He's back

Looking rested though not so tanned, John Kerry was the only interview guest on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday. His answers were clear, sharp and pointed. (He had a slight flub once, which was probably due to not hearing the question correctly, and it was a dumb question anyway.)

On the campaign and its outcome, Kerry said that post-election analysis suggests that 9-11 was the paramount issue, and that voters were reluctant to change presidents in the middle of a war, which they've never done in the past. When host Tim Russert quoted him as telling an audience in November that it was the Osama bin Laden tape, magically appearing a few days before the vote, that sunk him, he didn't disagree. He said that until the last weekend he was rising in the polls (one assumes he meant his campaign's polling), then flattened out on Sunday when the tape was played, and went down on Monday, the day before the election.

Even so, he said, he won the popular vote in the battleground states, and if distributedly a little differently, he would be president. He took responsibility for the campaign's mistakes, specifically for not coming out sooner and more strongly in his own defense against the Swift Boat liars (though that's in hindsight; at the time, many others came to his defense, and it didn't seem necessary.)

He said he "wasn't thinking about" either the presidential election or his own senatorial election in 2008, but about the issues of today. He mentioned several times the legislation that he has already introduced to finance health care for American children. But his strongest moments came when talking about Social Security, and countering a Russert characterization for his plan to rollback Bush tax cuts as "a tax increase," he called those tax cuts "irresponsible," and whipped out the Financial News article (linked from this site several posts back) stating that European central banks are losing confidence in the U.S. dollar.

The bottom line for us is that this appearance solidifies Kerry as the leader of the Democratic party, and most specifically of the party in Congress. This is very important, especially in light of the post-2000 election period, in which Al Gore refused to stay involved, and the party wandered leaderless into the disastrous 2002 congressional elections.

Although Kerry would not back Senator Kennedy's call for immediate troop withdrawls and a date certain for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, he endorsed Kennedy's analysis that the presence of U.S. troops is a major cause of problems, and the goal of proceeding to train Iraqis as quickly as possible so U.S. troops can leave as soon as possible. On other matters, however, Kerry is taking bold stands: he voted against Condi Rice, he said he would vote against Scalia if he is nominated for chief justice.

This is what the Democrats need to be an effective opposition party: boldness, spine, intelligence, a sophisticated grasp of the issues, and Kerry's battle-tested stature and the crispness he learned for the debates. When Russert asked him "The most important thing you learned running for president?" He answered, "How great, how unbelievable the American people themselves are. They are just--the courage of the American people day to day blew me away. And I think that, you know, this is an amazing country, and I came to love it even
more."

We aren't thinking about 2008 either. But it would be another shame if the experiences of such an incredible campaign were lost, when they could inform the political process of now.

Here's the transcript link:

MSNBC - Transcript for Jan. 30