Dems finally realize their man is an Edsel

Despairing Democrats are now openly saying what this website has been repeating ad nauseam since shortly after the emergence of Kerry as the presumptive nominee last winter: that Bush is so flawed a president that he would be finished, if he were facing a half-decent (or even a quarter-decent) opponent. But he’s not, so he’s not.

Martin Schram lays out the Democrats’ problem in the Naples Daily News, along with some intelligent advice for Kerry (from the Democratic side, no less, which is a noteworthy event in itself these days):

Democrats despair because, given all of that, a majority of America’s voters still tell pollsters they believe that Bush, not Kerry, can better command the war on terror. And mainly, the Democrats privately despair because they know why the people feel that way. They know it is because Kerry has been pathetically unable to answer, clearly and forthrightly, the simplest questions about the war in Iraq and the war on terror. Kerry cannot explain just what he would have done and what he will do now to better command and win the unwon war on terror.

Democrats say privately they don’t know what is wrong with Kerry. Here is what’s wrong: The Democratic presidential nominee has no clearly defined conceptual framework that is the basis of what he thinks about the war on terror and the war in Iraq.

Here’s the conceptual framework that Kerry should internalize until it becomes the bedrock and basis for all of his responses on these issues: America has become less safe due to President Bush’s egregious mistakes, misjudgments and mismanagement of the war on terror. Bush made the classic blunder of diverting U.S. military forces, economic resources and diplomatic goodwill away from the war to crush al Qaeda before that war was won—diverted them into a new war to topple Iraq’s evil dictator before we had accomplished our mission to vanquish the evildoer who attacked the United States mainland.

Without that conceptual framework as a foundation, Kerry has been despairingly unable to clearly and forthrightly answer even the simple question a reporter put to him during a photo op moment at the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 18, 2004 12:00 PM | Send