John Kerry prepares to go the Full Howard

I’ve said before that Senator Splunge is in a panic and that his increasingly sharper tone against the current policy in Iraq was a direct result of the Howard Dean ascendancy. But, even for all my cynicism, I never thought Kerry would vote against the $87 billion aid package for Iraq and Afghanistan. Sure he would make a lot of class warfare noise about making the rich pay or that he wants Bush to play nice with the United Nations, but Kerry wouldn’t dare alienate the mainstream voters he needs in the general election. Right?

Kerry’s campaign must be doing much worse than I thought because he’s trying the Edwards Gambit: appeal to the left wing of the Democratic Party to get the nomination, then backtrack later (assuming you get the nomination). The Kerry blog has a screamer: “Special Announcement from John Kerry at 3PM Today!” that can only mean that he’s going to vote against the aid package. Wow – I guess Kerry didn’t read the Washington Post editorial this morning.

Update: First they changed the time to 4PM and now at 4:30 there's still no announcement. Senator AWOL strikes again.

Bonus: It's pretty clear that Senator Splunge who voted for the war resolution in Iraq is now going to vote against aid for the troops he helped send over there. Or maybe he just threatened to send the military - who knows with him? Anyway, John Cole praises Dick Gephardt for being a "grown up Democrat" and doing the right thing on the aid package.