Following are some grades of Democratic Presidential candidates in terms of their recent effectiveness at expressing "teen spirit". Criteria include:

- Expression of issues that effect young people
- Use of pop culture
- Memorable, understandable language
- Moral inspiration

The group of voters effected by such behavior includes not only young people but older voters whose primary cultural language is "pop."

John Kerry (B)

John Kerry has been photographed on motorcycle and played electric guitar last week joining a local Boston band, Popgun 7, in a rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out." What's more, according to today's New York Times, he played on a 1961 album in a local band, The Electras, the liner notes of which called him a "producer of a pulsating rhythm that lends tremendous force to all the numbers."

This qualified Kerry as a bona-fide student of Bill Clinton's 1992 saxaphone playing on the Arsenio Hall Show. Of course Clinton already showed an affinity for old rock and roll eleven years ago and these are different times so the cultural statement doesn't mean that much.

I've got nothing against Kerry. In fact I think he'd be a terrific President and he's been more focused since he formally announced his candidacy than before. But Kerry is still fundamentally running as the guy who was a war hero. Not only will this rationale be dramatically undercut if Wesley Clark enters the race moreover, although George W. Bush and most of the hawks in his administration didn't serve in the Armed Forces, Bush still has, and will have, a lot of supporters in the military if for no other reason than that people in the military in recent years tend to be Republicans.

Richard Gephardt (B+)

Gephardt gets points on "language" for his repeated use of the phrase "miserable failure" to describe the Bush presidency. Although such repetition in recent debates and subsequent interviews does come across as a contrived, pre-planned "soundbite" it was nonetheless effective and re-positioned Gephardt.

Howard Dean (A-)

Dean still gets points for moral believability. He's handled the barrage of attacks on his minor political faux pas with grace and confidence and he still comes across as the only candidate other than Al Sharpton who has a mind of his own.

Al Sharpton (B+)

Sharpton is still the most entertaining candidate and the best natural speaker but he needs a more compelling vision if he's going to fill Jesse Jackson's shoes or more.

Wesley Clark gets an (A) for motivating a letter from Michael Moore, currently the definitive "teen spirit" arbiter... but this could quickly fade if he doesn't announce or if his announcement cycle doesn't live up to the hype.

Edwards, Mosley Braun, Kucinich get "incompletes" because at this moment I don't feel them in the game.

Lieberman as always, gets an (F), this time for petulant petty attacks on Dean for supposedly vacillating on support for Israel (Dean's position on Israel is, in fact , maddeningly conventional). Kerry lost some points for this too -- but he did it in a more pro-forma way whereas Lieberman's bitter satisfaction at "nailing" Dean had all of the intellectual dishonesty and pettiness of the worst High School Asst. Principal.