From Squaring the Boston Globe

If the poor Demos are conflicted about John Kerry, it is showing in today's Boston Globe. Two stories cover the cash-heavy financial position with which the Kerry campaign ended. Among the news stories is "Some Democrats decry Kerry's unspent $16m". In it some Democrats speak without nuance:

But Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist who managed Gore's 2000 presidential campaign, said she was ''totally shocked" to learn that so much money was left over. Aside from Kerry's defeat, Democrats lost two seats in the House and four in the Senate this year. ''I've never heard of having that amount of money left over," she said. ''This is not about John Kerry. This is about how do you deploy resources. We kept saying, 'This is the greatest, most important election in our lifetime.' Yet we have money left over? I don't know what else to say."

Meanwhile on the OpEd page Scott Lehigh speculates that:

"Kerry's argument [that he ran as well against Bush as anyone could have] is revealing for this reason: It seems designed to buttress the notion that his campaign was competitive enough not to foreclose another try in a party that seldom grants a second chance."

So maybe the reason that Kerry seems much less distraught with his election loss than many other Democrats is that he figures his good show in November, his pulpit in the Senate, and his wife's (war) chest give him another shot at the White House in 2008.

To all those church-going Republicans, this sounds like an answer to prayer — the likes of which they have not seen since the era of Stevenson-Kefauver.

UPDATE: DOH! How could everybody be so stupid about this? Why didn't Kerry spend or give away the $16M? Because it was a mere detail! When you are married to a billionaire, $16M is not a fortune. It is a paycheck. Cases in point: John Kerry and Suha Arafat.