Vetting Kerry: Not a Pretty Picture So Far

In 2003, Sen. John Kerry dropped like a lead balloon in the polls and was written off for dead by the pundits and the so-called liberal media (SCLM). His early campaign was a disaster and he was often characterized as a candidate who didn’t connect with voters. Amid Kerry’s descent, and partly responsible for it, was the ascent of Howard Dean, who became the SCLM designated front-runner sometime last fall. As such, Dean was targeted by other candidates for attack and “vetted” by the SCLM. Their joint conclusion: Dean was “unelectable,” especially after the capture of Saddam made Democrats fearful that Bush would no longer be as vulnerable on the war issue. (That view could be seriously called into question now that the administration’s rationale for going to war has been blown apart by David Kay.) Dean’s defense was to collect a number of high-profile endorsements, but that undermined the central argument that he was an outsider, and when actual voters started weighing in, they deserted Dean for the next guy on the list who looked like he could fill the bill as an electable nominee: John Kerry.

So now, we have Kerry in a largely unstoppable mode as far as the nomination process is concerned. No candidate has ever won both Iowa and New Hampshire and lost the nomination. Add to that the fact that the process is so front-loaded that other candidates have no time to shift the terms of debate to whether or not John Kerry is indeed the best candidate for the party. No one took on Kerry in New Hampshire and this week, there has been a little soft punching by Dean, who otherwise seems to hardly be campaigning, and by Clark. Edwards is naïve to think that he can somehow rise to the top of the pack by simply smiling and rattling on about his “positive message of hope.” With three and a half serious candidates still in the race, by the time it winnows down to a two-man race (Kerry vs. the Alternative), Kerry will be way too far ahead for it to make any difference.

The problem now for Democrats is that the SCLM is now heading into full Kerry-vetting mode. It won’t be enough to stop his nomination, but it could very likely ensure that he doesn’t win this fall. Just read some of this stuff. Scratch the surface of John Kerry, and it just isn’t pretty. There don’t appear to be any scandals and his war record appears to be solid, but the picture that is emerging is of a longtime Washington senator who really hasn’t made much of a difference, who flip-flopped on the war, and who isn’t really a very likeable guy. More important, he’s a candidate running on his resume, rather than a rationale.

Michael Isikoff roasts Kerry on fund-raising in this week’s Newsweek. For all his railing about special interests, of course, Kerry has been part of the Washington insider fund-raising network for years, and Isikoff points to the connection between Kerry’s donors and the industries with an interest in the committees Kerry sits on. Nothing earth-shattering there, but not very flattering, either.

In fact, when I peruse through the vetting process being undertaken by the SCLM, I can find very little positive information about Kerry. Take a look at Micky Kaus’ mockingly titled piece in Slate, “Why the Long Face?” and the debate in The New Republic about Kerry. As Kaus notes in his piece, even the TNR writer who is defending Kerry says bad things about him. The clincher, for me, is The Atlantic’s Jack Beatty contrasting Kerry with Edwards. Kerry suffers from “terminal Senatitis,” rattling on and on about sponsoring this or that piece of legislation, speaking bromides about “special interests” and repeating, boringly, his mantra about the Bush administration, “We’re coming; they’re going; don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” He’s all resume, no humanity. Beatty says, Kerry reminds him of “a long line of Democratic bores—Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Bradley, Gore—who lost because people could not bear listening to them.”

What to make of all this? This year’s process is so front-loaded that Democrats are being forced to make a choice before they have a chance to consider it. The SCLM is not apart from the process, it is a part of the process, and its role is to thoroughly “vet” front-runners, so it is only doing what is to be expected. But the impact is that just as Kerry cinches the nomination, the results of the media vetting will threaten his viability as a challenger to President Bush.

Take Missouri, for example. With the earlier-than-expected departure of Dick Gephardt from the race, Missouri all of the sudden is this week’s big prize. Rightly so, in some ways, because it is relatively populous, diverse, and will be a battleground state in the fall. But hardly anyone is really focused on the primary, which means most voters will fall back on the dominant story line, which is that John Kerry is going to win the nomination so that’s who they should vote for.