It was inevitable that Kerry’s decision not to run would lead to speculation as to the reasons. The Politco has a plausible explanation–the big money needed isn’t there this year. Another possible factor is that, while earlier Kerry might have hoped that he had the best chance to survive as the anti-Hillary candidate, Obama’s emergence as a strong contender ended that hope.
Then there’s the more absurd ideas. AP reports that two election workers were convicted “of illegally rigging the 2004 presidential election recount so they could avoid a more thorough review of the votes.” Brilliant at Breakfast offers a not so brilliant theory that this explains the reasons Kerry is not running as they revive the tin foil hat theories which have been throughly refuted in the past. While there is no doubt that the system is broken, the errors discovered just do not have much impact on the ultimate result, or Kerry’s decision. As AP reports:
Special prosecutor Kevin Baxter, who was brought in from Erie County to handle the case, did not claim the workers’ actions affected the outcome of the election — Kerry gained 17 votes and Bush lost six in the county’s recount.
This, along with other errors which might be discovered, hardly make up for the 118,000 margin by which Kerry lost Ohio. Other reports also provide evidence against the stolen election theories:
“This was not done for political reasons,” the case’s special prosecutor, Kevin Baxter, said in his closing argument. “It was so you didn’t have to do a full hand recount. Politics didn’t matter.”
Update: With all the knocking of Kerry, here’s a view from one of his fund raisers, Robert Zimmerman:
“The ultimate irony of it all is that John Kerry made an enormous contribution to shifting the national debate on Iraq. Some of the positions Republicans attacked Kerry for in 2004 are the same ones they hold now. His advocacy of phased redeployment from Iraq and his strategies for fighting terrorism have now become accepted thinking among even some leading Republicans. Even George Will, of all people, has acknowledged that Kerry was right about how to fight terrorism.”
Josh Marshall also writes that “I think he ran a much better campaign than the conventional wisdom now allows.”
