Reply #85: I actually think that Kerry would have done better if he had been..

[Kahuna]

more unambiguous about the war and his vote. One of the turning points in Kerry's campaign was when he stated at the Grand Canyon that knowing what he knows now he still would have voted for the authorization. That was the first big mistep of the campaign. The second one was not addressing the Swiftboat Vets smears.

I don't think that the connection can be made that one has to be a hawk to be seen as strong on national security. That's the side that Lieberman comes down on.

People like Kerry and Wes Clark can make their case for being strong without being hawkish. Kerry blew it though. He pandered too long to the Lieberman position. And it cost him and us dearly. At the end of the campaign Kerry adopted the Wes Clark position and began to recoup his loses from the Grand Canyon misstep. But he didn't have enough time to fully recover. And it only made him look like a flip flopper again.