During the first Stevenson run against Ike (and no,I was a bitty girl back then,but I have an excellent memory!)the adults I knew,thought that Adlai was " brilliant",a powerful and erudite speaker.No,I didn't hear him,but just stay with me.............
These were NOT Dems,they were GOPers,but were bowled over by Stevenson's speeches;not only his acceptance speech.After reading them,which they did and I have the book to prove it,they all,to a man/woman,shook their heads,rolled their eyes and said, almost in unison,: WHAT THE HECK WERE WE THINKING? THOSE SPEECHES ARE DREADFUL!
Think that today's politics are filthy? Their was a whispering campaign,during that election,that Mamie was a stinking DRUNK! It was alluded to in ALL Dem campaign lit.and Dems repeated it and repeated it and REPEATED IT!
While Kerry finally found some energy,this crowd would have whooped and hollered if he had read MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB tonight.
The delivery was NOT good.The speech stole many lines from Bush and Cheney and for crying out loud LINCOLN!He even said that he was going to RAISE TAXES.That's a death knell!
The "RED MEAT" was trashing the president and then smarmily claiming that he, Kerry was taking the high road,thus setting the stage for tomorrow,when every single Dem will claim that anything and everything the GOP/RNC/President Bush put out,is incivil,a slur,dirty politics, NEGATIVE!
As an acceptance speech,Gore,Clinton,and yes,lots of other Dems have done far better.Kerry didn't stink,but he didn't set the house on fire either.
Where? I recall him saying he was going to cut taxes on the middle-class, and roll back the tax relief on those making over 200k. Now you got wondering if I missed something.