"LOOK!! I STILL HAVE MY BOUNCE!"
For historical reference, the last presidential candidate to get no bounce after his party's convention was George McGovern, if that's any kind of omen.
What heroism?
Am I wrong, Cleland wasn't wounded in battle, was he?
How 'bout he lost his bounce when he threw that ball like a girl at Fenway? Or gave everybody a look at his childbearing hips? Or when Teraaaaiiizzzzah opened her mouth?? Or the NASA Teletubby photo-op? Is it possible for anyone to "jump the shark" so many times and still survive?
Ketchupboy lost his bounce when he decided to have a political view left of Leon Trotsky. As more and more people get over the anyone but Bush syndrome and take a hard look at the rats they are being turned off. I do think that if the rats would have run a moderate GWB would be in real trouble, they didn't. He isn't.
John F*ckin' chose to emphasize Vietnam since his 19 year Senate record would have left him open to being painted as a tax and spend liberal. It was the only choice he could realistically make. That's why he dropped the convention's early emphasis on domestic policy for one centered around national security. When he delivered his speech, the harmonious buildup to a common theme was destroyed. Hence the lack of a post-convention bounce. As Dick Morris assayed, the public saw an old warrior relating old tales. It just wasn't enough to take him where he hoped he would be.
He never had a bounce or otherwise.
I did get really tired of him talking about Vietnam. I can understand how he would mention his service. But, for everyone to talk about it and him to go on and on about it was too much.
"LOOK!! I STILL HAVE MY BOUNCE!"
Kerry's just an empty suit. He actually states on page nine of his "Our Plan For America" that Bush should have assembled a team instead of acting on Iraq. This guy would be worse than Carter on foreign policy.
For those of us old enough to have served, or even those old enough to remember, the sheer hypocricy of anti-war protestor Kerry, who joined forces with Jane Fonda to slam our efforts in Vietnam, just doesn't wash. Now he brags about his 4-month "service" as if none of what came after never happened! If the war was such a mistake, and he and others like him were nothing but criminals and baby killers, how is it now something for him to be proud of? The disconnect is so obvious, yet I don't see the press asking hin to explain the contradiction.
Clinton got elected 1st time around because of Perot, he convinced 6 out of 10 people that he was not fit for office. Once there however, economy being good, Oklahoma City Bombing being perceived to have its ties with the right, he was a shoe in. Add to that that Dole, while a most admirable, honorable and distinguished Parlaimentarian, was a horrible, horrible candidate.
Clinton and Edwards talked about nothing too. None of them are fundamentally serious men, they might not even really be men. That's what their problem is.
It doesn't help that he comes off as a pompous blowhard, and that he doesn't explain how he's better than or different from GWB.
The Islamist threat is real, and people are concerned about their country and their families. Perhaps people are even fearful. But the Rats address this legitimate sense of fear and uncertainty in wartime as either a false political construction erected by Republicans, or (e.g. Deaniacs) something from which one must run as fast as possible (with a misdirected sense of "outrage" toward GWB, when they actually are terrified by the terrorists and even more so by confronting the threat).
Kerry plays to both the paranoid conspiracists and to the cowardly (but "outraged") Deaniacs, giving both a sense that "I will stop the pain."
But he doesn't explain how he'll get cooperation from the terrorists in this endeavor, and I think most people realize he never will.
Come November, I think people will finally admit to themselves in the privacy of the voting booth, that while Kerry offers some vague and appealing sort of relief from the terrorist threat, that GWB's approach is the only one that will actually work over the long term. They will not want to change horses midstream.
Americans have quite clearly expressed that by denying Kerry his "bump."
I thought I was lowballing when I called a 4% bounce. Apparently, that's the high end of the range.
The more people see of Kerry, the less they like him.
Leave it to Dick Morris to confuse public relations emphasis with policy choice.
BBBAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWAAAAAHHHHAAAAA
BBBAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWAAAAAHHHHAAAAA