If I have heard this once, I have heard it a million times since the start of the Bush surge, "John Kerry is a late surger. He does better from behind".
Where is the proof? Iowa? The reason Kerry won in Iowa was because he seemed like an exceptable choice after Dean started to melt down two weeks before the caucus, and this really wasn't a "come out of the blue thing", Kerry was expected to win in 2003, he was the early favorite. Edwards, a "nobody" almost defeated Kerry, the "favorite".
So, Kerry defeat Bill Weld in 1996. He came back from behind and took it. Really? This might be true, but Kerry was not at all helped by the fact that Mass. gave Clinton his highest margin of victory that year, against an opponent who was far more conservative than the state he was running in. Given these factors, Kerry still didn't win by much.
This general election campaign is not Iowa and it is not 1996. Bush is not going to melt down and no one will be there to drag Kerry accross the finish line.
Those campaigns were nothing. They were free-shot basketball. The General election campaign for the Presidency is full-contact tackle football. In this game, you never want to fall behind.
I think that George H. W. Bush put it best. The secret to winning a Presidential election is "Big Mo'". One should sieze the momentum and rid it hard. Once you start losing the momentum, you are as good as gone. Kerry cannot simply expect to "come from behind", he has to find a wave and ride it. I don't see this happening. His "new, new, new, new" campaign is killing him and he cannot afford to change advisors again.
In this game, there is no "he does better from behind". Kerry must get moving, if he doesn't, he is done. Plain and simple.
Great thread.
Baseball is like that...you look at a player's bubblegum card stats a different way, and you glimpse a different future for the new season.
I hear what you're saying about the lineage of Kerry's underwhelming victories--and it can seem a string of lucky breaks.
But then I count 'em up, and I'm inclined to believe there's more than just trees here to see...but a forest of victories--victories of a man who, like his opponant, knows the virtues of being underestimated.
And the general election is certainly not Iowa's Democratic Primary...the nation does not verilently hate President Bush with the lazerbeam focus those folks brought to their decision. But if Kerry loses, it's not going to be because of that distinction--the variable factored. America doesn't hate this President...but it's not terribly attached to him right now either.
There are external winds that can very easily continue to build at Kerry's back--and we can deny him credit for creating them (doing our best to shout over them as they blow him into the White House.) Coverage of Iraq is trending pessimistic--more than merely "liberal media bias" in my assesment, and the fog of war is going to set in prior to there being a credible climate for holding elections in January. The odds of happy headlines for Bush prior to November 2 aren't worth mentioning.
The country is going to be in a foul enough mood to take advantage of the Entire time between now and election day to pick the lesser of two evils. It's going to be in a foul enough mood to give Kerry a chance to redeem himself--because there is MUCH room for improvement over what we have in the mind of the average voter, and Kerry still has SOME room left to perform 'the idiot' before convincing America he isn't worth the risks.
