Backstage at the debate from Howard Kurtz:
Ten feet away, John Kerry — who would have been mobbed four years ago — looked around the tent, and when no one seemed interested in his presence, walked out.
Perhaps H.L. Mencken was on to something when he wrote:
Long ago I proposed that unsuccessful candidates for the Presidency be quietly hanged, as a matter of public sanitation and decorum. The sight of their grief must have a very evil effect upon the young.