Why Kerry?

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Originally Posted by lookout123

1) for anyone on here who genuinely supports the dem ticket - why? what attributes do kerry/edwards have that make you believe they are the way to go?

Their names are not "George W. Bush" and "Dick Cheney."

2) looking around at the other available choices, why did kerry get the nod over the other options? i understand that hilary is waiting til '08, but wasn't there someone else that would have been able to draw large scale support?

Hillary is not running. Hillary will not be running. Hillary is fine where she is. And why would Hillary mount a primary challenge against President Kerry in 2008?

Dean had strong grassroots support (mainly because it was nice to see a Democrat say something FORCEFULLY for a change), but his machine wasn't as organized as Kerry's in the early primaries, and the ridiculously overblown coverage of the "YEAAAAAAH!" made him look silly at a critical time. Gephardt's like Pat Paulsen on lithium; he always runs, but no one knows why. Clark was basically mini-Dean; blog-level support that faded when the bigger wallets came out to play. Lieberman was a laughingstock with no chance from day one. The others basically ran because they could, and to try and get miniscule coverage for their favorite issues.

Dean was hardly "far left" if you look at his track record, though I'll grant that being vocally anti-war at a time when his primary opponents were eagerly handing war authority over to Dubya made him look like a flaming liberal.