I'm trying to figure out what all the little things were in this election outcome, and I'm going to start with the uncomfortable ones: What fault can be attributed to the selections of John Kerry and John Edwards as our candidates? Kerry first.

Back in early 2003, we were all a-twitter about poll results that showed George Bush trailing an "unnamed Democrat" by four points. This led us to believe, rightly, that Bush was beatable, despite the general belief that he was guaranteed a second term. Thus, "electability" became the key issue of the Democratic primaries. Who can look Presidential? Who can stand up to Bush in the debates? Who can exploit his weaknesses? In a surprising show of party unity, we wound up with John Kerry instead of Edwards, Dean or Clark.

Unfortunately, what we ignored in that same poll was that a 31% plurality said Iraq was the important issue. And here we find Kerry's most significant weakness as a candidate -- he voted for the war. Not just that, he voted for No Child Left Behind and he voted for the USA PATRIOT Act. He had ceded the basic premises of those issues to Bush ahead of time; all that was left was for him to campaign on "Yes, but...." Some other candidates had this same problem, but Dean and Clark didn't.

The second problem is that Kerry tried for as long as he could to be that unnamed Democrat. Apparently hoping to ride Anybody But Bush sentiment all the way to the White House, Kerry never coherently and comprehensively explained his plans for Iraq, health care and the budget. I don't know why this happened, but I suspect it's because he wasn't comfortable campaigning on sheer competence, that he didn't want to just come out and say, "Listen, I'll do better at this because I'm willing to accept reality and deal with it as it comes, not plow ahead facts be damned."

And then Edwards. I've seen the choice of Edwards, celebrated at the time, described as "disastrous" this week. I wouldn't go that far, but the fact is, Edwards ultimately brought nothing to the campaign. Kerry got a slight uptick from Gore's finish among rural and small town voters, but lost slightly among urban voters. He lost big in the south. Edwards was, to be blunt, the non-candidate, the next best thing to not picking a running mate at all. His votes in the Senate mirrored Kerry's, and he was never a risk to overshadow the man whose name came first. He disappeared after the convention, garnering even less media attention than Bunker Man himself; when they met in the debate, Edwards seemed cordial but unprepared while Cheney presented himself as the stern boss that his figurehead so desperately needed. In short, Edwards didn't cost Kerry anything, but didn't gain him anything either. Could Gephardt have delivered Iowa and Missouri? Could Clark have allayed concerns about national security? Could Dean have gotten out more than 51% of the youth vote? Nobody knows, but this election was the death of 1,000 cuts for the Democrats, and every little bit contributes.