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I think that 2004 is both a plus and a minus. A minus because partisans against him, both Republican and Democaratic, have dwelled on the negative - that he lost - and have blamed the loss on errors he made. This is typical, people want stories to make sense.
I know that if I compared the 1992 Clinton campaign to the Kerry campaign, Kerry ran at least as good a campaign with fewer road bumps. Kerry had the least forgiving space to run in I have ever seen while the media itself corrected Bush's misstatements or ignored them. Kerry's campaign would have imploded if he had a Gennifer Flowers, who he framed as nutty or slutty and lied about, if he had written Clinton's "I loath the military" letter, or if he had the environmental record Clinton had in Arkansas.
But, as Clinton won, the war room as a book and movie smoothed the rough edges and made mythology out of a rapid response team made necessary by a candidate with a huge amount of baggage. As Kerry lost, the need was to find things he did that contributed to a loss - and, as in every campaign some mistakes were made. Each of these "mistakes" have been amphlified and the nearly flawless race to the nomination ignored.
For most candidates, there would be almost no plus from the earlier campaign. In Kerry's case, the plus is that he was right on so many things, was brilliant in the debates and because he demonstrated so much dignity and integrity through the election. In addition, the efforts he took over the last 2 years have led the party in the right direction and they were done in defiance of the so-called party leadership. The real question might be whether enough people were paying attention.
If Kerry runs, the primary debates will be key. If he can tower over Edwards and Obama (as he did with Edwards in 2004) just because he has real solutions to issues and they have only position papers, he could be the experienced choice. (Also these idiotic comments that the most eloquent man out there (including Obama) is inarticulate and unable to make a joke is setting a VERY low bar for Kerry to beat.)
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