Dumb Democrats
Mood:  accident prone
Democrats Do It Again
By Daniel G. Jennings
The Democrats have done it again, in Iowa they got together and came up with a worse Presidential candidate than Howard Dean. That is they ignored the exciting and charismatic young John Edwards or the feisty moderate Joseph Leiberman and bestowed the crown of front runner upon a tired old fossil called John Kerry.
John Kerry is the Republicans' dream candidate he's left wing, Ivy League, wishy washy, sort of wimpy and just plain boring. The Senator from Massachusetts has no national following and is largely unknown outside the Northeast. At least Dean has national name recognition and a lot of passionate followers. Kerry has nothing to offer except a sorry impersonation of John F. Kennedy.
Yes, John Kerry is a veteran and supposedly a hero of the Vietnam War. Kerry's Vietnam experiences will hurt his chances of election in a big way. After coming back from Vietnam Kerry became the leader of the radical left wing anti-war protest group called "Vietnam Veterans Against the War." He marched in protests and in at least incident threw his medals away.
In recent years, Kerry has acted as if he is ashamed of his military service. When stories alleging that Kerry had been involved in atrocities against Vietnamese civilians surfaced, Kerry did nothing to debunk the rumors. Instead it was left up to Republicans to point out the fact that the allegations were coming from Vietnamese Communists and were quite suspect.
Now, Kerry's anti-war protesting might make him a hero on Martha's Vineyard or in Santa Monica but out here in the real America it'll hurt him. The vast majority of American veterans are proud of their service and get this John Kerry the vast majority of Americans think our nation did nothing wrong in Vietnam. Most Vietnam Veterans are actually proud of what they did over there and disgusted by wishy washy leftists who are ashamed of wearing their country's uniform.
I'm sure that Bush's political strategist Karl Rove and his staff are salivating at the prospect of nominee John Kerry. As soon as Kerry is nominated Talk Radio and attack ads will start telling the public the story of John Kerry's anti-war protests. He'll be portrayed as a hippy, a Communist and worse. Kerry will end up spending all of his time trying to justify his anti-war activities instead of campaigning.
Kerry's candidacy shows everything that is wrong with the Democratic Party today. It is concentrated in the Northeast and its support seems to be confined to a narrow collection of intellectuals and special interests.
Of the seven men seeking the Democratic nomination right now four are from the Northeast Al Sharpton, Kerry, Dean and Leiberman and three, Kerry, Dean and Leiberman, are from New England. Edwards is from North Carolina and Wesley Clark is from Arkansas. Dennis Kuchinich is from Ohio the old rust belt. There is not a single candidate from west of the Mississippi. There is nobody from California or the Northwest or the Rocky Mountains, or Texas.
Have the Democrats written off the rest of America? Have they become so focused on the Northeast that they are ignoring the rest of the country. America's fastest growing cities are in the Sunbelt, not the Northeast.
If the Democrats want to start winning again they'll have to figure out how to start attracting voters in the Sun Belt and figure out what's going on on Main Street America. That'll mean they'll have to get out of Martha's Vineyard and leave New York for a few days.
History bears me out here, no Northeasterner has been elected President since John F. Kennedy in 1960 and then he barely defeated Californian Richard Nixon. Every elected President since Kennedy has been from the Sunbelt. Lyndon Johnson was from Texas, Nixon from California, Carter from Georgia, Reagan from California, George Bush from Texas, Clinton from Arkansas and George W. Bush from Texas.
The Democrats it seem don't have a clue of how to win a Presidential election these days. And unfortunately they won't learn what they're doing wrong until November when George W. Bush wins the biggest electoral victory since Ronald Reagan.