Honestly, this is about the best idea I've heard all day.
But, I wonder what the down-side is. Is there one?
Is there a risk that the Democratic Party will seem shrill and unwilling to move on, solidifying the current American divide?
I'm not asking out of patriotic love of country, because if the President's second term is more of the same, I honestly think we need a vicious, sharp opposition party; we should object out of love country, in other words.
What I wonder is if it will lead to a siege mentality among those who supported him. If it will convince those with strong religious beliefs, who seem to support the President so strongly, that the liberals aren't anti-Bush, they're anti-God. And are these the same people that must be convinced that liberalism isn't atheism?
So, thoughts? Is there a down-side?
F A N T A S T I C idea.
Remember the debates! Kerry beats Bush on eloquence, maturity and gravitas every time.
Maybe there are better strategists, but damn it, we need somebody who can work the camera.
I would love to have him nettling Bush for the next four years. He's good at it.
Oh, well.
Atrios points us to The Hill, which says it's Reid, by common consent.
So be it.
great idea, to bad its reid, i honestly hadnt thought about it.
great idea- love it.
is it still possible?
we need a spokeperson for sure, from day one, and continuity. read may be great- but i've never heard of him. neither, i'd guess has most of the country. shame.
I love this idea. How great would it be to have a guy who got 56 million votes leading the opposition. He beat Bush in three debates, and he'd own them for four years.
Shouldn't there be a grass-roots campaign to make this a reality? Isn't there anyone out there, besides blogs and chat rooms, pushing for this?
Kerry for Senate Minority Leader is the best idea I've heard during these last few days. Imagine, sitting opposite the Senate Majority Leader, a Senate Minority Leader who was also a former Presidential candidate.
The only negative I can think of is rejecting Senator Reid could stymie any efforts to try to bring Nevada and other western states (Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico) into Democratic stongholds.
But Democrats have to face it, the Republican Party is the majority party. The political climate will have to change in order for Democrats to take over the House and Senate. There is a need for a long, hard slog to change the minds of Americans out there. Putting Kerry in the Senate Minority role would be a good first step.
"Despite the conventional wisdom that a loser can't run again and win, we have proof to the contrary as recently as Nixon and, at a local level, we see it all the time (think Thune, Giuliani). Kerry ran a good race and could win in 2008 when he's not facing an incumbent."
But I don't want Kerry to win in 2008, and neither does a lot of the Democratic base. Kerry's big draw as a candidate in 2004 was that he (1) wasn't Bush, and (2) he was a liberal-enough candidate that lefty Democrats thought was "electable" where the candidate they actually wanted (say, Howard Dean) wasn't. And, well, we saw how well that panned out. We've got a full four years to work on this stuff for the next election; can't we at least spend a few years working for what we want to happen before we have buckle down to what we think we'll have to settle for?
"Despite the conventional wisdom that a loser can't run again and win, we have proof to the contrary as recently as Nixon and, at a local level, we see it all the time (think Thune, Giuliani). Kerry ran a good race and could win in 2008 when he's not facing an incumbent."
But I don't want Kerry to win in 2008, and neither does a lot of the Democratic base. Kerry's big draw as a candidate in 2004 was that he (1) wasn't Bush, and (2) he was a liberal-enough candidate that lefty Democrats thought was "electable" where the candidate they actually wanted (say, Howard Dean) wasn't. And, well, we saw how well that panned out. We've got a full four years to work on this stuff for the next election; can't we at least spend a few years working for what we want to happen before we have buckle down to what we think we'll have to settle for?
I should say that none of this is to quibble with the idea of having John Kerry as Senate Minority Leader; I think that would have been a far better idea than the idiot notion that ended up being pushed through. I just don't think that preparing the ground for the Kerry 2008 campaign is any reason for supporting the plan; if it increases the likelihood of a Kerry 2008 run, I think that's more of a reason to worry about it than a reason to support it.
I should say that none of this is to quibble with the idea of having John Kerry as Senate Minority Leader; I think that would have been a far better idea than the idiot notion that ended up being pushed through. I just don't think that preparing the ground for the Kerry 2008 campaign is any reason for supporting the plan; if it increases the likelihood of a Kerry 2008 run, I think that's more of a reason to worry about it than a reason to support it.
Kerry was not my first choice either and probably won't be in '08 either. (I supported Dean in the primaries.) However, I think he ran a credible campaign and would be a capable President -- and the differences among the Democrats (frankly, even Lieberman, who I'd love to see primaried in CT) are far less than the differences between the Dems. and the Repubs.
Kerry was not my first choice either and probably won't be in '08 either. (I supported Dean in the primaries.) However, I think he ran a credible campaign and would be a capable President -- and the differences among the Democrats (frankly, even Lieberman, who I'd love to see primaried in CT) are far less than the differences between the Dems. and the Repubs.
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