You read it here first…
A hotly contested Democratic primary season that stretches to the wire — even to a brokered convention — could be either the best or the worst thing for the Democrats. It’s the best thing if a bunch of plausible and photogenic candidates suck up all the media’s time and attention bashing Bush; Bush’s negatives are already rising fast, and they’ll keep on going up as Democrats have the limelight and use it against him. Once a nominee is selected, the press attention will shift elsewhere for a while, and he’ll bounce back.
Seems the NYT agrees with me now:
Political Memo: For Kerry, More to Gain in Leading Than Winning: Conventional wisdom might hold that now is the time for Democrats to rally around Mr. Kerry, and thousands are. Yet so long as Mr. Kerry faces even nominal intramural opposition, President Bush's advisers worry that they will have a harder time getting equal attention for their political message, and Mr. Kerry's rivals seem to keep undercutting each other, not him.
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So the prospect of continued combat with Mr. Edwards and former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont — while potentially annoying and distracting in terms of time, money and message — may be far from Mr. Kerry's worst nightmare. “Hopefully, we can do this every Tuesday,” one senior Kerry adviser said with a chuckle on Wednesday.
