OFF TO THE RACESWhat If Kerry Had Voted Against The War?By Charlie Cook
National JournalTuesday, Nov. 11, 2003
When I first heard Monday that Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts had just fired his presidential campaign manager, Jim Jordan, I immediately thought back to a conversation I had a month ago at a reception on Capitol Hill. Several people were discussing the race for the Democratic nomination, and I opined that the Kerry campaign's organizational problems were vastly overblown. In fact, I believed -- and still do -- that they were virtually irrelevant to his slippage from the race's front-runner position.
Instead, I suggested that the problem for Kerry, Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and others in the race was that they were in a race with another candidate -- former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean -- whose campaign was on fire. Dean's candidacy had taken on a life of its own and this, as opposed to any intrinsic weaknesses on the part of his rivals, was what was holding them back. I equated it to a handful of guys in a poker game: Some were accomplished players, but the guy from Vermont sitting across the table from them was drawing the hot cards every hand. I suggested that all the rest of the field could do was to either to drop out of the race or hope that Dean's luck would turn and they would still be alive to capitalize on it.
....Jordan is a talented guy and gifted campaign manager who should have no trouble finding campaigns or organizations that would love to have him on board. But, unless Jordan convinced Kerry to vote for the war, the senator's inclination to blame Jordan for his campaign's problems is bizarre to say the least. There is an old saying about campaigns that seem dead in the water: Since you can't fire the candidate, fire the manager instead. Who knows, maybe it will help -- but I doubt it.
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