Ruben Navarrette
The game is over for Kerry
December 26, 2003
DALLAS -- Every presidential wannabe knows there could come a moment when he must accept the fact the game is over. For Sen. John Kerry, who the Democratic establishment considered a shoo-in for the 2004 nomination, that moment might have arrived this week with the release of a poll that finds him trailing Al Sharpton. In a Newsweek survey of registered Democrats and other voters leaning Democratic, Kerry got 6 percent. Sharpton got 7. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean leads the field with 26 percent.
The futility of Kerry's venture hasn't made him any less willing to put his wife's money where his ego is. The Massachusetts Democrat last week announced that he was lending his campaign $850,000 and mortgaging his Beacon Hill home.
One could say that Kerry had the misfortune of being the Democratic establishment's choice at a time when more and more Democrats are choosing not to side with the establishment.
But let's not forget the generational angle either. Kerry entered the presidential race as the baby boomers' dream candidate. Here was someone brave enough to have answered the call to fight in Vietnam but also principled enough to have later become a vocal opponent of the war. Democratic strategists called him a war hero. That was supposed to be his main selling point, and it was thought by some Democrats to provide a nice contrast to President Bush, who spent the late 1960s logging time in the Texas Air National Guard.
As someone who spent those years in diapers, there are a lot of things I don't get about baby boomers and their various hang-ups over Vietnam. But I gather that, when it comes time to dole out respect, there is thought to be a big difference between those who went into active duty and those who served as weekend warriors. And so, in a match-up between Bush and Kerry, the senator's strategists thought he held the upper hand.
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