If Electability Were Really Important...

Why would Dimmocrats settle for another Massachussetts liberal?

* Americans for Democratic Action - which compiles a standard lefty ranking of congressional votes - gives Kerry a 93 percent lifetime rating, but grants Kennedy a lifetime score of "only" 88 percent.

* The non-partisan Congressional Quarterly noted that Kerry voted against the Bush administration more often than Kennedy: Kerry, 70 percent of the time - Kennedy, "just" 53 percent.

In many respects, of course, Kerry and Kennedy are ideological soulmates: CQ found that Kerry managed to vote with Kennedy 93 percent of the time.

And that's on average. On votes CQ labels "key," Kerry has voted with Kennedy every time in 11 of the last 19 years.

Sure looks like marching in lockstep with Ted Kennedy any time it really matters.

CQ also notes that on several key foreign policy votes last year, Kerry was more liberal than either Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle or New York's own Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Kerry and Kennedy still look like twins when veiwed from the other end of the spectrum: In 2000, each drew a mere 12 percent rating from the American Conservative Union; the next year, 4 percent.

But this only tells part of the tale.

Kerry's flip-flopping on the Iraq war is "consistent" with what he has done throughout most of his career: Flip - then flop.

Of course, he did that with the Vietnam War: Months of admirable service; then, back in the United States, years of leading activists in protest against the war.

Kerry voted against the Gulf War in 1991, then voted for Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2002.

Then, after voting to go to war, he voted against the $87 billion in troop support and country rebuilding (while in essence saying he regretted voting for the war in the first place).

... am I missing something?