Reply #164: What no one mentions...

[itzamirakul]

After reading this entire thread, I was struck by the thought that what no one mentions is the fact that the DLC wanted a candidate who would leave the field clear for a 2008 Hillary Clinton run. Only one poster mentioned the fact that the DNC wanted a candidate that they could control and evidently Dean was not that man.

Now, some months before the primaries, when the media was going ga-ga wondering if Hillary would throw her hat into the presidential race, a newspaper article in one of the New York papers said that if she didn't run in 2004, the Dems would have to pick a 2004 candidate that would make possible a Hillary run in 2008. Then both Kerry and Edwards were mentioned in that same article as most likely to make that scenario a possibility. In other words, the DLC would enter a place-holder on the ballot in 2004, thereby conceding the race from the start. Dean, however, if he won in 2004, would certainly run for re-election in 2008.

At the time, being a lot more politically naive than I am presently, I passed over the importance of what was being suggested. Still believing in the integrity of the party leaders I simply could not buy into the "placeholder theory."

But now I understand that this "theory" would explain Kerry's lack of playing real hardball during the campaign, his gentlemanly "good manners" during a rough and tumble fight, his willingness to endorse the war and move to the right and away from the base, and above all, his nearly immediate concession and unwillingness to join the voter fraud challenge.