It's almost become a cliche in politics about a candidate peaking too soon, but the opposite seems to be happening to Kerry, at least from the standpoint of the Republicans. If it were really true that this were part of the Republican Attack Machine™ they wouldn't be instigating the medal meltdown now--they'd wait until after the convention, when it's too late.

There's a serious danger that the Dems may abandon Kerry if he's tanking too much in late spring, and replace him with a serious candidate (e.g., Lieberman or Biden). In fact, I wonder if the current medal feeding frenzy means that the press has decided that Kerry doesn't have a chance, and they're turning on him now in the hopes that they can make it happen.

On the other hand, given the internecine state of the party, it's not clear that they can really come up with a better one at this point. Hillary might be eyeing it, but I think that her negatives remain too high to win. People may have forgotten her shady past by 2008, but not yet.

[Update]

Here's an example of Donkey enthusiasm for their candidate (warning: language).

Is there any realistic method by which the Democrats could dump a candidate? Kerry has delegates who are virtually guaranteed to vote for him at the convention. Other than reversing their votes, I imagine the only possible method is to have the party leadership speak to him and get him to voluntarily drop out. That would never happen.

Somebody should look at the by-laws or voting rules for the nominating convention. The answer would be there.

This is still idle speculation. It's not worth speculating at this point because too much could happen in the meantime.

Another possibility is a post-convention revolt. There is precedent for changing a presidential ticket after the convention: McGovern dumped Eagleton for Shriver just 18 days after the 1972 convention.

I'm also waiting to hear from the Georgia SOS about my home state's rules and process for a major-party ticket getting on the November ballot -- I would think the legal technicalities in that process would give a pretty decent idea of what recourse the party would have if JFnK secures the nomination and keeps right on imploding.

Personally, though -- at this point I think it would still be in the Clintons' best interest to prevent rather than join such a revolt. A lot of what's going on in the campaign right now is about Bush's strengths at least as much as Kerry's weaknesses.

Could Kerry delegates abstain on the first ballot? (I know they aren't allowed to vote for anyone else outright.) If a sufficient number abstained to prevent Kerry from being elected on the first ballot -- not sure what would predicate this; things would have to get pretty nasty -- subsequent ballots are open season. Delegates can vote for whomever they like.

That's a good question, Phil -- I have wondered the same thing myself (which may be why I think it's a good question, but never mind that).