Kerry's Second Shot

"Meet the Next President," The Examiner says, there's no reason why a Democrat shouldn't have a second shot.

Contrary to the notion that some Democrats have that “You get one chance. If you can’t win, then it’s time to let someone else try,” there are plenty of people who think otherwise. Like Sue Borden of NH who less that an hour after stating "you get one chance," changed her tune to say "she would consider voting again for the Massachusetts Democrat."

“I always liked what he stood for but felt that he was very snobbish and arrogant,” she says. “He’s not that way. People told me I would change my mind once I met him. And they were right.”

In June, I arranged a meeting of some L.A. area bloggers with John Kerry. The reaction was the same, each one "walked away with a different impression of John Kerry, from the one they went into the room with."

"It is not clear," Bill Sammon from The Examiner says, "whether Kerry will have enough time to personally meet and convert every disaffected Democrat in the nation by the election of 2008. But he appears determined to at least counter the conventional wisdom that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., has all but locked up the Democratic presidential nomination." I'm on board for that. Hillary has far from locked it up and my money has always been on John Kerry, for #44.

In an interview with The Examiner this week, Kerry said, “I don’t buy it. You know, people sit with you and talk with you here, and they’re going to make judgments about who can be president. They’re going to make judgments about who can run."

“I think I’d be a good president,” he adds, sitting on the wraparound porch of an old house in Keene. “I don’t care what the dominant, conventional wisdom is today; it will not be the dominant, conventional wisdom in a year.”

But even if Clinton were to stumble or withdraw, other Democrats are poised to step in. Some are already hinting that Kerry had his chance and blew it by losing the all-important swing state of Ohio in 2004. Similar arguments were made against former Vice President Al Gore when he lost the crucial state of Florida to Bush in 2000.

“We are making a mistake if we put up candidates that are only competitive in 16 states, and then we roll the dice and hope we win Ohio or Florida,” says former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, another Democrat eyeing the White House.

Far from being offended by this remark, Kerry says he agrees with it.

“I would say the same thing,” he says. “If I were lucky enough to do it again, I’m going to make sure we’re campaigning in way more states.”

Kerry says the only reason he didn’t compete in more states in 2004 was that he ran out of money.

The Examiner also reports that this "was also the reason he did not adequately respond to a series of devastating TV ads by Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, a group that questioned Kerry’s service in Vietnam and criticized his later opposition to the war."

“They had money behind the lies, and we did not have sufficient money behind the truth,” Kerry laments.

Asked if he dreads the prospect of being “Swift-Boated” all over again, Kerry counters that he would relish such a fight.

“I’m prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other,” he declares. “I am so confident of my abilities to address that and to demolish it and to even turn it into a positive.”

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