This was my comment on “Kerry Sucked” on AMERICAblog:
Face it. He was a shitty candidate. My question is why it’s ok to talk about everyone else who screwed up but not Kerry?
OK, count me in the “unwilling to turn on Kerry” column. I don’t agree that he sucked… unless, of course, we as Democrats also sucked by choosing him.
I mean, I rather liked that he was something of an intellectual and had some pretty good foreign policy credentials. But he was also a relatively stiff and colorless moderate… out of a field of candidates where I saw little to be enthusiastic for. In the initial debates, the only candidate with any real fire was Sharpton… who was no just “not electable” but well, genuinely unelectable.
Frankly, given that I actually went so far as to consider voting for former-Republican Wes Clark should indicate just how bad I felt our field of “electable” candidates was.
In the end, by the time the primaries got to California, it didn’t really matter. I voted for Kucinich, since despite the lack of a real shot at it at least he didn’t announce that he was dropping out and he was a genuine liberal.
Didn’t matter, of course. The tide of Kerry victories carried on by “electability” concerns continued.
And we got what we asked for… and “electable” colorless moderate, who got beaten – though closely – by one the worst Presidents since Buchanan.