New Kerry Tactic

It seems that the new tactic of the Kerry campaign to try to explain away the lack of a Kerry Senate record will be to attack the legislative record of Dick Cheney. Pejman has a good explanation of why this tactic is bogus.

For the entire time that Cheney was in the House, he was in the minority. Minority members rarely get their bills passed, or even out of committee. Nevertheless, Cheney's legislative leadership was seen as impressive enough that he was elected to the post of House Republican Whip--a post he only gave up when President Bush the Elder nominated Cheney to serve as Secretary of Defense. (It should be noted that when Cheney vacated his Whip post, the resulting election had the post filled by a certain Georgia congressman named Newt Gingrich. Had Cheney remained in the Whip post, and had all other things remained equal, he would have become Speaker of the House of Representatives.)

By contrast, John Kerry spent 7 and 1/2 of his years in the Senate (1989-1995, and April, 2001-January, 20031) in the Senate majority.

I think this tactic will be rather short-lived. I can't imagine Kerry's record being compared favorably against Cheney's.