John Kerry enters the Presidential primaries today in pole position. Kerry will win every state but South Carolina and will, in the week to come, sharpen his arguments against John Edward's candidacy. Edwards will carry South Carolina and will spin the victory as proof of his campaign's momentum. It will be interesting to see whether Edwards takes a more combative approach to campaigning against Kerry in what, tomorrow, will be a two horse race.
In the meantime, Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman and Wesley Clark will battle for the ignominious third place. By weeks end, Lieberman, Clark and Kucinech will withdraw. Lieberman's message will be sorely missed and the Democrat party would do well to ponder it as the primaries progress. Dean will straggle into the next round, leveraging his fading campaign network to validate a claim on the keynote address at the Democrat Convention.
Al Sharpton has no intention of winning, and no acumen for the job. His is a campaign of self-promotion and race baiting. The former, because every day in the national spotlight increases his power over black America, and the latter because he has nothing else to say.
Posted by publius at February 3, 2004 03:19 PM