He was a horrible candidate.
I thought Kerry was a good speaker whether or not someone agreed with the content. He came the closest to unseating a sitting president in the face of some kind of major conflict. He did not initiate the "smearing" the way the Republicans did during and after their convention. He recieved 251 electoral votes as well as 57 million popular votes. And when the spotlight was on him, he really came through: He embarassed Bush in the first debate and won the others narrowly.
He wasn't the greatest candidate, but horrible is one of the last words I'd use to describe him. Mondale was horrible. Goldwater was horrible. I'd like an objective point of view as to why he would be in a class with either of those two.
I agree Kerry was a good speaker. He managed to say nothing but he said it very well. Therein lies the problem. Even in the first debate which he supposedly won, he still could not communicate what he would do differently in Iraq.
In addition to the general mistake of not having a vision about what he would do to run the country other than not be Bush, I think he made several specific blunders in the campaign that allow me to easily categorize him as one of the worst candidates ever.
1) Selecting John Edwards as his running mate. The conventional wisdom is that the first Presidential decision a candidate makes is selecting his running mate. Picking a do-nothing, pretty boy trial lawyer? Was not a good read of the country.
2) Making his Vietnam service the centerpiece of his convention. I believe you can legitimately claim to either be a noble warrior or a noble war protestor. It is awfully hard to claim to be both about the same war. Especially when you are caught lying about your war service.
3) Giving an acceptance speech so bad that your opponent actually linked to it from his web site.
4) Not finishing off Bush with the Iraq issue in the first debate. Kerry looked exactly like the flip-flopper he was made out to be by the Republicans when he had two different positions on whether Iraq was a mistake during the same debate. He could offer no new ideas on Iraq except to have a summit, which Bush said was already planned. While his voice had a very nice timbre, this was his moment to clearly show how he would lead the country and he failed.
5) Relying on nonsense issues late in the campaign. Dick Cheney's daughter? Christopher Reeve would have walked again if not for George Bush? Republicans want to bring back the draft? These smacked of desparation and the voters saw through it. If anything they energized the Bush voters.
As for Mondale: I really don't know what candidate the Democrats could have run against Reagan and stood a chance. At least Mondale was willing to do it. I disagree that Goldwater was a terrible candidate. He did run a campaign of ideas, and to this day people can claim to be a Goldwater Republican and you know what they mean. I don't know today what it means to be a Kerry Democrat; I doubt he will have left a lasting impression on the country 40 years from now.
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