Who does not want Hillary Clinton to be our candidate in 2016?

[karynnj]

185. I don't think even Dean thinks that

The dominant issue in 2004 was Iraq and national security. Polls showed that on other issues - like health care, tax policy and the environment, Kerry was preferred over Bush. The fact is that on national security, Kerry was far better than most Democrats - not because he was a war hero, but because he worked on non state terrorism when NO ONE else remotely likely to run for President did.

There is no way that Dean would have completely owned Bush in the first debate on foreign policy. As can be seen now, Kerry is exceptionally knowledgeable and very good on foreign policy. Yes, I know that many here would say that Dean could have been clearer on Iraq because he did not have to vote in 2002. However, polls show that less than 50% of the voters had soured on the war ultimately being "successful".

Not to mention, Kerry was -by far - the stronger debater. If you remember, after the attacks around the time of the Republican convention, Kerry was pretty far down. It was the debates which allowed him to recover and put him in a position that he would have won a fair race.

Like Kerry, Dean would have had the dilemma of having to allocate his general election money over 13 weeks versus 8 for Bush. Maybe Dean would have opted out of public financing, but there were 2 down sides to that. One, Bush would have followed and likely outraised him and two, if the Democrat opted out first, they would have been called hypocritical. Not to mention, it was the MSM siding with Bush and allowing character assassinations - using language similar to Chuck Todd's recent comment that it is not the media's job to say when the Republicans lie.

We never saw a Republican smear campaign on Dean. Kerry was not uniquely vulnerable - in fact, he was harder to smear than most. We can't know how they would have smeared Dean, but as they positioned GWB as a military hero over JK, you can guess they would have hypocritically gone after Dean's deferment - for a bad back at a point where he skied regularly.

Not to mention - for those who will say that Dean would have fought back unlike Kerry - they should remember that he had a near melt down at a primary debate where he referred to not wanting to be a pin cushion in response to comparably mild attacks by fellow Democrats.