The circular firing squad returns...

Ezra thinks Kos is "a bit off" with this…

People who worked for Dean, Edwards and Clark all passionately loved their man. The campaigns stuck together. Why?

Because the campaigns were based in the candidates' home states. Hence, staffers had to move to work on those campaigns. They had to make a sacrifice to uproot and travel to a strange city on behalf of their guy. That commitment was real. And since those staffers knew no one else in these cities, they worked together, played together, and stuck together through thick and thin. It was shared sacrifice, and it translated to genuine affection and commitment to their candidate and their cause.

Kerry's campaign was based in DC. The staffers didn't have to make a commitment to their candidate beyond taking a different bus or metro stop. They didn't hang out after work, since they already had their established social circles in town. There was no sense of shared sacrifice and commitment to their guy. Kerry, the consumate insider, ran his campaign from frickin' Washington D.C. And now he tells us he's an "outsider"?

Frankly, I think he's full of bullshit and I'm getting pretty sick of him throwing sour grapes in bunches at the Senator every time he gets the chance.

In case Kos was asleep at the time, a quick glance at some old newspapers will quickly reveal that John Kerry kicked the Dean, Edwards and Clark campaigns across the parking lot and into the gutter, despite the kind of slime and slander that Kos regularly featured on his front page and the sewer that passed for a comments section at his blog. When Kerry was done doing that, he went out and raised more money and more votes than any Democratic candidate in history, despite being the victim of the most slimy, slanderous national campaign the Republicans have ever waged.

While some carp that Kerry won't appear before the Democratic Policy Committee for a round of neo-Maoist self criticism, Kerry is talking about the lessons learned, principally that in order to "change the current political dynamic'" we need to "go out to the grass roots." Got a problem with that, Kos? I suppose so, since it was the grass roots, the Democratic primary and caucus electorate in state after state after state, that thoroughly rejected your champion. And while we're at it, you got a cite for Kerry calling himself an outsider, or are you just lying about John Kerry again?

I don't know if John Kerry will be the 2008 nominee, but it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. So, what's the best use of our time? To see how badly we can disable his efforts even before the campaign is engaged, or to get behind his efforts to help Howard Dean rebuild the Democratic Party by raising money for Hilary Clinton's Senate re-election, making contributions to the Washington State Democrat's Governors Defense Fund, promoting a dynamic and progressive social agenda and speaking out aggressively against some of the worst of Bush's appointees to judicial and foreign policy posts?

It's too early to know for sure where I'll be in the 2008 primaries, although I haven't seen any names floated that are more progressive and capable than John Kerry. Still, it's a long way off, and there's no way to know who, including Kerry, will actually run, so I'm not about to make an endorsement, or to rule anyone out. I do know which direction I'm going take in the meantime. John Kerry's doing important work, pushing a solid agenda, and I'm going to push with him.