Me at Drezner’s this afternoon [1]: (Typos and all)
As to Kerry being forced to adopt one position or another, who cares? He already looks and smells like the bottom of my fishing boat; Flipping and flopping and smelling more than faintly fishy the whole while.
As a result of that,there were a lot of peple who simly could noot commit to Kerry, even among staunch Democrats.
Edwards got as close as he did because of last minute deciders… a large number of people who couldn’t decide which they liked less… Kerry, Dean, or Edwards.
This is revealed by means of the exit polling which showed the largest number of last minute commitments going to Edwards.. to the tune of 65% or so, by one poll I noted on the tube last night.
To me this says Edwards has done the right a huge favor, showing Kerry’s vulnerability even among Democrat primary voters, much less the general election.
He’s done this by two means:
First, showing that the real bedrock support for Kerry, while likely sufficiant to win the nomination, is postage-stamp thin, and can be pulled off it’s mark by some last minute ads and good, old fashioned campaigning, which Edwards did in Wisconsin…. the kind of campaigning that the President needs to do over the summer to get back into this thing… somehting he clearly has the money and the org to do. This alone would be enough for a victory in the general election, even discounting Bush’s base… which I think is far stronger than is being projected by the major news outlets.
Secondly, the shift in question, as I’ve discussed previously, is by no means issue driven. All this kind of voter cares about is who will be elected/elecatble in November… not what said person will do once in office. This by it’s nature means that the voters will be shifting loyalties based on minutiae. Support this thin and shifting is as likley as not to sit out the general election as to vote, which makes for a weak base, at best.
I submit that all of this adds up to it being Bush’s race to lose in the general election.