John Kerry is the ONLY candidate that can bridge conservative, independent, moderate and liberal voters in an election because of rising doubts about Bush.

Here's a brief section from an article from today's NY TIMES on the problems the Democratic Presidential nominees are having pleasing their base and why it bodes well for Bush in the future. The GOP is dancing, gloating, PRAYING for the chance to face Dean in the election.


...Republicans could hardly be more pleased at the course of events.

"It's a huge problem for them," said Ed Gillespie, the incoming chairman of the Republican National Committee. "It keeps pulling their nominee further and further left. It's a contest of which one of them can bow the furthest."

To an extent, what is going on reflects fundamental differences in the parties. The Democrats have always been a mash of constituencies who have never been shy about pressing their views in public.

It is particularly difficult this year, when the Democrats are out of power and nine candidates are competing for support from various wings of the party, all of which are enjoying their sudden clout.

As a candidate in 2000, Mr. Bush encountered similar problems when he made a much-criticized visit to Bob Jones University, which has a history of anti-Catholicism, before the South Carolina primary.

Since then, Mr. Bush and his advisers have demonstrated their skill at keeping their base enthusiastic, without engaging in public displays of stroking. And conservative groups — reflecting the political maturity that comes with success — have given Mr. Bush maneuvering room that the Democrats clearly do not have.

"The Republicans are into power — and I say that in an envious way," Mr. Carville said. "The Democratic interest groups are less concerned about winning the election and more concerned about drawing attention to themselves."



John Kerry fought in Viet Nam and then fought the establishment back home to end the war. He knows our system of government inside and out. He's got the smarts to run it and knows the people with the smarts to do it right. He has high ideals and yet he knows how to buck up and deal with the political nastiness that's coming from the Bush Political Attack Machine.

Here's the link to the article.


POLITICAL MEMO
Tug of Constituencies Strains Democrats
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, July 17 — Three Democratic presidential candidates who were chastised by the N.A.A.C.P. for skipping the group's political forum in Miami on Monday upended their schedules today to fly south and make elaborate apologies. Earlier this week, all the candidates were summoned to a forum before gay leaders, where they were pressed to endorse gay marriage.

These two events illustrated what has emerged as one of the most critical and, for some Democrats, perplexing differences between the modern-day Democratic and Republican Parties: How they accommodate constituencies that are at the base of their political foundation but endorse views that are not always popular with the broader electorate...






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