Deinonychus antirrhopus

An Interesting Hypothesis

Bevan's over at Real Clear Politics suggests a serious potential problem for Kerry with regards to Iraq.

First up we have this quote from Walter Russel Mead,

''The nightmare for Kerry is that all of his criticisms become moot, except the woulda-shoulda-coulda criticism about the war," said Walter Russell Mead, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ''In this sense, voters are going to say to themselves: 'What's the difference? If I vote for Kerry, I will get a war in Iraq and someone who doesn't believe in the war but is going to have to fight it anyway. If I vote for Bush, I get a war in Iraq, fought by somebody who believes in the war....'

''I think they are moving toward a merge," Mead said. ''Most of the people I talk to don't think there's going to be that much difference between them, in substance, because the options are so limited. I think in a second term, the Bush administration would try to get more foreign support, and a Kerry administration would sometimes have to go it alone." That view will be expressed in next month's issue of Foreign Policy magazine in an article titled ''Meet George W. Kerry."

The problem is that Bush and Kerry are moving towards each other. If on election day their positions are rather close then Kerry faces some serious problems here. Many moderates might look at the issue and say, "Hmmm, why switch since they are both very similar here." The only thing Kerry has left are domestic issues and he has serious problems there...or more accurately a serious problem there: a Republican controlled Congress. If the Republicans retain control of Congress (both houses) then many of his legislative proposals would likely run into a brick wall. So on the domestic front Kerry doesn't look that good in terms of passing policy.

Further, Kerry faces a problem on his Left flank as well. By moving to meet Bush it entails a move rightward. This could leave many of Kerry's more hardcore lefty supporters looking for a "better" candidate. Enter stage Left, Ralph Nader.

Kerry's best bet might be that many moderates might be in favor of more gridlock. However, I doubt this. I would be happy with domestic gridlock and I don't consider myself to be a moderate. I think many moderates do see problems in areas such as education, health care, etc. and are not opposed to micro-management plans that many candidates love to put forward. So the success in terms of passing such policies will be important to such voters.