Coming into coalition w/ Netaniyahu "from the left" is suicidal. Barak's not a complete nincompoop: he, actually, managed to get to be a PM, didn't he? And look what's this done to him.
Being associated w/ the "wrong sort" ... Kadima is, essentially, a Likud splinter, graced w/ a few ex-Laborites for a show. Are they REALLY associated w/ different people?
The problem is not being a coalition w/ Netaniyahu - The United Israel YB shows that one can be very successful in this coalition. The problem is, Kadima has no reason to exist if it is merely a junior partner in such a coalition. It may be the right decision for individual members of the party - as long as they just go back and rejoin Likud (probably, they should have never left). But as a political entity Kadima will be squeezed to nothing pretty shortly and pretty thoroughly, methinks.
Kadima could have worked, and it wasn't a bad idea to join it at the time. The problem was that, as Sharon's personal vehicle, it got saddled with terrible luck as first Sharon
died went into a Persistent Vegetative State, and it had even worse luck by having Sharon's successor be the hapless Ehud Olmert. Kadima's first few years were a debacle that probably guaranteed it wouldn't survive for the long haul.
