Posted on 08/02/2004 1:18:00 AM PDT by goldstategop
Backward Bounce By Joel Mowbray FrontPageMagazine.com | August 2, 2004
For very good reason, the rule of thumb is that a presidential candidate gains ground following his party’s convention: It almost always happens.
It happened four years ago, despite Al Gore’s nearly incoherent rant. It happened in 1984, after Walter Mondale reaffirmed his pledge to raise taxes. It even happened for Jimmy Carter in 1980 after a brutal civil war with Ted Kennedy.
But it didn’t happen for John Kerry.
According to the USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, conducted Friday and Saturday, Kerry lost a total swing of 5 points from the week before head-to-head against Bush. Kerry declined 1 point, from 47 to 46%, and Bush bumped up 4 points, from 46 to 50%.
Heading into the convention, fully one-third of voters told pollsters that they didn’t know enough about Kerry. After a week of exposure to him and the Democratic Party, voters clearly didn’t like what they saw.
Despite the glittering pronouncements of greatness from the chattering class while the auditorium was still packed (Howard Kurtz covers this well), the poll results should hardly be surprising.
The speech stunk.
Any number of Democrats I chatted with Thursday night in Boston roughly held the same view: The speech was garbage, yet the delivery was decent—for Kerry. Not even the party faithful were revved by Kerry’s address.
Who could blame them, though? What it lacked in subtlety and organization, it made up for with pomposity and bloviating.
Before the audience had even had time to sit down, Kerry had already reminded us how literate he is, never mind that he bastardized the very meaning of Thomas Wolfe’s classic. There was also the pearl of wisdom where he reminded folks, “That flag up there. We call her Old Glory.” Thank you, John Kerry.
Without any thematic structure to tie together many disparate points, Kerry’s meandering 55-minute address felt impossibly longer. It veered from autobiography to targeted digs at Bush to a detailed recitation of policy prescriptions.
Weirdest was his at attempt at humanizing himself. Never has someone recounting personal details felt so impersonal. The entire section was overtly mechanical, an offensively obvious ploy to portray himself as just another American. He was a Cub Scout, his mother a Girl Scout, and his father a State Department diplomat. Yep, John Kerry, average Joe.
His mother, he told us, “[W]as the rock of our family, as so many mothers are.” His father, as it happens, “did the things that a boy remembers.” And for good measure, the young diplomat’s son, “like all children, found the world full of wonders and mysteries.”
That normal kid, we soon learned, grew up to become a “young prosecutor” who “made prosecuting violence against women a priority.” And as a Senator, he “fought to put 100,000 police officers on the streets of America.”
And lest we forget he served in Vietnam. Then again, how could we with well over a dozen references to it?
Toward the end of his marathon speech, Kerry mixed Clinton-style biographies of suffering Americans with an insufferable laundry list of specific policy priorities.
Recalling McGovern and LBJ, rather than Clinton or JFK, Kerry’s policy agenda consisted of making America “respected in the world,” curtailing free trade, nationalizing health care, raising taxes, building fewer prisons, spending more on Head Start, and two separate calls for shelling out more for after-school programs.
Somehow absent was any reference to the liberation of Iraqis or Afghans, the prospect of freedom in the Arab world, or even a coherent vision for executing the war on terror.
It was all too much to bear. I’m not speaking of ordinary people or curious voters. I’m talking about Democrats at the Fleet Center who were kept out of the auditorium for crowd control reasons.
Sitting in radio row during Kerry’s speech—I was doing running commentary on WABC during the long applauses, which got fewer and fewer as the speech wore on—I witnessed a group crowded around a television about thirty feet away.
At the speech’s start, the group of 20 or so party activists were hooping and hollering. They were ecstatic. Thirty minutes in, at least one-third of them had wandered off and the excitement level had waned to the occasional smattering of applause. Moments before the pundits were instantly hailing Kerry’s supposedly brilliant speech, more than half of the hard-core Democrats had vanished.
That Kerry thinks he can keep a non-captive audience at attention for 55 dreary minutes is indicative of his incredible self-worth and provides more than a glimpse of his immense unlikeability.
One wonders if his dreadful post-convention poll numbers will be enough to pierce Kerry’s arrogance. If the numbers alone don’t, maybe he should consider this: the last Democrat to get no “bounce” from a convention was George McGovern in 1972.
One of the more insightful comments regarding the eventual trainwreck...
The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight
A morally flexible gigolo, whose picture hangs in tribute in the communist museum in Ho Chi Mihn City, and an ambulance-chasing trial lawyer!
Yah, I couldn't believe all the reporters that praised his speech. He delivered it fairly well, for him, but beyond that, yuck! And that's not just because I love Bush, I'll be the first to admit, Clinton was pretty good, and Barack Obama was great, but Kerry's speech? Shoot me now please!
Yes, let us not forget that he WAS born in the West Wing (of the hospital).
Yes, that was his very FIRST mention. He meant it as a joke but it came across as putting across an air of self-importance, a notion that does not sit well in a society based on self-government. We're lucky we do NOT live in France, where politicians attend a special school to be prepared for a lifetime public career.
Thanks for the post. This man is pathetic. RATS, break out the KoolAid.
I agree with you, the speech was lousy.
"Without any thematic structure to tie together many disparate points, Kerry’s meandering 55-minute address felt impossibly longer."
I also agree with you that the delivery was decent, many complained that he went to quickly, but thank goodness he did. However, as a long-prepared text, I couldn't beleive how bad it was, and I COULD NOT believe that he completely ommitted any reference to his anti-war activities. He thinks people are going to forget this.
Kerry deserves to lose just for LYING to the American people during the whole convention. They can't win if they show their true colors, and they know it.
That Kerry thinks he can keep a non-captive audience at attention for 55 dreary minutes is indicative of his incredible self-worth and provides more than a glimpse of his immense unlikeability.
Best lines of the piece. Good anecdote.
He did mention it, it sort of code language to leftists when he said that "our generation set out to change the world blahblah." But that was the closest he came.
It was a terrible speech. And the salute thing made millions think that he has serious PTSD problems. It was a picture-perfect portrayal of the stereotype created by the lunatic left that all Vietnam veterans are obsessed with the war and are always trying to refight it.
The reason he had to hide his liberal identity and party's beliefs is he would lose by an even bigger margin if he were honest with the American people. Howard Dean IS an honest liberal but to rank and file Democrats, an honest liberal is viewed as "unelectable." A great deal of these people's anger stems from the fact they can't be who they are and they dare not be honest in public in view of the reception they'd get. A unified party? Yeah, right.
The funny thing is and the irony lost on the Democrats, is they can't seem to get over Vietnam. Its the issue that tore their party apart in 1968 and since then they've never quite managed to put it back together in a way that felt right.
Very true. And they're also too stupid to realize the complete contradiction of going after Bush's military record when their boy the toon is on the record saying he hated it. Earlier they said military service was unimportant, now they say it's paramount. Dimocrats live up to their name.
"He did mention it, it sort of code language to leftists when he said that "our generation set out to change the world blahblah."
Oh yes, I did catch that part. Complete dissembling that was, you are right, pure code.
Also, I can't remember what word he used to describe the firfighters and police who responded, but I was very upset that he didn't mention that many sacrificed themselves in that response.
sKerry is not the man for the job, nor will he ever be.
Congressman Billybob
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Media Bias at it's goriest.
I watched Kerry's speech with my girlfriend who, by Freeper standards, is a moderate-left "D." About ten minutes into the speech she announced she was making some popcorn. I suggested that ig she was hungry we could order something for delivery.
She said, and I quote: "No, it has to be popcorn. I love (to eat) popcorn when I'm watching fiction."
I noticed her flinch on more than one occasion throughout the remainder of the speech. As a "D," she was grossly disappointed. It was all I could do to not burst out laughing.
I certainly hope that your are correct that Kerry is following in McGovern's footsteps, but as hard as he may try, Kerry is not going to do it all by himself. We must stay involved and active. Remember that 45% of the public would vote for Bin Laden if he headed the Democrat ticket.
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