Kerry’s structural weaknesses

The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber reveals all in “Flip Side.” My favorite excerpt:

Responding to a Bush ad thrashing him for voting against last year's $87 billion supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan, Kerry managed an impressive trifecta of ineffectiveness: "I actually did vote for his $87 billion, before I voted against it," Kerry told a crowd of veterans at Marshall University, before going on to explain that the version he voted for would have been paid for by repealing tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Which is to say, Kerry's first instinct was to move rightward ("I actually did vote for his $87 billion"), his second instinct was to strive for consistency ("...before I voted against it), and his third instinct was to retreat into the kind of inside-the-beltway legislative-ese that got him into so much trouble last summer and fall.

Memo to Democrats: don’t take Dean off your speed-dial yet. It’s four more months until the convention in Boston.