Kerry's Tactics
 

The New York Times



Kerry at the Wheel
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: July 27, 2004


It was a winter's night in Iowa, round about midnight. John Kerry should have been wrapping up a town meeting, but he'd decided to go into his "I'll answer every question'' mode. Most everybody desperately wanted to go home, and insects and other small life forms were perishing from boredom. Every time he'd launch into another Castroite soliloquy - on the history of the Middle East or the pay structure of the civil service - the audience would groan. I sat there listening to this drone, thinking, "If this man becomes president, I have to stop being a pundit because I know nothing about politics."

I didn't realize that tediousness is John Kerry's greatest trait. I didn't realize that a country barraged by a decade of Gingrich, impeachment, hanging chads and war may actually be looking for a Brezhnev to give it a break.

I didn't realize how much this campaign would feel like George Bush's run for a third term. So much stuff has happened over the past four years, he's already built up two terms' worth of animosity among his foes and two terms' worth of exhaustion in his friends.

It's not that voters will ever love Kerry, but it could be that if you presented them with some variety of an interesting candidate, they would recoil and like that candidate even less.

I also didn't sense that the Democratic Party is just sober enough to realize it needs a designated driver like John Kerry to get it home at night. This is a whacked-out party that has spent the past year throwing back Howard Dean hurricanes, being gripped with Michael Moore fever and indulging in Whoopi-esque animosity binges.

And yet there's that moment when you are drinking, before you get really blotto, when you realize that you have just enough sobriety for one last lifesaving act of responsibility. For the Democrats, nominating Kerry is that act - and now he's running a professional, disciplined campaign.

If the convention program reflected the collective party subconscious, the first night would feature a life-size rubber Dick Cheney doll, and the speakers would take turns throwing it around the stage. And yet the Kerry party elite is insisting that everybody wear a responsibility corset. Restrain yourself. Be positive. This is sound advice from a man who never met an emotional tide he didn't opt out of.

This could be the only political environment in recent memory in which it actually helps to have spent 20 years in the U.S. Senate. The Senate is like the "Top Gun" school for bores. It takes people who have certain natural facilities for pomposity and it turns them, by putting them through years of pointless droning, into weapons of mass narcolepsy.

Look up Kerry's radio address from Saturday. No banality is left behind. If a soporific sentiment is hit upon, it must be repeated. Kerry has the virtues of a fine bore. He is steady, persevering, deliberate, unflappable and safe. This could serve him well.

He has unified the party through sheer force of prolixity. Bill Clinton pandered by telling you what you wanted to hear. John Kerry panders by never telling you what you don't want to hear. This is negative pandering; he talks a lot without really ruling anything out so you can draw your own conclusions.

Over the last few days I have spoken to Democrats who are firmly convinced he is a hawkish free-trading fiscal conservative who believes that life begins at conception, that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that the U.S. should bulk up its forces in Iraq. I've also spoken to other Democrats just as convinced the Kerry is really a protectionist, socially liberal dove who actually opposes the war and supports gay marriage and nationalized health care.

Kerry has been talking for years, and yet such is the thicket of his verbiage that he has achieved almost complete strategic ambiguity.

All this may work. But there is still more to learn. Is Kerry a little dull because he is steady and sensible, or is he just incapable of making up his mind? Is he prudential because in times of crisis the nation needs a steady hand, or is he cautious because he simply doesn't grasp that we're in a new world, confronted by a rabid ideological foe?

Read the rest here.

Which ideological foe? The one of Bush & the Born-Again Christians? That's the greatest threat I see to the US these days.

As for Kerry being tedious and boring: agreed.

Evangelical Christians have historically been Democrats, and only recently voted Republican.

Evangelical Christians are not considered loyal to the Republicans and the Republicans are worried about losing many of them this election.

So those Evangelical Christians you oh so much hate...the ones you can't seem to accept even though you're so liberal and open-minded have historically been a part of the party that you seem to volunteer for - the Democratic Party.

And the ideological foe he is referring to is muslim fundamentalism that is rapidly spreading across the world and uses terrorism.

-Rudey

Can you show some stats on how "muslim fundamentalism" is growing please? :rolleyes:

What wrong with being a fundamentalist?

Do you deny it?

-Rudey

Nothing as long as I don't feel pain because someone wanted to be one.

-Rudey
--But then again this thread was about Kerry and not about sitting here talking about religions.

Rudey,

I'm simply asking you to back up your facts. Sources...stats?
(you happen to bring up the topic...so how about an answer?)

Moe.ron,

Do you mean the modern meaning of fundamentalism?

Actually I put a news source out there. Not my facts.

And if it were my facts, do you deny it?

Again, this isn't a thread about you arguing over Islam. I'm sure you can return any time you like to that Islamic fundamentalist country you so love where they stone women if you really have a hankering to talk about Islamic fundamentalism.

-Rudey

The current meaning of fundamentalism is false. Looking at the word, fundamentalism means the believe of the fundemtal. I derive the world fundamental and ism. Islamic fundamentalist are those who belive in the core of Islam. What is wrong with believing in the core of Islam? After all, isn't that the reason one chooses a religion, becuase they believe in the fundamental teaching of the religion?

OK Well how about a whole new thread on the definition of fundamentalism and whether it's grown? :)

-Rudey

Rudey,

Actually the article didn't make that reference to the increase in muslim fundamentalism, You did!

And since you didnt have any sources to back you up (which I knew you wouldn't), you're off the hook.


God forbid the day someone makes a comment about your religion...and see how long you sit still.

And I will comment everytime someone says that these idiotic terrorist represent Islam, which they don't, regardless of what the media calls it (islamists, islamics, muslim terrorists)..

And I see that you think every country with majority muslims are fundamentalists and practice stoning. I see your true view of Islam ;)

Cool, let me divert it. Sorry bout jacking the thread.

Obviously, that's not what it means today. That's what it used to mean, but don't even think about calling yourself a fundamentalist these days.

Madam,
1) This thread is not about Islam.
2) He was referring to Islamic fundamentalism.
3) Are you saying otherwise? You still haven't answered that.
4) People have said many a thing about my religion and I have countered. I also grew up in an Islamic fundamentalist state that is considered in this day to be the largest state sponsor of terrorism.
5) Again, should you want to sip coffee while remembering the virtues of Islamic fundamentalism, I am sure your native country will provide you with it during a stoning after they take your rights as a women away.
6) This thread is not about Islam.
7) This thread is not about Islam.

-Rudey