Second Thoughts?

"In the choice between changing one's mind and proving there's no need to do so, most people get busy on the proof."

    - John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-    ), American economist

James Ridgeway, writing for The Village Voice, believes John Kerry is not the Democratic candidate who can unseat Bush this year:

"...the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn't have what it takes to win and has got to go...With growing issues over his wealth...the miasma over his medals and ribbons...his uninspiring record in the Senate...Kerry sinks day by day. The pros all know that the candidate who starts each morning by having to explain himself is a goner."

John Podhoretz, op-ed columnist for the New York Post, does too:

"Kerry is a terrible, terrible, terrible candidate. It's not so much the policies he proposes, although they don't add up to all that much. The problem is Kerry himself. He no sooner opens his mouth than he sticks first one foot and then the other right in there."

Bloggers Roger Simon at Roger L. Simon and Pejman Yousefzadeh at Pejmanesque have comments about Ridgeway's assessment of the Kerry candidacy, while McQ at Questions and Observations opines on the Podhoretz observations.

Simon thinks it's too late for the Dems to switch horses. Yousefzadeh thinks none of it matters since no Democrat will suggest to Kerry he should drop out of the race, and even if someone does, he believes Kerry would not be receptive. McQ says that Kerry's "whole campaign doesn't add up to much."

How did all this happen? How did the Dems come up with a candidate who may fare as poorly this November as did former nominees McGovern in 1972 and Dukakis in 1988? Jon Keller at Boston Magazine Online provides some insight.