When candidates don't go away

One of the nicest benefits of an election is that the campaigns are over.

Sure, it's nice that it is a peaceful transfer of power and all that, but really, we all just want the darn thing to be over. When it is over, one of the candidates disappears for a while, eventually becoming a former candidate of statesman like proportions.

Even after the 2000 election, Gore eventually went away. And, before he did, the biggest complaint wasn't really about who was going to win...the biggest complaint was that the legal challenges were dragging everything on.

Even so, eventually it became official. Bush won, Gore lost and Gore went away. All may not have been right with the world, but we came to a conclusion and moved on.

So when I saw John Kerry on "Meet the Press" today, I was surprised. But, given his continued position as a senator (btw, I was always surprised that he didn't resign...I always thought that, when running for a higher office, you gave up the lower one, if only to show that you thought you would win), I figured he was being asked to comment on the remarks by the other Massachusetts senator.

While he did respond to Kennedy's remarks, it quickly became apparent that he was there as a former presidential candidate, to talk about Iraq and the race. He talked about his simple 4 point plan* and how, if he were in charge, things would be better.

After saying not to 'over hype' the historic Iraqi election (funny, how the words of his warnings sounded the same as Condi Rice's warnings that the elections wouldn't end the violence, yet the tenor of his sounded more negative), he talked about why he lost the presidential race. Apparently, it was because he didn't spread his percentage win in the battleground states out correctly. What, nothing about the voters?

Oh, and because the voters didn't want to remove a sitting President during war. Interestingly, not because the voters had no faith in Kerry's ability to handle the war (y'know, given that he showed his massive military strategy by offering a plan that differed from current strategies only by offering a veto to other nations) and absolutely nothing about voters preferring one candidate over the other on any other issues. According to Kerry, the primary reason people voted for Bush is...because he was there.

Kerry was so condecending. It was so annoying. I just kept thinking: "When will he go away?"

*does it count as a plan if it is identical to strategies that are already in place?