It’s almost become a cliche in politics about a candidate peaking too soon, but the opposite seems to be happening to Kerry, at least from the standpoint of the Republicans. If it were really true that this were part of the Republican Attack Machine™ they wouldn’t be instigating the medal meltdown now–they’d wait until after the convention, when it’s too late.

There’s a serious danger that the Dems may abandon Kerry if he’s tanking too much in late spring, and replace him with a serious candidate (e.g., Lieberman or Biden). In fact, I wonder if the current medal feeding frenzy means that the press has decided that Kerry doesn’t have a chance, and they’re turning on him now in the hopes that they can make it happen.

On the other hand, given the internecine state of the party, it’s not clear that they can really come up with a better one at this point. Hillary might be eyeing it, but I think that her negatives remain too high to win. People may have forgotten her shady past by 2008, but not yet.

[Update]

Here’s an example of Donkey enthusiasm for their candidate (warning: language).