There’s a tendency right now by GOP leaders, right-wing radio hosts, Fox News commentators, and conservative bloggers -- to attack Senator Kerry and Edwards by pointing out how boring Kerry’s speeches are, how blowsy and empty Edwards' resume is, and how shallow the Democratic candidates’ policy ideas are for the future.
These reactions miss the point.
Democratic voters had a choice in the primary campaign. They frothed over Iraq, wailed over health care, and spewed over Bush’s very existence. Yet they turned away from the intense Howard Dean and insisted on that gray shadow: John Kerry.
Why?
Because when an incumbent seeks re-election, the election is not about the challenger. The election is about the incumbent.
It’s about Bush’s record, his policies, his competence or incompetence, his vision -- or lack of it. The Republicans whine: “The more voters see of Kerry -- the less there is to see.” But Republicans are looking in the wrong place. (Magicians call this “misdirection.”) Critics of the Democrats are failing to see that the Presidency’s the thing.
Kerry will not offer much in terms of policy alternatives -- and this will drive his critics crazy: they’ll scream that Kerry’s ideas are vacuous, unspecific, vague.
Their shouts will vanish in the fog.
The challenger would be more important if Kerry ranted like Al Gore -- drawing all eyes to himself. Democrats would then lose the election. But, instead, Kerry impresses like a hazy pall on an overcast day. Don’t look at his face. His hand is moving. His finger’s on the trigger….
Look where he’s aiming.
As Kerry becomes cloudier and paler -- he’ll offer criticisms of Bush’s handling of Iraq and the economy and health care. The fact that the CIA bungled everything will be irrelevant. Who among the general public knows or understands the spooks, anyway? The spys are out of sight -- that’s their MO; their work is as murky and fuzzy as Kerry’s blueprint for the next four years.
Kerry’s potshots against Bush are the real deal: they’ll be explosive; they’ll become artillery rounds as the campaign heats up -- turning into nukes before this thing is over. Kerry’s proposals are nothing at all. Rather, he’ll ask: “Why did we go to war on the basis of false information? Are we winning, yet? Why can’t we just go back to normalcy and have peace?” His guns speak for him….
His attention is on the target.
What the Republicans had better start doing -- for the sake of the moderate swing voters in the center -- is to explain why people should vote to re-elect Bush.
They need to explain why the Iraq war is being fought, why the President’s long-term policy approach to combating terrorism is sound, why the President is decisive and serious about security, and why it matters that Americans should make a commitment to staying the course.
It has to be made clear that there’s a meaning to our travails, a passage through the storm. Our way of life is precious. If we want it, we must fight for it.
But the main snag, here, is that Bush, his associates in his administration -- and many in the Republican Party across the country -- haven’t been explaining things for some time. One gets the impression the GOP is exhausted, rundown, overwhelmed. There’s no fire in the belly. This isn’t preparing us for the future. The Reagan funeral revealed the fact that we’re yearning for leadership. Where is it?
Right now, if they thought it would work, Republicans would go to church and pray for political salvation….
Democrats would sell their souls….
Guess who’d win.
Posted by Rick Penner at July 10, 2004 04:05 PM