UK Observer: The Vietnam vet will win

[T_i_B]

Will Hutton here endorses John Kerry for president. Make of this what you will.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1143402,00.html

It is testimony to the profound dominance of conservatism on the American national consensus, with the noxious charge of not being patriotic that is levelled by Bush against any critic, that the best way any liberal voice can fireproof himself against such a charge is to play the Vietnam vet card. As Kerry says, in order to be heard about the rollcall of domestic issues that concern ordinary Americans, any Democratic presidential candidate has to get past the security issue; being a decorated Vietnam vet offers Kerry the passport. So now for one safe-ish forecast and one risky prediction, which I wish I had written last May when I first met the Kerry camp. Kerry is going to win the nomination to be the Democrat presidential candidate and I think he will go on to beat George Bush.

Howard Dean's emergence as the Democratic front runner for President last year was very important. He articulated the raw anger that the Democrat base felt at Bush and he reminded the Democratic establishment about core Democratic values. If you weren't stirred by Dean's rallying call, you had cold blood. But it isn't and wasn't good enough to get mad - Democrats have to get even.

And Kerry, I am glad to note, has got the bit between his teeth over sky-high university tuition fees pricing students from ordinary backgrounds out of college education. It was the statistics about America's declining social mobility and the now incredible debt that students have to assume that interested his chief of staff most when we met. I thought and still think that this is an undersung issue the Democrats can use to appeal to middle-class swing voters.

So much is going for the Democrats - demography and the growth of the black and Hispanic vote, the social libertarianism of the cities, the insecurities of American life, the decline of opportunity and the massive failures of Bush's foreign policy - that what effectively stands between them and the presidency is the South, a hawkishly conservative media and atavistic fear of terrorism.

[grytpype]

1. Kerry will be our first Vietnam vet President.

[Manix]

2. ...good article!

nt

[Snappy]

3. John Edwards

I hope he is offered VP and accepts. He can deliver a few Southern states and would make an execellent VP.