{"id":1842,"date":"2004-05-27T11:39:57","date_gmt":"2004-05-27T16:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1842.html"},"modified":"2004-05-27T11:39:57","modified_gmt":"2004-05-27T16:39:57","slug":"no-wonder-dems-keep-mentioning-a-kerry-mccain-ticket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/no-wonder-dems-keep-mentioning-a-kerry-mccain-ticket\/","title":{"rendered":"No wonder Dems keep mentioning a Kerry-McCain ticket"},"content":{"rendered":"

I frequently want to take Dem leaders aside and make them write on a blackboard, 100 times, “John McCain will not be John Kerry’s running mate.” Dick Gephardt, himself a likely finalist for Kerry’s short list, was the latest to raise (and praise) the possibility<\/a>, describing the Arizona Republican as a “very attractive figure in American politics” who “would be accepted by the Democratic Party.”<\/p>\n

It will not happen; it’s past the point of giving up hope. All of this speculation is not only foolish, it’s irritating and will make the eventual running mate seem less exciting.<\/p>\n

That said, part of me understands why the talk seems compelling. A Kerry-McCain ticket would have broad appeal. Unfortunately, a new CBS News poll<\/a>, which I saw via Taegan Goddard<\/a>, will do little to decrease the hype. In fact, it’ll likely make this lingering talk much worse.<\/p>\n

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry holds an eight-point lead over President George W. Bush among registered voters in the latest CBS News poll, 49% to 41%, but one of the names currently bandied about as a running mate for him – Republican Sen. John McCain – gives Kerry an even larger edge when added to the ticket.<\/p>\n

McCain has continued to face questions about joining his fellow Vietnam veteran Kerry on a ticket, despite having insisted that he is not interested in doing so. America\u2019s voters, meanwhile, do have interest in such a bi-partisan slate: a hypothetical Kerry\/McCain pairing holds a 14-point advantage over President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, nearly double the 8-point lead Kerry has alone over Bush.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wish CBS hadn’t even asked the question. How many times must McCain say “I have absolutely ruled it out” and “under no circumstances” before this talk dies?<\/p>\n

Besides, the Kerry\/McCain poll data obscures the real story here: Kerry (without McCain) enjoys a surprisingly-large 8-point lead. At this point in the race, that’s tremendous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I frequently want to take Dem leaders aside and make them write on a blackboard, 100 times, “John McCain will not be John Kerry’s running mate.” Dick Gephardt, himself a likely finalist for Kerry’s short list, was the latest to raise (and praise) the possibility, describing the Arizona Republican as a “very attractive figure in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}