Reply #47: Anyone but Gephardt [View All]

I agree with this article from CBS news:

The choice of Gephardt would reinforce every negative stereotype about Kerry in current circulation while muddying the picture of what he actually stands for. Put Gephardt on the ticket and suddenly, instead of an experienced moderate leader with a progressive bent, you have a pair that can be caricatured as two aging, pro-tax creatures of Washington...

Gephardt didn't just lose the Democratic primary. He was trounced. In Iowa, he came in fourth in a state he had won 16 years earlier and in which he'd maintained a polling lead or strong second for most of the year.

Under his leadership, the Democrats lost the House of Representatives in 1994, and then failed to regain it in four successive elections. Undeterred by party losses in 1996, 1998, and 2000, he took them to defeat again in 2002 -- the first mid-term election in which a first-term president's party gained seats since 1934 -- and then left his leadership post to run in the 2004 presidential primary, which he once again, inevitably, lost.

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