Pass the crow and Kerry, Kerry, Kerry: why we need to stop the Democrats' next train wreck of an nominee

OK, I will admit it, I was wrong. Tagging along with one campaign gives you a distorted view of reality, and Clark was far from 2nd place. But the worst possible thing happened for the party tonight (save something like Kucinich or Sharpton winning): a new, almost worse presumptive nominee has been named (Sen. Kerry) and no one is going to drop out any time soon.

Gov. Dean a bottomed out nicely from the nose dive he took over the week, but what states does he go to over the course of the next week? What states can he now win? Even his staffers don't know, so they are spending today in Burlington doing interviews and debating the merits of a cherry pick (AZ NM and MO then MI and WI) or all 7 strategy. If you ask Gen. Clark, cherry picking is not such a great idea. But if you ask Sen. Kerry, it works great.

Gen. Clark can say that he got third to two New Englanders from neighboring states, but it was a distant narrow third over Edwards. Their whole strategy was based on Dean winning Iowa, and clearly, he didn't. Now they have to retool. The Supreme Allied Commander has to get at least a strong 2nd in SC, win OK, and maybe win DE and ND as well (although they might just go Kerry based on momentum) to stay in this race. If he can do that, and especially if he wins SC, he can do well the week after that in TN and VA where his organization looks the strongest.

Sen. Edwards had nothing to lose last night and it showed. He looks fine but not as good as he had hoped I am sure. He has to win SC, do well in OK and ND and place strongly in western and Midwestern states. If he can do that, look for VA and TN to go to him instead of Clark.

Sen. Lieberman needs to win DE to end the constant rumors that he will be dropping out (which he should). Even then, I don't see where he goes except out. As Ron Reagan (son of the ex-President that Clark voted for) said on Hardball last night, "As goes Delaware, so goes American Samoa." Somebody needs to take this man out of his misery.

Sen. Kerry has to raise some serious cash to stay afloat. Mary Beth Cahill (his campaign manager and former Sen. Kennedy Chief of Staff) did a marvelous job of taking over this sinking ship and getting it to port. Now they need more fuel for the next voyage. Already, they have $218K raised online since they won. Kerry literally bet the house on the "you gotta win Iowa to come back in New Hampshire" strategy, and it paid off. Now where does he go? To Missouri, where he will get most of Gephardt's unions and institutional guys to back him, and to South Carolina, to see if he can finish it up this week. If he wins South Carolina, its over for Edwards and Clark really.

Why don't I like Kerry? Well for one he is a big, fat phony. He talks in Bob Shrum populism and he went to Swiss boarding school, St. Paul's in NH, and Yale and joined the skull 'n bones. Not to mention he is the richest man in the most exclusive club in the world, the US Senate. He really just doesn't connect with people either.

Not only that, but his voting record is extremely liberal, sometimes more so than the senior Senator from Massachusetts. As Gov. Dean points out, he was wrong about Iraq in 1991 and 2002. Not such a great foreign policy debut is it? And his claim to foreign policy experience is sitting on a committee. How can you call yourself an outsider if you have been in the Senate for 20 years? Plus, he has zero conviction, and is from New England. Kerry has also dropped hints that he will skip the south, which seems to be a hip idea these days.

On the other hand, it seems like everyone's second choice is Sen. John Edwards. We will see if there enough of those to win it for him, especially if Kerry can be taken down a peg. Look for Gov. Dean to go after him hard.

And now for something completely different:

"She usually goes on the bottom" -- James Carville, as overheard responding to a NH voter who asked about his marriage, "How do you do it?"