March 3, 2004 [LINK]
Kerry locks up nomination
The inexorable John Kerry juggernaut passed its final hurdle yesterday, and as Larry Sabato says, "To tell the truth, the race has been over since Kerry proved in Virginia and Tennessee on February 10 that he could wallop Edwards in his own backyard." That leaves us with eight long months to go before the Final Showdown in November. Plenty of time for Karl Rove to dig up dirt on him, and indeed the Bush campaign marked the occasion by unleashing the first round of what promises to be a relentless, unabashedly patriotic media blitz. The way things are going with ever-earlier primary elections, perhaps by 2008 both parties' nominees will have been effectively chosen prior to the Super Bowl. Some of Kerry's broadsides at Bush are way below the belt, but I'm in a forgiving mood at the moment, and I figure he just needs to "lock in" his party's activist base. As the campaign rolls on, however, it will be interesting to see if Kerry can break out of his smug, presumptuous, elitist shell and connect to common people as effectively as President Bush has.