I've never understood why Kerry did not face the same level of wrath from Democrats over

[karynnj]

60. Both Kerry and HRC had unique reasons that people held them responsible - in addition to the fact

they were running for office.

Kerry did face the same attacks even though he spoke against rushing to war before it started. He argued that they had not exhausted diplomatic means -- and that and a list of other things not done, like preparing for the end of the war, letting the inspectors finish their work etc were repeated by him for months in 2003 and into 2004. There was - to my knowledge - no similar Clinton speech against going to war in early 2003 as the inspectors were finding nothing.

In the first half of 2003, the media labeled Kerry as antiwar -- including when he was the first to speak out when Abu Ghraib became known - he demanded Rumsfeld step down ... and Dean joined him later that day. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, in June 2004 while on his book tour, spoke against those on the left challenging how the was was being fought. Had, as many thought, the war been short and successful -- Clinton likely would have spoken of that vote as a tough, but correct, choice. Kerry because of his speeches would have been labeled as having been against the war.

Not to mention, he was John Kerry. For many in my generation the first time we saw him was as the guy only a little older than us speaking with great eloquence against the Vietnam War. His IWR speech in 2002, said he would speak out if Bush did not use the authority as he said he would --- and he spoke out in early 2003. ( Even though in early 2003, he was dealing with learning he had cancer and getting treatments.) His history, that speech and his speaking out in 2003 made me comfortable that if he were President he would not have taken the country to war. (In fact, his comments in wanting Bush to be able to leverage the fact that the country was behind him to get needed concessions to avoid a war presages his own negotiations that removed 600 tons of chemical weapons from Syria that would never have happened if strikes were not threatened.)

Likewise, in 2002/2003, HRC was not your average Senator. We all came to know her well in 1992 as the incoming First Lady. Just as Kerry's history gave his vote an importance to me, Clinton's past made her a very important player as well -- and it was not based on her seniority. NO ONE in the Democratic party had a bigger megaphone that they could have used than Bill and Hillary Clinton. I marched in DC and NYC with my then teen aged daughters and husband. The frustration was that the protests which were huge got little attention and the media was not covering any of the people speaking against the rush to war. So, if some people were disappointed in Kerry not living up to his past, they were disappointed that the Clintons - the ONLY people who could always be heard ... were silent .. or in Bill's case - almost siding with Bush.

Politicians ALWAYS use differences in records to their advantage. You could compare comments from Dean and Kerry before the vote and you would see that Dean in Sept/Oct 2002 was MORE aggressive than Kerry. Bill Clinton argued that when Obama and HRC were both in the Senate they voted in very similar ways (both voted against Kerry/Feingold). But, both Dean and Obama had the right to use the votes of Kerry and Clinton and they did.

In Iowa, Kerry won even the people who were against the war. It may well be that his history from 1971 or even reading antiwar poetry on the Senate floor in the time leading up to the 1991 war defined Kerry enough that many did believe that he was not a hawk. The differences are many. One is that one contest was 2004 -- the other 2008. Being tarred with that vote was likely worse in 2008 than in 2004. The other is that Kerry is harder to pigeon hole as a hawk than Clinton. The third is that Dean was a weaker candidate, who had supported Gulf War 1, than Obama.

As to Edwards - in neither 2004 or 2008 did he come even close to being a front runner. He was never really vetted. (Not to mention, he was genuinely prowar in late 2003 -- then tried to get the position of antiwar in 2007)