Written by: Beck

Yes, I'm talking about John Kerry and his latest stunt. The long and the short of it: Kerry is thinking of postponing acceptance of the Democratic nomination until after the Democratic convention. The reason:

Under federal campaign rules, once a candidate accepts the party nomination, the campaign is limited to spending around $75 million.

The Republican convention is five weeks later than the Democratic convention, meaning Kerry's $75 million would start being drained more than a month earlier than Bush's.

Fair enough. The Bush campaign, naturally, is calling out Kerry for behaving like an assclown:

"Only John Kerry could be for a nominating convention, but be against the nomination," Ken Mehlman, the Bush-Cheney campaign manager, said in a written statement. "This is just the latest example of John Kerry's belief that the rules are for other people, not for him."

Which is also entirely true. Here comes the real assclown bit:

"Karl Rove and his political army strategically selected the latest convention in American political history in order to stack the deck against Democrats, who would be forced to survive on public money for five additional weeks while the GOP continued to spend their special-interest war chest," the source said, referring to a top Bush adviser.

That's right. This is all the hated and feared Karl Rove's fault. There are quite a number of mainstream Democrats out there who hate Rove and don't even know what it is exactly he does (a relative of mine is one of them). Next you tote out the scary-scary talk with the "political army" bit. Pardon? How is the Bush political machine any different from the Kerry machine? Bush's are somehow a political army while, what, Kerry's is a Rotary Club meeting? And we haven't even gotten to the substantive bit yet.

The Dems criticize the GOP for playing politics by picking a late convention. Is this to suggest that the Democrats didn't deliberately time their own convention when they did? I mean, what, did the Democrats do the democratic thing and randomly pick a date out of a hat? Please, enough with the bullshit. They had their strategic reasons for picking a date, and the Republicans had theirs. Whatever gain Republicans reap by having a late convention they give up in whatever advantages the Dems accrue via their early convention. Kerry, naturally, wants to have his cake and eat it too (though he'd better keep Michael Moore away from Boston this summer if he wants any cake at all). Somehow, Kerry pulls off this switch-a-roo via the expedient of blaming the Republicans for not playing fair. Either the man is insane, or he's a genius. Actually, my guess is he just sort of falls ass-backwards into this stuff and then treads water as best he can.

Naturally, Kerry doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to actually declare a path of action. Instead he floats an idea that's "under consideration", makes a point of stressing that it's just one of many ideas being considered, and then gets mad at anyone accusing him of "playing politics" (and what else, exactly, are politicians expected to do?)

Democratic party sources stressed that delaying the acceptance of the nomination is just one thing that the Kerry campaign is considering. But they made clear the party is committed to finding a way to maximize the amount of money Kerry and the Democratic Party have available to go against Bush.

Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said other options being examined include looking at how state and local parties -- as well as the Democratic National Committee -- might help the Kerry campaign.

That's the best you could come up with for "other options"? OK, if you're not already looking at how state and local parties can help, regardless of how you time your nomination acceptance, your entire election campaign staff should be fired. Assuming that his staff isn't composed entirely of cerebral palsy sufferers, one must conclude that they are in fact simply full of shit. Gotta love this country.