The truth about John Kerry

Check out the comments section of the DailyKOS post on the brou-ha-ha over Kerry's military records. Now, admittedly, Kos's blog was a popular gathering place for Dean democrats and has a history of negativity towards Kerry (lord knows I am not innocent in that area either), but the level of frustration expressed by the posters there points towards Kerry's Achilles' heal: he doesn't have much in the way of passionate support amongst Democrats.

The truth is that Kerry is the "Anybody" who won the "Anybody-But-Bush" sweepstakes. But he did so by essentially being less overwhelming then the other candidates who vied for that title. The other leading contenders (Dean and Clark) each had their strong partisans and their strong detractors and the fights between those forces essentially wounded both candidates enough that the mass of Democratic voters who aren't obsessed with politics were scared into falling back on the safe candidacy of John Kerry.

The truth is that Kerry may end up being a great president, but not many people are that turned on by him. That is probably the single greatest reason why Bush is still holding a slight lead over him in the polls despite all the bad press Dubya has been receiving.

The truth is I don't know anyone who is excited by the prospect of a Kerry presidency, let along a Kerry candidacy. Yet he is the only weapon we have to bring down Bush. If he is to be a good weapon he will have to do more than just be the defacto alternative.

Kerry has to turn us on and, so far, he isn't doing it.