Posted on 03/01/2004 2:09:01 AM PST by alnitak
Super Tuesday with John Kerry promises to be the dullest date in the calendar
THERE ARE occasions in life when you find yourself observing, helplessly, large numbers of people engaging in an activity which is plainly not in their best interests. Mostly this is fairly harmless, if ridiculous. Watching Tottenham Hotspur, for example. But there are other moments when the stakes are much higher and the deed thus more senseless. Such as the battle for the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, when ten states ? including California and New York ? decide who should challenge George W. Bush for the White House. Except that it is not going to be all that super. If the opinion polls are correct, then John Kerry will beat John Edwards virtually everywhere (Georgia and Maryland are possible exceptions) and this contest will, in effect, be over. Tedious Tuesday might be a more accurate description.
It has become fashionable to declare that Mr Bush is in deep political trouble, that Americans are evenly divided, much as they were four years ago, and that the result will be very close. This might prove true, but I find it hard to imagine that 49 per cent or more of Americans will ultimately wish to embrace Mr Kerry. He strikes me as, potentially, an extraordinarily weak candidate.
There are three reasons for this. First, he is quite without personal charisma. He makes Al Gore seem like Ozzy Osbourne. I have watched Mr Kerry on television dozens of times and it has invariably been a painful experience. In interviews, even with the help of plenty of make-up, he looks like a corpse. If I were Mr Bush I would volunteer to hold a dozen debates with Mr Kerry and let him speak throughout all of them. If that does not secure the President?s re-election, nothing will.
Kerry?s second weakness lies in his campaign. It has no message of any consequence. Why does Mr Kerry want to be President? What does he stand for? What would he do if empowered? In so far as he has a theme, it is: ?I am not George W. Bush.? This is plainly true, but there are some 280 million Americans who are not Mr Bush either. As qualifications for high office stand, it is hardly exclusive. Were it not for the constitutional burden of having to be a native-born citizen to be the US President, around six billion more souls would meet the ?I am not George W. Bush? standard. There surely has to be something more to a candidature than not being someone else.
Finally, there is no logic to the appeal that he is making to voters in the Democratic primaries. His pitch appears to be: (1) I was a war hero; (2) I am experienced and, therefore, (3) I am electable. The assumption is that these three features are somehow interrelated. The argument seems to be that because Mr Kerry was a war hero he has been in the Senate for almost two decades and as a result of that tenure he, rather than the more attractive Mr Edwards, is the man to beat Mr Bush.
This is not a compelling thesis. Every aspect of it is open to challenge. Being a ?war hero? does not ensure a smooth path to the White House. If it did, then John McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, would have won last time, Bob Dole, who endured four years in hospital after the Second World War because of his wounds, would have romped home in 1996 and Bob Kerrey, who lost part of his leg courtesy of the Vietcong and won the Medal of Honour for bravery in combat, would have triumphed for the Democrats in 1992. Avoiding becoming personally involved wars, as Bill Clinton and Mr Bush have done, seems a better strategy for becoming President than fighting in them.
Mr Kerry is undoubtedly ?experienced?, in that he has served in Washington for 19 years. He has not, though, set the city alight during this period. The highlight of his career has been a stretch as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, Narcotics and Terrorism. It is debatable whether overseeing what may well be the legislative institution with the longest name of any in a democracy is much of an achievement.
And is the man really ?electable?? Mr Kerry has certainly been elected in Massachusetts. It has to be noted, nonetheless, that running as a Democrat for the Senate in that state isn?t too demanding. It is akin to being the Muslim Party candidate in Saudi Arabia. In his first three contests in Massachusetts Mr Kerry obtained 55 per cent, 57 per cent and 52 per cent of the vote. This is not a spectacular record. He did win 80 per cent of the ballot when seeking his fourth term in 2002, but that time the Republicans did not put up a contender ? his main opponent was a libertarian called Mr Cloud, and, to be on the safe side, the senator still spent more than $9 million on his campaign (36 times the amount expended by his rival). The electability argument would, thus, seem a touch threadbare.
In 1924 the Democratic convention was so badly split on issues ranging from prohibition, to Roman Catholicism, to the status of Ku Klux Klan that it took 103 ballots to choose a candidate for President. The man who eventually emerged (to be defeated by a massive margin), John W. Davis, was labelled by one leading historian as: ?The most inconspicuous and uninspiring figure ever be to be nominated for the White House by one of the major parties.? Maybe after Tedious Tuesday he won?t be.
I think this guy has been taking style lessons from Mark Steyn. Enjoy!
YES!
He's close to looking like Michael Jackson.
LOL-LOL-LOL
Barring unforseen international disasters, I think Bush wins going away.
Hee, hee--I like that line.
What a bunch of dullards on the Dem side? The whole left is making me mad lately. Very boring, morose group. The homos are spicing it up slightly but overall I've gotta give the left a D.
Great read - !save for the punctuation!
LOL! and good to add to the defense arsenal. . .
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