Blog: John Kerry

Does John Kerry really think he is going to get the party's nomination again? More importantly, does he think that making statements which sound weaselly and opportunistic, which give truth to all the caricaturizations the Republicans foisted upon him in the election, will actually help?

Both John Aravosis and Steven Hart came up with the same joke: if he runs again, we can say, "I voted for John Kerry before I voted against him." (I actually could have said that last year, since I voted for him in 1996 for Senate before I voted against him in the 2004 New York primary.)

Kerry is doing very well in the debate. He got some good points in, looks and acts Presidential, stood up for himself, and it didn't hurt that Bush kept stumbling over his words not to mention confused Saddam and Osama.

But the one thing that struck me most about Bush's convention speech was how hopeful and positive it was. Bush is great at painting a picture of a better, safer world we could live in one day and acting like he deeply feels the challenges along the way. Kerry has continually said Bush made a mistake, America was misled, we screwed up, it's a mess, we can do better.

But how, better? Just that we can pull out of Iraq? That we can continue to have talks and sanctions with Iran and North Korea? I want to hear a vision for the future I can get excited about. I want to believe in John Kerry, to be able to conceive a future where the world is a better place. And I haven't heard that.

I still want Bush to lose more than Kerry to win. I still want change in the White House because I want Supreme Court justices who keep things the way they are. But that's not an inspiring vision for the future - fix the problems, keep the country from changing too much, stop making mistakes. I want to dream about a better world and I want John Kerry to take me there. And I want his writers to start telling me how he will.

John Kerry did a nice job on The Daily Show last night. He got in some good digs against the President and sounded (to me, anyway, who will vote for him no matter what) calm and in control. I was disappointed, though, that he didn't have a better response to Jon's central question, "What the fuck is going on?" or, put another way, what does it mean for democracy when one group can consistently and blatantly lie, and except for a few editorials niggling with details, get away with it?

For the last few weeks Jon has been publically wrestling with this question, just as bloggers have been for years, of what this says about the media and how we could possibly get out of this huge hole we're in - and it is a hole, because the more people get away with it, the more they will try it, and that only will reinforce the media's habit of reporting both "sides" of an issue factually and without any context of whether the "sides" are at all credible.

Jon asked Kerry, "Is it a difficult tihng not to take personally," "Were you surprised," and "This election is clearly the most important one of our lifetime, and yet it's very difficult to have [a substantive] discussion". Kerry only responded by saying "Believe it or not, I've been through worse," emphasizing how Americans really want candidates to talk about substance, and how he's going to do just that, which is probably exactly the right thing to do. But it led to an interview where Jon kept trying to get at the central danger, asking Kerry these meta questions, and Kerry responding with core beliefs and policies rather than any profound insight into how treacherous state of our democracy today.

Jon asked Clinton a similar thing, and Clinton didn't say much either. Bloggers have come up with plenty to say about this, so I'm sure they both shied away from it not because of a lack of opinions but because it wouldn't be smart politically. Which just adds to the crazy messed-up state everything is in where candidates can't even talk about how crazy and messed up everything is.

I'm sure 10 million bloggers and journalists are about to write this same thing, but I'm listening to Bill Clinton speak at the Democratic Convention and I'm just continually struck by how good a speaker he is. He makes me care. Whereas I was listening to John Kerry earlier, and I couldn't help but thinking, he makes me bored. (Bush, on the other hand, makes me sick.)

It's stupid that this matters. Kerry is very smart. I am sure he would do a great job as President - it's just that he's not nearly as engaging as a speaker. We should pick a President based on his policies, not based on his speaking skill, but we still live in the age of TV. And on TV, Bill Clinton is the undisputed master.

The Democrats should develop programs to help budding politicians improve their speaking skills. The moment someone decides to run for state rep, if they want to be President one day they need to start working on sounding like Bill Clinton. Create a thousand Clintons and we'd hardly ever lose. Or, let's work to fix the structure of our civic discourse so it ceases to be all about who sounds best on television.

Faced with a policy landscape where the public agrees with Kerry on every issue - even fighting terror - the GOP has resorted to calling Kerry 'rich' and making fun of his possessions. Leaving aside the obvious hypocrisy when everything Bush ever did was because of family connections, I find it interesting that they think "Kerry has more money than you" will necessarily engnder resentment.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is rich. Everyone knows that. But voters elected him governor of California because of it, or at least because of his celebrity, which is very closely linked to it. In America we idolize wealthy people. In fact, this is often cited as a reason many people vote for Republicans even though Republican policies hurt those same voters: the cultural meme of the American Dream, the idea that you will be rich one day or your children will be, and so cutting taxes for the rich will benefit your family too once you make it big. We can all be like John Kerry. Our children might be John Kerry one day, running for President and being mocked for vacationing on Nantucket, right?

Therefore, does the "Kerry is rich and out of touch" message a) work because Kerry seems a bit out of touch, so he is more susceptible, b) work because while people see themselves or their children as rich taxpayers one day but not necessarily as candidates for office (note that most American children used to want to grow up to be President, but now want to grow up to be celebrities), or c) not actually work?

Kerry keeps doing better and better despite the negative ads, so maybe it doesn't work, though maybe it's stemming Bush's decline due to the public failures of his policies. (a) seems most likely to me, since Kerry doesn't have that celebrity personality. There's no way to know, but it seems to me that even if this particular attack does work, there could be ways to parlay it into an advantage.