9/20/2004 03:20:27 PM|||Nathan Moore|||

There is precious little that John Kerry can now do to reclaim the national debate. The latest scuttlebutt is that he intends to focus on Iraq until November 2nd. Fine - let him.

The truth is, this is the last detail he should be focusing on. An issue of great importance, where he has flipped, flopped, and rotated mindlessly in the political winds, certainly is not the next-best-thing he ought to be pegging his candidacy on. But he is, and we have to acknowledge it.

Iraq is a deadweight for Kerry. Certainly, if this was a campaign about domestic issues (as was 1996), Bush would be in trouble. But it isn't. And John Kerry is.

The man has a problem with defining himself as anything. The tactic taken by the Bush team, to agree to three debates, instead of two, is sound. The more John Kerry speaks, the more he loses ground with the American people. It's the Al Gore problem. Your ideas are so uncompelling, the manner with which you express them is so unpersuasive, that your mere existence disables your candidacy. It's not a good situation to be in, and is nearly untreatable, no matter how many Clintonistas you throw at the problem. John Kerry attempted to remedy this malady with a four point solution today. Unfortunately, those four points were so conclusory that wellness for the Kerry campaign is out of the question. No matter what you might think about the American electorate, they are not stupid, and deserve more respect than John Kerry gives them.

Providing a "nonplan" in place of a substantive candidacy is a sure loser. If John Kerry feels it necessary to speak on Iraq nonstop, so be it. He will lose, and lose big. He must move to his strengths. What those are is up to him to decide.

|||109571384711817594|||Poor Kerry