Triumph of the bland.

AuthorConniff, Ruth
PositionThe Word from Washington

Kerry, Kerry, he's our man, if he can't do it ... oh, well.

The primaries have wound down to this--the dull, establishment candidate. Of course, he's better than Bush, but why is it that the enthusiasm of last summer must so predictably cool into this spring drear?

Like Al Gore, John Kerry says he's fighting "special interests," even as he rakes in cash from Washington lobbyists. Former rival John Edwards refused to accept lobbyist contributions both as a Senator and a Presidential candidate. Kerry criticizes Bush for taking money from HMOs, drug companies, and energy concerns, but he has also hit up these industries for financing, The Washington Post points out, raising nearly $27,000 from oil and gas companies.

Kerry's biggest contributor over his career, according to the Center for Public Integrity, is the Boston-based law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky, and Popeo, which lobbies on behalf of the telecommunications industry. Another Kerry patron: the News Corp. That's Fox News's Rupert Murdoch, who flew Kerry's staff to California to talk about the needs of multimillionaire broadcasters, according to the Post. Kerry cosponsored legislation to help telecommunications companies buy up the public airwaves.

Ralph Nader's campaign is certainly ill-considered, given how atrocious the Bush Administration is. But by nominating Kerry, the Democrats leave plenty of room for Nader's genuinely anti-special-interest challenge.

Watching the candidates on the campaign trail there was no question that the enthusiasm generated by Howard Dean and even Edwards put Kerry to shame.

Only hours before he bowed out, Dean whipped up voters at the Orpheum Theater in Madison, Wisconsin, sounding like Nader, only running from within the Democratic Party. "For too long voters haven't seen the difference between the two parties," Dean said, and bragged about "putting the spine back in the Democratic Party." His campaign and its young, enthusiastic workers changed politics, in spite of the way things ended, Dean said. That remains to be seen. Dennis Kucinich, by far the most leftwing Democrat, made the same claim to be able to influence the party. But it's unlikely that either will have much pull at the convention. The fundraising champion frontrunner will set the tone for the election.

While Dean and Edwards were thrilling crowds in downtown Madison on the eve of the primary there, over at the Alliant Center--an arena named for its corporate sponsor, a local...

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