I’m not much into link and commenting, but a New York Times editorial by Nicholas Kristof caught my eye, and not only because I love the name.
As Kristof writes:
Many Democrats so despise President Bush that they don’t appreciate what a strong candidate he will be in November, and they don’t grasp how poorly Mr. Dean is likely to fare in battleground states.
He then goes on to list the reasons why Dean will most likely not fare well against Bush, and there’s not a point he raises that I haven’t also raised, and worried about. As he notes, outside of Kennedy, the only Democrats who have ever won an election are those from the “Battlefield states”, and this does not bode well for someone who does tend to reek of Eastern Elitism and New England pugnaciousness. As Kristof writes:
You get the feeling that if Mr. Dean and Mr. Bush were stuck together in a small Missouri town, Mr. Dean would lecture farmers about Thomas Paine’s writings, while Mr. Bush would have the cafe crowd in stitches by doing impersonations of Mr. Dean.
I’m not being disloyal to write this, but I don’t see Dean playing well in Missouri, or any area of the country that is a little bit of Missouri at heart.
I must assume that Kristof is trying to generate interest in Clark, but if Dean won’t fly in the South, I don’t see Clark flying in the North. To be blunt, I think Clark would be a lousy President. But then, we already have a lousy President.
This is going to be a long year.