Best President, Not Candidate

[lidaker]

Strongly agree. Sums it up pretty well. It think Kerry had the potential to be the best president in many years. But he didn't have the charisma and cheerfulness needed in a modern presidential campaign.

But that's not the only reason. Bush ran a better campaign overall.

He also had an enormous advantage in being president during 9-11, thereby being able to define the "war" against terrorism. Everything that didn't conform to this definition or looked like it didn't could be used by the Bush campaign to portray Kerry as "weak".