge, flip flop, or sound like the lecturer at a Kennedy School grad seminar splitting hairs. Through this weakness, which is the product of years of technocratic compromise, Kerry reveals the tug of war between his right wing allegiance to the Liebermanesque Democratic Leadership Council and his attempt to restore lustre to the vestiges of his more sensible, liberal past. The result is schizophrenia. What's more: it's just plain soulless and boring.

Kerry has not only to stop giving the GOP ammunition, but he has to reconcile his philosophical and psychic splintering if he hopes not to alienate voters for whom the Democratic candidate is supposed to be more than an equivocator mumbling watered-down Republican positions. This will take much work, and it's far from clear Kerry has it in himself. But then we said that in the primaries. Sigh.

Come on, John. Get your act together.