Reply #14: I think we're closer to Dennisland than some might think

[dpbrown]

Stuff I've seen online puts Kerry to the left of Dean, and Kucinich to the left of Kerry, with several other candidates between Dean and Kerry depending on the issue.

My perception of Kucinich is that he's taking a populist approach, and working on distinguishing his populist voting record from some of the other candidates. If populism proves attractive, the power structure will come to support him, because they're not anti-"Kucinich" as much as they're anti-"populism."

My perception of Dean is that he's moving closer to the DLC platorm to compensate for having come out of the gate a little too "anti-establishment" to be attractive to the power structure. As he does, he's losing some of his attractiveness to people who were hoping for a more progressive candidate, but many are staying due to inertia.

My perception of Kerry is that he's never worried much about whether or not he'd get the support of the Democratic power structure, because his relationship has always been cordial with them. On top of this he has highly decorated service record to put up against Captain AWOL, along with being a fellow Bonesman and being able to count on splitting off some of that support from the Poseur Prince.

Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota