Campaign Suicide (But Whose?)

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Marquis de Bush?: "They would like Mr. Gore, who brought bad karma to Mr. Dean with his primary endorsement, to zip it and go away. But more and more Democrats think it is Mr. Kerry who should zip it and go away.

Mr. Kerry has made a huge $25 million ad buy in recent weeks, believing that the better voters know him, the more they'll like him. But many Democrats fear he's one of those supercilious/smarmy candidates (like Al Gore) for whom the opposite is true: the more you know him, the less you want to see him.

They wonder whether Mr. Kerry should just let the campaign be Bush vs. Bush. As the president's old running buddy, Lee Atwater, used to say, don't get in the way when your rival's busy shooting himself."

Later on, she mentions that "no amount of power and privilege, or unending terror alerts, can get him out of" this Iraq etc. mess. So who thinks we heard about this latest terror alert -- the one that didn't merit us bumping up to Orange Alert again -- as a distraction?