Reply #100: Kerry was affiliated with the DLC but had perhaps the best voting record of all of them!

[cascadiance]

And perhaps that's why the DLC thought he'd work out best for them, to get the rest of the party base to support him. Kerry was probably the exception of many of the DLC candidates of being a "pay to play" candidate since of them all he was probably the wealthiest independently with Theresa Heinz's fortune to help him out, and therefore he could afford to be a little more independent in his thinking and voting than other DLC members did without feeling like he was going to get screwed without their backing if he went against them too many times.

Still hard to see through all of the trees on that one, but I think there was some sort of tugging match involved with the DLC, the Clintons, and the Kerry's. I think that the DLC knew that Dean was someone they definitely did NOT want on the ticket, and Kerry seemed to be their compromise to keep him off.