Dissolving Dems

What is it with Dem presidential candidates? Their mastery of the gaffe has them falling out of electability faster than you can say "is is."

• John Kerry never recovered from his infamous quote, “You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well, and if you don’t you get stuck in Iraq.” He didn't even make it to a formal announcement before he bowed out. He is the personification of the unteachability of old dogs.
  
  
• Joe Biden hasn't dropped out yet, but his campaign ended with the oratory opposite of Howard Dean's "Eeeeooww!," when he said the word "clean." Having alienated the black vote, the sensitive vote, the PC vote and the vote of those who want something other than a bumbling fool for president, he'll stay in for at least one primary because he has to for face-saving, then goodbye.
  
  
• John Edwards destroyed his bizarre campaign theme of being the man for the little people by signing off on the plans for his 25,600 square foot workingman's shack, and followed up quickly by alienating most Catholics by hiring on two ranting, obnoxiously secular leftybloggers. Then, as if that wasn't enough, he showed himself utterly incapable of dealing with Iraq since he couldn't even deal with this little spat -- fired them, waffled, hired them back. Maybe wuss of the people?

Meanwhile, the large field of GOP candidates is humming along smoothly. (Macaca doesn't count; that was during a Senatorial campaign.) Is it luck, or does it say something about thoughtful calmness versus emotional volatility?

I don't think it's luck. The Dem candidates are so confused about how to deal with their fractured party they must feel like they're living with an alcoholic who's a mean drunk. They've sat through endless messaging sessions trying to find the way to thread their messages between the demands of the ultra-leftists, the moderates, the abortion lobby, the old school Catholic Dems, the unions, the trial lawyers and all the others they have to try to please.

They've found that they can't weave even a simple Q&A through that mess, let alone dealing with answering how they can support keeping the troops funded if they're supposedly against the war the troops are fighting.

As a result of being so on their guard for answering the tough questions -- the questions that for them are virtually unanswerable -- they blow it in a moment if relaxed casualness.

Feel good politics is just so much harder than stay true politics, and it's showing in the wear and tear on the Dem presidential wannabees.

Related Tags: Democrats, Politics, 2008, Kerry, Biden, Edwards