In the Nick of Time, Can't-Lose Advice for Kerry

The Chicago Sun-Times ^ | July 27, 2004 | John O'Sullivan

[quidnunc]

From: Nick Machiavelli, senior partner, Machiavelli, O'Blarney, Iago, Alcibiades and Morris. Political Consultants.

To: Sen. John F. Kerry, c/o Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry, c/o Department of Outsourcing & Offshore Subsidiaries, c/o H.J. Heinz Inc., P.O. Box 2004, Wilmington, Del.

Dear Senator,

I got your letter this morning, and I said to my secretary: "Lilith, we have a new client. Sen. Kerry wants an acceptance speech that will make him president." She got right down to work. Like the arms manufacturer in George Bernard Shaw's "Major Barbara," we don't ask whether our clients are in the right or in the wrong. We ask the simple question: Are they our clients? If they are, we assume the rightness of their cause. I believe your vice-presidential candidate, John Edwards, takes the same view.

You have three big problems, senator. The first is that the American people don't really like you. And the more they see of you, the more they don't really like you. And they do like Junior Bush. Most of your advisers will want you to compensate by playing the regular guy. But you're not a regular guy — and imitating one will simply draw more attention to the fact. Besides, the presidency is not a popularity contest. It's about being respected. Junior's great weakness is that the American people are not sure he's really up to the job. Your advantage is that you have what some British poet called "the sneer of cold command." And authority beats likeability when the top job is at stake.

So I suggest a passage that contrasts you and Junior: "My fellow Americans, being president is the world's toughest job. It requires someone who will be tough on behalf of the American people. Tough — but smart. Tough — but informed, Tough — but not reckless. The more we know about President Bush's Desert Storm, the more it sounds like Desert Mirage. A mistaken war is a mistake too far."

-snip-

[quidnunc]

Quote:

Your third problem is that you risk being seen by voters as some kind of foreign diplomat. All this talk of "multilateralism" and getting on with "our friends," the French and Germans, undercuts your cautiously constructed patriotic appeal and also sounds a tad unrealistic. After all, the French and Germans are not exactly lining up to cooperate with the United States. The voters may notice that.

Marc Plattner, editor of the Journal of Democracy, pointed out at a Lisbon conference of the Institute for Political Studies of the Catholic University there that the term "multilateralism," as employed by Europeans, no longer means inter-governmental cooperation but the subordination of nation states, including the United States, to the decisions of international bodies.

[vpintheak]

The quote is about half of what Kerry is about, the other half is pure evil if you ask me.

[gubamyster]

Your fourth problem:

Your wife is a nut job, and she is pulling you down faster than the weights Scott tied to Laci.