Somewhat old news, I admit, but I can't help but notice that only now, with less than two months before the election, is the Kerry Campaign getting around to integrating the staff of the only Democrat to win the presidency since 1976.
The question to my mind is twofold. First, who's choice was it? Did Kerry and Company just not reach out to the right people? Or did the people in question simply not volunteer until it was too late?
A cynical person might suspect some chicanery going on here...
...and of course, we're all about cynicism here.
It may well never be known for sure, but should President Bush be returned to office (as, indeed, seems more likely by the day), and should Hilary Clinton run for president in 2008, then we may look back to the summer of 2004 as clearing the way for her run.
After all, she could hardly run against a sitting President Kerry, and there are those who suggest that by 2012 her window of opportunity would be closed.
Of course its possible that I'm being needlessly bitter about all of this, but the ham-handed way the Kerry campaign conducts its business is inexcusable...especially with the '92 and '96 Clinton and '00 Bush runs as examples.
So either Kerry's getting screwed by the "Clinton Cabal" or he's dumb for picking people who worked for Dukakis instead of Clinton.
Neither one looks real good for the Dems, I'm afraid.
Launched by Charlie Victor Echo at September 12, 2004 04:27 AMI believe you are missing an important point in why Kerry chose Dukakis people. It isn't that they are Dukakis people so much as they are Massachusetts people who have been with him forever and whom he trusts.
He has never been close to the Clinton people. They have not been close to him. Their loyalty is to Bill and Hillary, and they certainly don't feel the need to sharpen their swords on Bush v. Kerry. They are just keeping the powder dry for 08.
How's that two cliches in a paragraph!
Posted by: The Maximum Leader at September 12, 2004 04:37 PM I've been thinking that maybe the reason the Clinton people have finally gotten involved with Kerry is they have realized that Kerry is SO flip-floppy that they could control him and pretty much get what they want from him NOW, without waiting for '08 and Hillary.
No evidence; just a thought.
Clinton people joined the Kerry campaign to make sure the coup de grace was well administered, at the proper time. When you put a candidate out of his misery, you must do so with panache.
Posted by: Susan at September 12, 2004 08:59 PMThe way I look at it is that between the Dixiecrats & the Reagan Democrats, the right wing of the Democrat politicians has pretty much been evicerated. All that's left are voices in the wilderness like Lieberman & Miller. What's remaining are the two factions of the left wing: The Principled Left & The Machiavellian Left. The Principled Left doesn't bother much with hiding their agenda. Call them the Wellstone-Kennedy wing. The far extreme of these guys would be the Deaniacs. Most of Kerry's career, he's been in this camp based on his Senate votes.
The Machiavellian Left is the Clinton wing. Up-and-comers who see that the old hard left doesn't sell too well since the Wall came down, and thus "go-along to get-along". Same long-term goals as the Principled left, but they're willing to admit that it will take compromise and incremental steps to get there.
Clinton's success likely convinced Kerry that he'd have to go this route to win the presidency. Only he's got no practice at it, so he comes off like a nerd in a meat market singles bar with a leisure-suit & a print-out of pickup lines. The Clinton wing couldn't be happier with him cratering... until they saw how much damage he was doing in the process. It was one thing for Kerry's face-plant to break the power of the Wellstone-Kennedys in the party to clear the decks for Rodham-Clinton in '08. It's another thing entirely to do such a lousy job that backlash would be such that the Donks will be shut out of the White House for a decade, and possibly loose the ability to filibuster the Senate next mid-term. This is damage control, not sabotage. Only problem is that a month & a half ago, someone got cute with MS Word. Right now, the Clinton away team is in the engineering spaces of the USS Kerry, palefaced and asking, "You did WHAT to the anti-matter containment field? With the Reaganlan battlecuiser Geedubya closing in for the kill?" The cavalry arrived, only problem is the wagons are circled on a ridge overlooking the Little Bighorn river...
Posted by: Cybrludite at September 12, 2004 11:26 PMRight now, the Clinton away team is in the engineering spaces of the USS Kerry, palefaced and asking, "You did WHAT to the anti-matter containment field? With the Reaganlan battlecuiser Geedubya closing in for the kill?"
Heh. I've long thought that the Clinton team wants Kerry to lose, but they do seem to have underestimated how easily he will do so ...
Posted by: MartiniPundit at September 14, 2004 07:42 PMI already posted this under the Rathergate thing, I think. They were hired right after the RNC because Kerry needed discipline and the other four were to make a platform, the background backdrops for during his speeches; one to write many of the speeches because he was losing big time, so the party had to do something, including dressing him up.
~C