Posted on 08/29/2004 3:56:22 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
It was a bittersweet pleasure to go on-air Friday for two hours with my friend Jerry Agar, WPTF afternoon drivetime, from Raleigh to most of North Carolina and parts of states north and south of there. This was our last sit-down, since Jerry is moving to KMBZ in Kansas City, a larger market that wants a quick, intelligent voice from the conservative side of the spectrum.
We spent 45 minutes of our time talking about the Swift Boat controversy involving John Kerry. The phones lit up, and so did the computer screen with e-mails. Both the calls and the e-mails represented all sides of the issue. On a quality talk show, the host (and guest) can have strong opinions, but those who disagree will still call and write, confident they will get a fair hearing.
There’s a whole lot of common sense and plain unvarnished reality among the listeners to any intelligent, articulate radio talk show. That leads me to suggest an amendment to the Constitution to improve the quality of future presidential candidates. Of course we want candidates who are honest, intelligent and dedicated – regardless of their politics or party. But there just isn’t a way to test for such things.
Here’s a test that could serve as a surrogate. Pass a constitutional amendment that no one could run for President until he or she had done 30 hours on major talk shows located anywhere except inside the Washington Beltway. No matter whether the host is liberal or conservative, all talk shows of any popularity have a sub-base of contrarian listeners and participants.
In the town meeting events held by presidential candidates, producers usually screen participants to avoid difficult questions from cantankerous people. But talk shows (unless the producer/editor on the phones is both stupid and dishonest) will have a range of callers. And the Good Lord knows that the subjects raised will vary all over the lot. When I began in talk radio in 1968 with Chuck Boyles on WBAL in Baltimore, the strangest type of calls on odd subjects were referred to as “cat-up-a-tree calls.” Anyway, a presidential candidate who faced 30 hours of calls from ordinary citizens would have to display grace, intelligence, knowledge, and a measure of courage. Those aren’t exactly bad characteristics for anyone who would be President.
And if John Kerry had ever dealt with an electronic roomful of ordinary Americans like that, he might not have made the fatal planning error that has doomed his run for office this year. The callers to Jerry Agar’s Show last Friday would have given Kerry better advice than he gave himself, or than he got from his high-priced consultants.
Most, but not all, of the veterans who contacted Jerry’s show last Friday were harshly opposed to John Kerry for what he did in Vietnam, but especially for what he said once he returned home. Equally important were calls from people who never served in the military, and were heavily anti-war. One man said that he was “in the demonstrations during the 1968 Democratic Convention.” I remember those beatings and gassings from watching them on TV. From self-validating details, I believe that gentleman was where he said he was, and did what he said he did.
The fascinating aspect is that the anti-war caller and one of the veterans actually agreed on this point – both would have supported Kerry if he had returned from Vietnam and attacked just the political leaders who were conducting the Vietnam War. Neither of those gentlemen are supporting John Kerry for President now, precisely because of his attacks on the individual American servicemen when he returned.
There are two dispositive factors about the issues in any election. The first is obvious: how many people agree with your (you, the candidate’s) position on an issue, as opposed to how many disagree. But in an era where voter turnout will again be slightly more than half, the other factor can be more important. That factor is intensity. How strong are the feelings of your supporters, compared to the strengths of the opposition?
Stronger supporters of a candidate, or of the issues of a candidate, are more likely to turn out and vote, more likely to give money or time, more likely to encourage others to vote the same way, etc. The passion and dedication of the veterans who believe John Kerry is unfit to command are far ahead of the passion and dedication of the fewer veterans who believe Kerry is fit to be President. That single difference, in my opinion, means that John Kerry’s campaign is now dead, and by his own hand.
Here’s why: There are about eight million veterans of the Vietnam era, about half having served in country. In addition, there are about 16 million veterans of other eras, living today. These 24 million men, and some women, live in every city, town and hamlet. They work in every business, organization, and civic association. They are members of almost every family in the United States. Among these veterans, support for George Bush was just 4% more than for John Kerry, before the Swift Boat Vets for Truth began their advertising campaign. Today, the Bush margin among veterans has grown to about 24%, or almost 2-1 over Kerry (62-38).
I spent Saturday visiting with Randy Wootton, a lifelong friend who has a marketing firm in Atlanta. We talked about what Kerry did wrong in the planning of his campaign -- the Vietnam ploy. We discussed the most powerful form of communication for or against any product, service, or candidate. In the trade it’s called “viral communications.” Us ordinary folks refer to that as word of mouth. If ordinary people start telling their friends and neighbors to “go see this movie” or “go vote for this candidate,” then that movie or that candidate will soon be in high cotton. But viral communications also can work negatively. A movie, candidate, whatever, which is bad-mouthed person to person cannot be salvaged by advertising and pronouncements at the national and public level. That is Kerry’s position right now.
And it gets worse. When A tells B about a movie, one person’s opinion has no greater value than another’s. But what happens when the subject is the military service of a candidate for President? If A is a military veteran, giving his opinion to B who is not a veteran, THAT word of mouth will be even more effective than usual.
As a friend of mine said in an e-mail at 2 a.m. last Wednesday, this is now a “water cooler election.” George Bush, as the incumbent President, is a known commodity. The last equation in this election is whether John Kerry is seen as fit, or unfit, to replace Bush, among those voters who already think that a change might be in order. At the grassroots level, the word is spreading like wildfire that Kerry is unfit (at a 2-1 rate) to independent and undecided voters.
What if Senator Kerry had called a press conference three years ago to announce that he had “made some mistakes” in his service in Vietnam and later in his testimony before Senator Fullbright’s Committee on returning home? What if Kerry had given examples of those mistakes at that conference? The press would have largely ignored that conference, because after all, “Who still cares about Vietnam?” Kerry, who knew then that he intended to run for President in 2004, could have turned this entire subject into “old news.”
But apparently Kerry had already decided, along with his high-powered, top-dollar, experienced advisors, that he was going to feature his Vietnam experience. Rather than set it aside and deal with more recent subjects, Kerry decided to hang his campaign hat on his four months and 12 days on Swift Boats in Vietnam. His representatives forced that subject into the speeches of most people at the Democratic Convention. Kerry himself slammed the point home from his opening salute to the final paragraphs of his speech accepting the nomination. When John Kerry sat down after that speech, his campaign was already doomed to defeat.
When the Captain of the Titanic ordered 21 knots in the North Atlantic where icebergs had been reported, his ship was doomed. When General Lee ordered Pickett’s charge into the center of the Union lines at Gettysburg, his cause was doomed. If you prefer examples that involve the death of ambitions, rather than human beings, try these: When the Coca-Cola Company introduced “New Coke,” the effort was doomed before the first ads ran. Or when Gary Hart told the press, “You can follow me,” his campaign was doomed.
In every instance, the questions the person in charge failed to ask and answer were these: What’s the worst that can happen to me and my cause? And, how can I avoid that fate? Kerry failed to ask and answer those questions. And now his candidacy is doomed by an insolvable, self-created problem.
In each Presidential Election, I predict the outcome as soon as I am reasonably confident of it. Yes, alert readers will point out with amusement that I’ve done that once before in 2004. Before the Iowa Primary, I looked at Howard Dean’s unusual and successful organization, at his fund-raising, and at the nature of the Democratic voters there and in New Hampshire. I concluded Dean would win both states, cruise to his party’s nomination, and then get trounced by George Bush. But enough about my former triumphs as a prognosticator.
It isn’t necessary to wait until the end of the Republican Convention to make this year’s predictions. Bush will have a 5% lead after the Convention. That will increase to 10% by November 2, and the Electoral College results will be a landslide for Bush. At the same time, the Republicans will gain 2 seats in the Senate, and 11 seats in the House.
Outside Washington, Republicans will gain one Governorship, 121 seats in the various state legislatures, and a substantial number of other state and local offices. Lastly, all these specific predictions are minimums. Any results that don’t match my predictions should be greater than my numbers. If not, label me wrong again. And you won’t have to phone me up; I’ll call the fouls on myself.
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About the Author: John Armor is a civil rights attorney who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. CongressmanBillybob@earthlink.net
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Billybob --- I'm an NCSU grad....used to love WPTF.
I wish I could have heard your comments on the Swift Boat Vets.
I'll make just one here.........
If the Vets run Ad #2 (their P.O.W. ad) enough times, it will destroy Kerry.
Cheers.
Kerry was an obnoxious quasi-geek from the get-go. "Attractive" was never an adjective that a perceptive observer would ever apply to Kerry. So, he never WAS a decent candidate.
John / Billybob
I beg to disagree that Kerry's decision to use his Vietnam experience was made after he received the nomination. Kerry has used the Vietnam strategy successfully ever since he ran for the Senate in 1984. For him, it is a tried and true way to win elections.
Kerry delights in rubbing his military service in people's faces because it can become a tar baby for those who are brave enough to question it. In the meantime, he gets a pass concerning his antiwar activities and dismal record as a legislator. His war record insulates him from criticism, garners sympathy when it is attacked, and becomes the focal point of his campaign defining the framework for the debate. It is a strategy that has worked for him over the past 25 years in public office. He used it to good effect to defeat Bill Weld. It is his MO.
Kerry has intimidated all of his political opponents with his military record, including Bush. It was no accident the Terry McAwful resurrected the National Guard issue as far back as January. What Kerry didn't count on was the SBVFT.
These 264 brave souls have taken on the Kerry money and personal destruction machine alone without any public support from Bush. In fact, they have been branded as "dishonaorable and dishonest" by McCain and condemned by other Republicans like Chuck Hagel. should be taken off the air.
It reamins to be seen if Kerry's Vietnam strategy will be successful one more time. He has defined the framework once again and has started trotting out his veteran surrogates such as Cleland, Wesley Clark, Rassman, and Hurley. The MSM has decided that all of the SBVFT claims have been successfully refuted. They have linked the SBVFT to Bush. The next phase will be an attack again on Bush's National Guard record with perhaps some new surprises ala the last campaign's DWI disclosure at the last moment. Chris Lehane is alive and well and working for Kerry.
I am not quite ready to declare victory. Kerry's Vietnam strategy has never lost.
Congratulations on the arrival of your new granddaughter! Acceptable excuse for your being late. (And we'd like to know her name?) As for GW, events this week will be pivotal. Kerry is in deep trouble, and why he thinks prancing around, lying to the American Legion will help him, God only knows. As some have said, Kerry's jumped the shark.
I like that and other things which you have to say in this article, but even though I despise polls, they still have me nervous. I hope that the Swifties do not ever let up on Kerry. Kerry deserves all that he gets from them.
Congrats on the birth of your grand-daughter... Big event.
One problem with your analysis/recommendations for Kerry: everything is fine and appropriate for a normal human being -- but it just won't work with a dillatante (sp?) effete (sp?) boarding school snob gigilo (sp?). John Kerry has gone through life asking "do you know who I am???" and "All you need to know is whatever I care to tell you!!!!!" This guy is incapable of admitting a mistake, apologizing for anything, asking for forgiveness, even when it is the only thing that will save his sorry-ass butt. John Freaking Kerry is right up there with Bubba in the sociopath category. You had some good thoughts and suggestions -- but they were targeted to a stone-deaf humorless snob who couldn't care less what anyone thinks. JMHO.
Great post. And congratulations on the addition to your family.
How does Taylor's series expansion
apply to politics :-)
Perspiring minds want to know.
I believe you underestimate the number of people who violently hate Bush, for whatever reason.
It is the ultimate failure to repeat something that has worked before WITHOUT PAYING ATTENTION to the new environment to apply the technique. What plays in Plymouth will not necessarily play in Peoria. This is the first time, ever, that Kerry has had to seek votes in "fly-over country." Those folks, usn'ns as we say hereabouts, might as well be Lithuanians for all John Kerry knows or understands.
I was aware of these factors as I was writing my column. But there's only so much one can cover and say in just 1,500 words.
Cordially, John / Billybob
That's exactly what I was thinking. I'll be suprised if your predictions are wrong.
That's a very long answer to a very short question, is it not?
John / Billybob
I'm more than a bit concerned about this aspect myself. The Democrats are more than willing to use vote fraud and judicial terrorism to steal elections. How do we stop another 2000-style theftfest from happening?
The left is now resorting to lies. They are entering articles below the fold, i.e. Daily News, Los Angeles, that says his war record is all in order. That is not what I am reading on the internet, or hearing on other news media.
The Kerry Campaign is imploding because its not offering what voters want. Let's put Vietnam aside - let's assume NONE of we've heard about Kerry is true. Let's assume his campaign isn't affected by any of his shortcomings as a candidate and whatever. OK, the question then is this: how will you make my life better than what the current Administration is doing? Voters have yet to hear an answer to that question. And because they aren't, I submit that more anything, is the reason why Kerry will lose in November.
You have good idea there. Ann Coulter had one too. That was, you had to run a 7-11 store for 24 hours, successfully, to be a candidate.
With the Clintons holding hundreds of (at least) FBI reports, control of the IRS and other Agencies' operatives,
and especially Kerry's prostate and other medical reports in their
hot little hands, all normal bets are off.
The strategy worked in Massachusetts, which is filled with brain-dead liberals. I doubt it will work as well in the rest of the country, which has a lot more folks who don't buy the Kerry story about Vietnam. All his life Kerry has been fortunate into talking to people who think and vote pretty much the way he does. His first time out on the national stage and he develops the political equivalent of stage fright. If he can't persuade people who don't necessarily agree with him on everything he has what it takes to be President, he's going to win up preaching to the already converted. And at his rally yesterday in Tacoma, Washington State, I'd hazard a guess every one who went there was already in his camp to begin with. At the end of the day, those are all the votes he is going to get. Let's face it, Kerry is handicapped above all by the knowledge liberalism is not a terribly attractive product in this country or you could be sure he would be free to be who he really is. He can't and that is why Vietnam has becoming a drag rather than a motor for his campaign. I suspect when we'll do the post-morterm in November, we'll see just how on target this assessment of him has turned out to be.
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