Fresh from John Kerry’s impressive win in New Hampshire, the New Republic has a dialogue about the senator between two Boston commentators, Dan Kennedy (the Phoenix) and Jon Keller (Boston Magazine and 56News). Kennedy’s opener is great - throughout the primary run up he’s been more impressed with Kerry than I have but here he summarize the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses just about right:
Despite Kerry’s well-known and impressive resumÃ(c) (Vietnam War hero, prosecutor, driving force behind Senate investigations into the Contra war and the BCCI scandal), the man himself remains an enigma. He is reserved and formal, which is another way of saying that he’s aloof. His lugubrious, rococo speaking style is, at best, an acquired taste. He doesn’t suck up to reporters, which means that many of them hate him. And he has a long record in the Senate of voting for liberal causes, a record that Karl Rove and company are already putting to good use.
Still, Kerry is a deceptively formidable candidate, especially when his back is against the wall–which Howard Dean learned to his sorrow in Iowa…. [A] Kerry campaign may not be pretty, but it’s generally good enough to win.
Meanwhile, I’m impressed that Kerry came in second in the Republican primary in New Hampshire. Judging from the results, there was a lot of cross-over write-in votes for both parties. Whether it’s out of protest or a snarky gesture of apathy, we won’t know.
UPDATE: Judging from my site statistics a rather large number are being referred to this post by search engine searches on pros and cons of gay marriage. Well, I’m gay, so you won’t find too many cons listed here, but you can check out a dossier I’ve collected of arguments for gay marriage.
UPDATE 2 (10/22): Many many more Google hits coming this way, this time for pros and cons of John Kerry. I wrote this post way back in the primary season. For a more thorough and recent assessment, see my list of reasons for voting for Kerry.
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