July 15, 2004

Kerry's House of Ketchup #18

Kerry speaks.

Ladies and gentleman, boys, girls, and political spinners of all ages, I present you the 18th edition of the blogosphere's coolest, hippest, and sometimes most head scratching-est linkfest around. Behold, Kerry's House of Ketchup.

I'm warning you right away. This may not be the best House of Ketchup you read. I've been a little distracted with a question that needed to be asked this silly season: Who's hotter, the Kerry sisters or the Bush twins? My concentration might be off. Sorry.

We learned that John Edwards was on Kerry's VP list as soon as Edwards dropped out of the Presidential race. Here's some advice for pols who want to be a VP candidate: Do whatever the nominee-to-be wants you to do and look good doing it.

David Gelernter doesn't think Edwards' "Two Americas" schtick will work for long on the campaign trail because Edwards' achievement contradicts his message.

If Kerry follows Jonathan Rauch's advice he'd emulate his hero, the other JFK, by going to the Right on defense and making that the centerpiece of his campaign. Rauch probably hates Kerry's recent mushy talk about "values."

If you're a long-time reader of KHoK, you know I'm fond of the Iowa Electronic Markets as a predictor. I think that a whole different thought process happens when real money is on the line. In the Winner Take All Market it's neck-and-neck between the Republican and the Democrat. In the Vote-Share Market, Bush still leads. This may not bode well for Kerry. Picking Edwards gave him a lot of good press, yet those with money on the line think it's pretty much an even race. No big bounce for Kerry Edwards. Maybe the Democratic convention later this month will do it. That should make David Freddoso comfortable with his prediction of a big Bush win.

One last thing: no more anti-Heinz ketchup.

Now, on to the blogosphere:

• John Kerry could have been briefed about terrorist threats to the U.S., but he hasn't had time. Oliver Willis puts the damning quote in context, but it doesn't help.
  

• We now know that Kerry is against the war, but believes voting for it was the "correct vote." Such nuance!
  

• Kerry didn't read the entire National Intelligence Estimate before voting FOR the Iraq war. Yet he's challenging Bush on if he read the whole thing.
  

• John Kerry shows up late to a Sep. 11 memorial dedication, lets cameras film it all, and ticks off some family members. Real smooth.
  

• Keeping an eye on the Kerry Edwards campaign is the Bush-Cheney war room
  

• John Edwards used to be a trial lawyer. His most important backers are trial lawyers. Scary.
  

• Robert Musil has returned to the states and comments on the Edwards pick:
  

  Despite the media's easy, recurring infatuation with John Edwards, by many important measures he is clearly a weak choice. He is a man who won exactly one primary - in the state of his birth. He was failing in the polls in North Carolina when he decided not to run for re-election. His "two America's" stump speech was cast in a polarizing tone generally viewed as appropriate at most for primaries, and not for the "tack back to the center" needed to win the general election and contained a much-criticised and embarrassing belaboring of that ficticious little girl "somewhere in America" who "will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today, because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm." John Edwards' tendency to embellish fact makes Al Gore's truth-extensions that many commenters believe hurt so much in 2000 seem benign in comparision. Then there's his lack of "gravitas" and his nearly Hillary-esque ability as a trial lawyer to incite the Republican base to open their wallets and storm the polls (although the Man Without Qualities views any Republican thought that the November election can be moved significantly by appealing to a putative general public hostility to plaintiff lawyers as mostly an indication that too many Republicans have lost touch by spending too much time surrounded only by people who hate plaintiff's lawyers). And, of course, the John-John ticket has so far not materially advanced the Democrats in the polls.

  
  

• OxBlog's Patrick Belton thinks Edwards' lack of foreign policy experience is a good thing.

  
  [I]t seems to me nonetheless that presidents without foreign policy backgrounds - Clinton, the current President Bush, and to this category add Edwards as a vice presidential candidate - come much closer to reflecting the broadly held assumptions of the American people about, for instance, the role democracy and human rights should play in foreign policy, than do the foreign policy professionals.

  
  

• For Michael Moore's use of video in Fahrenheit 9/11 to make it appear President Bush was in shock after hearing about the WTC attacks, Matthew Hoy found a John Edwards moment where he showed zero leadership. He got spanked by Tom Clancy.
  

• Kyle Sing offers a brief comparison of Edwards vs. Cheney.
  

• By picking Edwards, Kerry "is going to re-energize key segments of the GOP base who might otherwise have wavered. Doctors. Small business owners. The US Chamber of Commerce. The Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers. All part of Bush's base, but all wavering due to Bush's free spending ways, Iraq worries, the economy, etc. All of those folks, however, have a deep animosity towards trial lawyers."
  

• The Brothers John got out of voting for or against the Federal Marriage Amendment. They were the only two Senators who didn't vote.
  

• John Kerry plays the race card and employs a myth.
  

• Are NY Times reporters advising Kerry? Are reporters at the Washington Post jealous?
  

• Speaking of pro-Kerry bias in the media, Evan Thomas, Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek acknowledges the media "wants Kerry to win."
  

• If Kerry's elected and he keeps his campaign promises he'll end up being a bigger spender than President Bush. (That's not a complement to G.W.)
  

• Teresa Heinz Kerry might have quite an embarassing tax problem.
  

• Last week, Kerry Edwards had a fundraiser filled with Hollywood stars vulgarly bashing Bush. In an obivious bit of political jujitsu, Bush added it to his stump speech.

• Viking Pundit thinks Kerry will not accept federal campaign cash (and their spending caps) and blame Bush for doing so.
  

• The scores of academics advising Kerry Edwards gives them the propellerhead award and shows their technocratic streak. (Is John Kenneth Galbraith somewhere in that egghead hoard?) But Daniel Drezner notes,
  

  The party out of power is always going to have the bigger policy team. The campaign policy team for a sitting President or VP should resemble the current Bush arrangement -- ensuring coordination with the relevant economic policymaking bureaucracies.

  
  

• A Wharton academic doesn't seen the economy helping Kerry to victory.
  

• Captain Ed doesn't think much of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth digging into Kerry's Vietnam War past. Some anti-Democrats can't accept the fact that a Democrat, even a liberal Democrat like Kerry could be a war hero. Sad.
  

• Virginia Postrel thinks the pro-Kerry leanings by some libertarians are an attempt at staying "cool." Jacob Levy responds.
  

• I'm going with the "John-John" or "Kerry Edwards, the bad soap opera actor" as nicknames, but John Cole asked for some good ones.
  

• I bet you no one knew John Kerry was the Jolly Green Giant in a past life.
  

• No one should be surprised that Kerry wrote bad poetry in his youth.
  

Join in the fun by linking to the House of Ketchup. If you have an MT-powered weblog, just trackback to this post, and it will appear below. If your weblog software is incapable of trackbacks use Kevin's Trackback Form.

[Thanks go to the John F. Kerry Media Relations Center for the Sen. Zoop's "voice." Cheap gimmick not endorsed by Glenn Reynolds.]