Democratic Presidential Candidates

Accidental Verbosity links to Francis W. Porretto of Eternity Road who has an analysis of all the Democrats who have run for President since 1964 including Lord Kerry.

This year, the Democratic candidate is a man so unintelligent that he’s made his 4.5 months of Vietnam War duty the crown jewel of his campaign, even though:

His post-Vietnam record is of slander against his fellow veterans and outright collaboration with the enemy;

He had to have known that parading as a war hero would raise many memories of that time in the minds of others who served alongside him and disapproved of either his deeds in Vietnam or his subsequent defamations of the American war effort;

He had to have known that, once questions were uttered about his Vietnam recountings, anything less than complete candor would make him look like a liar and a fraud, who moreover had betrayed his country in the aftermath for political advantage.

He begins with Lyndon Johnson about whom he says:

1964: Johnson was intelligent and politically canny but vain, self-seeking and without principles;

He concludes his list with this assessment of Lord Kerry:

2004: Kerry is profoundly unintelligent, politically naive, extremely vain, self-righteous, tends to blame others for his missteps, will say or do anything he thinks might bring him political advantage (but is usually wrong about that), and will not stand his ground if his opponent weathers the storm of his vituperation.

I think he's being generous, but I leave it to you to decide for yourself. Read the rest.

Comments

[Warren]

boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061903.shtml
(1984 Senate race)
[....] "War and Peace" was Kerry's campaign theme, but the emphasis was mostly on peace. War, however, specifically the Vietnam War, may have saved his candidacy in the primary.

In the campaign's closing days, Shannon had surged slightly ahead in tracking polls. Unwittingly he helped blow his own lead.

Shannon was smarting from Kerry's taunts that the congressman had reversed himself, voting first for and later against the MX missile system. A week before the primary, Shannon tried to turn the table, contrasting his own U-turn on the MX to Kerry's change of heart on the Vietnam War.

"If you felt that strongly about the war, you would not have gone," Shannon said during a televised debate. "I was very proud that you changed your mind."

But two nights later, in another debate, Kerry jacked up the issue to another level.

"You impugn the service of veterans in that war by saying they are somehow dopes or wrong for going," he said.

Shannon refused to yield.

"John, you know that dog won't hunt," he said. "I don't owe anybody an apology."

A band of Vietnam vets, all Kerry men, then wheeled into action. "There was a kind of raw, gut instinct, and the campaign acted on it the way you wouldn't today," said longtime Kerry strategist John Marttila, meaning there was no polling data as a guide.

Vietnam veterans began shadowing Shannon in the primary campaign's final days, traveling around the state, "looking for ways to pick fights," Marttila said.

"But this was not fake stuff. John's bona fides had been called into question, and these guys had gone to Vietnam. It was powerful material," Marttila recalled.

With help from the vets, who called themselves "the dog hunters," Kerry stopped Shannon cold. His athletic stamina and what one campaign staffer called "laser-like focus" became major assets in the frenzied final days as he outworked the field.

The finish was memorable. Kerry's field organization pulled him over the top. He lost Lowell and Middlesex County by big margins, but beat Shannon in Boston and most other major cities. Kerry's statewide margin was paper thin, only 24,529 votes, or 3.1 percent, out of 790,000 cast.
[....]
I think this is profound. Kerry seems to be using a tactic he has used in the past with proven results.
The problem for him is this time another group of Vietnam vets is taking him to task. He thought that 30 years would insulate him.

I wish I had the time and resources to develop this. It sure would be interesting to see who those "Vietnam Vets" were and if they were paid for their services.

But all in all and to reply more on topic with your post. I don't think Kerry is very bright. I believe he is what they used to call weak minded. He may have memorized a lot of stuff but he doesn't know how to put it togeather.