"A Campaign In Chaos"

John Kerry’s, on the other hand…well. I don’t think his campaign was ever “on-kilter” to begin with. That fact simply was concealed in the spring and early summer by his relative low profile, which couldn’t last. Now he, and however many “consultants” he ends up hiring, are simply no longer able to conceal it.

The latest entrant into the avalanche of grumbling and recrimination is Tony Cohelo, though that has to be taken with a boulder of salt since the source for this story is CBS News.

...Tony Coelho lashed out at the John Kerry presidential campaign, characterizing it as a campaign in chaos. With yet another appointment of a former Clinton administration staffer to Kerry’s team (Mike McCurry) on Tuesday, Coelho argues the problem is worsening.

“’There is nobody in charge and you have these two teams (Kennedyites and Clintonoids) that are generally not talking to each other. Here are two groups that have never gotten along and have fought, and it is a lot over money... Because in the Democratic Party the consultants get paid for the creation and the placement of [advertising]. Republicans only pay you for the creation.”

Liberals fighting over money? Say it ain’t so!

'In 1988, Dukakis: Shrum is involved. In 1992, Clinton: nothing to do with Shrum. They don’t want Shrum in any way... In 1996, they do not want Shrum in any way. In 2000, Gore doesn’t want Clinton people. We go forward, 2004, all of a sudden it’s the Shrum/Kennedy people… [the Kerry campaign staffers] are in serious trouble now, so they want to bring in the Clinton people.'

Annnnnnnd the Clinton people don’t work for John Kerry, they work for the Clintons. Including Mrs. Clinton, who wants to run for president while she can still keep her face lifted. Doesn’t take a conspiracist to deduce that they knew how lackluster a candidate the Boston Balker is and were counting on his campaign faltering and reaching out for their “help.”

The Democratic scuttlebutt has long been filled with concern over Shrum’s losing streak. He remains 0 for 7 in presidential elections, from George McGovern to Michael Dukakis to Al Gore. When Coelho resigned as chairman of the Gore campaign, Shrum, in large part, took the reins…The Kerry campaign insists this is not the case; it says Mary Beth Cahill is still in charge. But last week, the appointment of strategist John Sasso as a senior adviser began to belie such claims.

Kerry, IOW, doesn’t know what to do, and never did. He thought he could run for president the same way he ran for his senate seat. And now he’s surrounded by people who can’t shoot straight and other people who want to slip a knife into his back.

’'What I’m looking for is a Karl Rove and I don’t know where our Karl Rove is.

What his party should have been looking for is a candidate who could actually win. But that was impossible because its base is comprehensively dishonest and light-years from the American mainstream.

Into that multi-faceted context comes the following tidbit:

Senator Hillary Clinton on Monday told reporters that her husband, Bill, who in a previous life served as president of the United States, was on track for a three-month rehabilitation, and said it was unclear whether he would be able to go on the road with the man who would like to hold the job he had, Senator John Kerry. ”But according to a former Clinton staffer, there are already plans being put into place for Clinton to join Kerry on a barnstorming trip two weeks before the election.

The thinking seems to be that Clinton's emergence from his convalescence would at the least energize the Democratic base that has been growing increasingly uneasy about Kerry's performance and standing as their candidate. "’At the very least, Clinton steals the headlines for two or three days, and creates the political buzz and excitement Kerry hasn't been able to develop,’ says a Democratic political consultant, who was unaware of the plan. ‘This is probably the only thing that can save Kerry's campaign right now.’

Now I don’t want to be too much of a party-pooper, but when has Bill Clinton ever managed to generate “political buzz and excitement” for anybody except himself? I seem to recall that he had the anti-Midas touch in 2002, with every Democrat candidate for whom he campaigned going down to defeat.

Besides, wouldn’t Clinton generating that “buzz” simply highlight how pathetic Kerry is? Do they really believe that any of it would rub off on him?

And what if that was cutting Clinton’s convalescence too short? Does Lurch really want to run the risk of Mr. Bill perhaps collapsing on stage right beside him - and becoming a macabre metaphor of his campaign?