I was going to write something about John Kerry's odd decision to stage his formal announcement of his candidacy in South Carolina...

For His Announcement, Sen. Kerry Heads South

To political junkies, Kerry's revised itinerary speaks volumes... A Southern strategy, illustrated by an announcement in Charleston, shows some guts, even if it is fueled by a certain desperation about potential outcomes in Iowa and New Hampshire.

And the more recent very odd decision to use an aircraft carrier as a backdrop despite Kerry's [entirely appropriate] smacking of Bush about his aircraft carrier photo-op, thus inviting headlines like:

Kerry using ship in campaign kickoff; Democratic contender had criticized Bush landing on Lincoln

A spokesman for a rival Democratic presidential campaign, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, "I don’t think anyone can say with a straight face that this is anything but gimmickry."

He added that it was significant that Kerry was beginning his tour in South Carolina. "This indicates an adjustment in strategy. He is not able to count on a win in New Hampshire," the spokesman said. "At the start of the year, Kerry was well above the rest of the field in New Hampshire. Since then he has seen his lead in the polls completely disappear."

...but then I saw there was a Kos post with a nice long thread digging into it already, where everything I could have wanted to say is covered, except for this:

Given the poor planning and too-careful finessing that I see going on in the Kerry campaign, and given the rightful assumptions of close watchers early on that Kerry would be one of the dominant players, it's becoming clear to me that Chris Lehane, who Kerry got from the Gore campaign, should be henceforth known as "The Squanderer". The ineptitude of the Kerry strategists is showing, and it stinks of Gore2000's needless loss.

Postscript: from the Kos thread, a great distillation of the last couple of weeks by Bruce Webb, responding to someone claiming this had created buzz for Kerry on the site:

Well if you substitute "about JK" for "for JK" you have a point.. But you could retitle this thread "Dean supporters abandon their back-up candidate" and be more on point.

He lost me with the inventing the Internet comment. I am a Yellow Dog Democrat ... and I will pull the lever for the Kerry Dog if I have to but I will be holding my nose.

And I went into this cycle as a Kerry guy.

...all of which describes me pretty well too, except for the Democrat part.