Will John Kerry Face a Serious Challenge in 2008?

Read it at the Standard.

Novak: Kerry's Vulnerability

Today Bob Novak has his typical interesting Saturday read - if perhaps a little skimpier than usual. The most noteworthy item covers the apparent weakness of John Kerry to a GOP challenge:

Homeland security consultant Jeff Beatty, new to Republican politics, arrived in Washington this week with a Zogby poll showing him in a virtual tie with Democratic Sen. John Kerry in Massachusetts.

Republicans had not listed the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate as even faintly vulnerable for re-election in 2008. The Zogby poll gives Kerry 48 percent to Beatty's 45 percent -- a tie with a 4.1 percent margin of error.

That signifies Beatty's strength rather than Kerry's weakness, with Zogby showing Kerry far ahead of other possible Republican candidates. Kerry leads Andrew Card, President Bush's former chief of staff, 61 percent to 29 percent. Beatty -- a veteran of the FBI, the CIA and the Army's Delta Force -- frequently appears on television commenting on security questions.

The poll is not brand new; it was reported some weeks ago:

Mr. Beatty is the president of TotalSecurity.US, a company that specializes in strategic security and with clients including the Super Bowl, Rose Bowl, Olympics, MBTA and the Statue of Liberty...

In a poll released on his Web site yesterday, the public’s support of his campaign is growing, according to Mr. Beatty. The Zogby organization is showing that if the election were held today, Mr. Kerry would get 48 percent of the public’s vote and Mr. Beatty 45 percent.

“The electors have shown that they are ready to welcome a well-qualified Republican,” said Mr. Beatty.

He said he believes people will vote for him because they know Mr. Kerry was wrong on the war. He also said that the current senator is wrong on taxes, and that neglect has led to jobs leaving the commonwealth.

The full poll data is available on Beatty's website here. Note that in a simple 'horse race' question, Kerry beats him 58%-23%. It's only after being read Beatty's bio that the gap narrows so dramatically.

Beatty has run for office before; he was soundly beaten when he challenged Congressman Bill Delahunt just last year (by 65%-30%) . In his favor in this race however, is that Kerry isn't especially popular in Massachusetts anymore anyway. In the most recent approve/disapprove poll I can find (from April), Massachusetts voters approve of the job he's doing by a margin of just 54%-41%.

One thing is for sure: Kerry's opponent won't have much trouble raising money nationally. There are plenty of Republicans who would love to see his smug condescension and knee-jerk liberalism off the national stage.

That FEC Complaint Against Fred Thompson

Rob Port explains that with regard to complaints from Democrats that Fred Thompson is taking his time in testing the waters, no one seemed to mind Waffles waiting 9 months between the time that he declared for President, and the time that he officially filed paperwork ending the 'exploratory' effort and beginning the campaign:

I’m thinking this complaint has more to do with Thompson not choosing to get into the Presidential race as drastically early as all the other candidates have. The candidates this year have started their official campaigns terribly early, and by holding back Thompson has kept certain advantages over them...

Remember that during the 2004 campaign John Kerry, who went on to become the Democrats’ nominee, didn’t officially announce his candidacy until September 2nd, 2003, after announcing it in December 2002. That’s actually a longer exploratory timeline than Fred Thompson has run (he didn’t really get started until March), yet nobody on the left seems concerned about that tid-bit of information.

John Kerry: Permanent Adolescent

There's an amusing vignette in Bob Shrum's recent book, which demonstrates how challenging it was to try to win the White House with a self-important stiff for a candidate. Read it over here (subscription required):

THE SCRAPBOOK has taken a few swipes over the years at Robert "0-for-8" Shrum, the singularly unsuccessful Democratic campaign strategist, who worked for such legendary losers as McGovern '72, Kennedy '80, and Kerry '04. To be fair, it's hard to see anyone winning with some of the candidates he's been saddled with. Consider this anecdote from Shrum's dishy new book, No Excuses:

At an evening house party [in Iowa, January 2004], [Peter Yarrow] was performing "Puff the Magic Dragon" when Kerry, standing in the back of the room, mimed puffing on a joint. Most of the people there didn't see it--and neither did I; I'd retreated back to the bus to make some calls. When [press aide David] Wade stepped onto the bus and sat down next to me, he was beside himself as he recounted what had just happened. As we drove away, Kerry denied it. Wade said it was on tape. Kerry responded that, well, it was just a joke. Wade went to the back of the bus. We were lucky, he reported when he returned. It was late Saturday night, the camera crews didn't all have it, and most of the network imbeds didn't think it was a big deal. We were told later that a CBS crew got the tape to Washington in time for Face the Nation, but that Bob Schieffer's reaction was, Not on my program.

Of special note here is Kerry's adolescent denial until the aide says his pantomime was caught on tape. Plus we like CBS's news judgment; probably helps explain why Face the Nation blows away its rivals in the ratings each Sunday.

It's stunning that some saw Kerry as the more mature and cerebral candidate. While George Bush was lampooned as only one step removed from the frat, it seems that Kerry never left.

And with regard to Shrum, you get a sense as to just how badly he must want to win a campaign. In 2004 the ticket was headed up by a candidate with... significant shortcomings, and the veep candidate (by his characterization) was a lightweight who callously exploited the tragic death of his child.

You've got to be pretty hard up to stick with that team.

Update: Welcome HotAir readers. While you're here, check out the video of Cindy Sheehan's announcement that she's running for Congress.

Kerry's Doubts About Edwards

This was previewed some days ago:

Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn't pick Edwards unless he met with him again.

Certainly Edwards would dispute this, and even according to this excerpt from Shrum's book, Kerry and Edwards no longer speak. In case of 'he said/she said' such as this, who knows the truth?

The piece also leaves us with a weird 'he said/she said' on the question of whether John McCain wanted to serve as Kerry's running mate:

One option, the one that would have sealed the election, was off the table. John McCain's political strategist John Weaver had talked earlier with Cahill and said he needed to see Kerry about McCain. According to Kerry, when he met with Weaver and Cahill, Weaver said McCain was serious about the possibility of teaming up with him. Kerry had then sounded out McCain, who rejected the idea.

This is consistent with the account that Kerry offered two months ago: that he was approached by Weaver. Was Weaver acting on McCain's behalf? Was he acting as a free agent, and McCain reined him in? All we know is that this version is very different from the account around the time that Edwards was selected -- which had Kerry repeatedly asking McCain to take the spot.

If nothing else, McCain seems to have moved past the controversy.