Dick Morris on John Kerry

“Voters don’t like him very much”

. . . and the hits just keep on comin’.

The Fox News poll asked Kerry supporters if their vote for the Democrat could best be described as motivated by support for Kerry (41 percent) or by opposition to Bush (51 percent). By contrast, Bush voters emphatically say, by 82-13, that they are voting for the president rather than against the challenger.

This puts Kerry in a tough position in the coming debates. He has no real base of support and any attenuation of the dislike his voters feel for Bush will weaken him substantially. All Bush has to do is to persuade a few Kerry voters to stop disliking him, and he can get their votes. There is no residual affection for the Democrat to get in the way of their switching to the president.

Good point.

Kerry never had time to make America like him. He won the nomination before anyone really got to know him and has coasted on anti-Bush campaigning ever since. Even now, he relies on the old National Guard records of Bush to animate his campaign, as if we are about to form our judgment of how Bush would be as a commander based on 30-year- old, possibly forged records rather than on our own observation of how he has done the job. But Kerry has got to close the most fundamental gap of his candidacy: Voters don’t like him very much.

I question whether or not Kerry has had the time to “make America like him.” What was he doing the past year or so? I think the more plausible answer is that Kerry simply is not a likeable candidate. He’s a radical liberal, an elitist, and out of touch with American values.

In short, it’s the Democratic version of Dole/Kemp ’96. Hate for a sitting president will not win you the election, especially after such a vicious primary season.