It’s got to be a devastating adjustment to have to make. You spend two years of your life chasing the dream…devoting virtually every waking moment to chasing the Presidency. Just when it’s THIS CLOSE, it slips away, just out of your grasp. After two years of hotels, airports, lost sleep, bad food, and massaging the fragile egos and agendas of the press, the day after Election Day brings…well, nothing. It’s got to feel like taking a Ferrari out for a test drive, redlining it, and then hitting a brick wall. One day you’re a legitimate Presidential hopeful, the next you’re yesterday’s news.
If you’re John Kerry, then, what do you do? Thankfully, it seems as if he is dealing with the disappointment and the letdown by getting back to being a Senator from Massachusetts.
Democrat John F. Kerry plans to use his Senate seat and long lists of supporters to remain a major voice in American politics despite losing the presidential race last Tuesday, and he is assessing the feasibility of trying again in 2008, friends and aides said yesterday….
Aides said Kerry is relishing the prospect of renewed combat with President Bush, fighting such measures as the president’s proposal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Kerry has spent the better part of the past two years on the campaign trail, meaning that his return to Capitol Hill will be something of a reintroduction to colleagues.
Kerry’s plans contrast starkly with the approach taken by former vice president Al Gore, who all but disappeared from the political scene after losing to Bush in the disputed 2000 presidential election….
Kerry has mostly remained at his Boston home since Election Day and has spent some of that time preparing for his return to the Senate. The friends and aides said he wants to use his new following and credibility to become a major force on legislation that will extend well beyond his previous portfolio of national security issues.
The senator from Massachusetts is also contemplating establishing a political action committee and perhaps a think tank to elevate his role during the jockeying over the definition and leadership of the Democratic Party. Kerry lost to Bush by three percentage points in the popular vote and by 34 electoral votes. The president carried 31 states to 19 for Kerry.
It would be a serious mistake for the Democratic leadership to treat Kerry’s defeat as a major rebuke for the party. Their candidate acquitted himself quite well, and deserves to be commended for being an articulate and forceful standard-bearer. Was John Kerry the best choice? Perhaps not, but he transformed himself into an able campaigner and did the best he could with what he had. While one could argue that much of Kerry’s support was as anti-Bush as it was pro-Kerry, by the end of the campaign, the Democratic standard-bearer had held up his end of the bargain admirably.
Perhaps the biggest mistake Al Gore made after seeing the 2000 election stolen out from under him was to drop off the face of the Earth (figuratively speaking). By ceding the high ground to George W. Bush, he allowed the focus and the agenda to be set by Bush’s neo-Conservative minions. In time, Bush’s theft of the 2000 election morphed into Bush’s legitimate victory, if only because the only voice to be heard was from the Right. George W. Bush finds himself in the position he is now primarily because he and his campaign were able to force his theft of the Presidency in 2000 back into the nether regions of the public consciousness.
It’s far too early to hazard a guess on what the 2008 campaign will hold. A week after the 2004 vote, the wounds are too raw, and there is simply too much time between now and then. Two years down the road, perhaps we’ll have a better idea of what the 2008 race might look like. For now, though, I applaud John Kerry for jumping back into the fray with both feet. There is no reason that he, or any Democrat, needs to hang their head. Kerry still has much to offer, and he can continue to be a respected member of the Loyal Opposition.
Republicans may have won this go-‘round, but there is no reason for us to smooth the road for them.
