The Kerry Problem
The Democratic Primary Voter has puzzled me. According to the chattering class, according to the exit and enterance polls, and according to conventional wisdom they’ve gravitated over to “Mr. Electable”, John Kerry.
How… is… John… Kerry… electable?
(1) He suffers from the Dukakis problem. In 1988, Lee Atwater handed Jim Pinkerton(*) a 3 by 5 inch card and asked for a bullet point by bullet point reference guide for talking points on Dukakis negatives, easy for Bush I to digest. It’s easy to see Karl Rove creating that very list right now on an exact replica of the notecard… except this time he may just well not bother giving it to Bush II and just hand it to Roger Ailes at Fox News. Start by slurring Massachusetts in general, and referencing Kerry’s “Liberal Elitist” aristocratic appearance. Move on to the silly social wedge issue. In 1988, it was Dukakis’s civil libertarian stand on flag burning and being “against the Pledge of Allegiance” by signing legislation allowing children to not have to say it. In 2004: Gay marriage. Don’t necessarily have to take it head-on (don’t want to alienate the soccer mom too much… no strike that, now they’re supposedly “Security Mom”s), but… just keep it there in the news. National Security? Why, I hear Kerry voted against CIA funding back at the end of the Cold War!
(2) He suffers from Al Gore’s problem. Riding onto the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on a motorcycle? Staged. Cursing for Rolling Stones Magazine? Huh? Whazza? Earth-tones, anyone? Add to it the general “Insider” point of reference, no over-arching “Vision” and a large need to “play it safe” and calculate the percentages out as to what comments will please and/or offend what percentage of this segment of the voting population…. necessary, I suppose, except you need to make it look like that is not what you are doing… Granted, Al Gore somehow won the popular vote and arguably the electoral vote, but he did so largely in spite of himself.
(3) HE RAN AN UNINSPIRING CAMPAIGN. He impressed NOBODY in 2003. Or did I miss something? I know that nobody was paying attention, but I, to a larger extent than others, was. Supposedly he works best when his “back is against the wall”. I … guess… so. He emerged from a crowded field at the top in a nomination process designed for the early war of attrition, and thus has been crowned. How am I to expect that he won’t repeat the lousy campaign that he ran in 2003 in the year 2004?
The political masses are playing “Pundit”. (Why and how? I can’t really speculate on the matter.) And they’re playing “pundit” based on what the chattering classes have prognosticated… I’m not sure that the political masses would be aware that Dean is “Unelectable” if the chattering classes had not pontificated on the question. And I’m not sure if they would have deemed Kerry as “Electable” if the chattering classes had not deemed it so. Does this make any sense?
(*)Updated: Pinkerton just wrote an editoral lombasting the Bush Big Budget. Skip to the final paragraph of page 2 for all ye know and all ye need know.