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Friday, September 03, 2004
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THINGS ARE GETTING INTERESTING
So the Republicans have finished up their show in New York. I will say this about senior Bush political advisor Karl Rove, the man is a friggin' genius at making Republicans appear to be the polar opposite of what they actually are. The 2000 convention in Philadelphia could have easily been mistaken for Showtime at the Appolo, and this week, with Governors Arnold Schwarzenneger of California and George Pataki of New York and former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuiliani all featured prominently, this convention could have been mistaken for a Planned Parenthood conference.
The only less representative speakers the party could have booked are John Kerry, Michael Moore and Hugo Chavez.
The Republicans put on a much better show in New York than did the Democrats in Hanoi...I mean Boston. The speakers were better and actually referred to events that have occurred since 1970. John Kerry is 60 years old and nowhere in his convention was anything in his life after his 28th birthday mentioned. To listen to Democratic National Convention, one would think that the United States actually won the Vietnam War and John Kerry was the Eisenhower of the effort.
Of course, several people think that Kerry was a loudmouth and an empty suit to boot. They the passed the hat, collected a few bucks and ran an ad that suggested that Kerry wasn't telling the whole story about his 'Nam experience.
This is when the wheels came off the Kerry campaign. His convention lead evaporated. It took all of three weeks for the candidate to respond and that response consisted entirely of "the Republicans are being mean to me." Things started going downhill and haven't stopped since. The Republican convention was a four day exercise in ripping and tearing into Kerry's Senate record. More often than not, this was achieved through the most effective political tool, ridicule. By last night, Kerry's strength, his Vietnam service had been called into question and his weakness, everything he's touched since 1971, has been accentuated. It would take a miracle at this point for the campaign to come back. Even a strong counter-attack would seem like a desperation tactic at this point.
Kerry, in his own Kerry way, is turning out to be the author of his own destruction. President Bush began the week by making two almost galatically stupid comments. In an interview with Time, Bush attributed the Iraqi insurgency to the "catatstrpohic success of the war, overlooking the long held military theory that catastrpohic success usually leads to the deaths of the other guy's forces. Then when asked by Matt Lauer of the Today Show about winning the War on Terror, the President responded by saying, "I don't think you'll ever win it."
Quotes like this are usually seen as gifts from God by an opposing campaign. A smart campaign would have put up an ad of the Twin Towers collapsing followed by the President saying that the War on Terror will never be won. I'd start with Lauer's voice running over the image of the buildings coming down and then dissolve into George W. Bush actually making the comment. That might be the most brutally effective ad in the history of politics.
But what did Senator Kerry do? He went windsurfing. When asked about the President's statement, he answered it in a fucking wetsuit. Most voters, when confronted with issues of war and peace, will generally listen to the guy in the suit and tie over the guy in the wetsuit, even if the suit is saying almost impossibly stupid things. Someone who has been in big time politics for as long as John Kerry has should know that one should never answer serious policy questions looking like Jeff Spicoli. Instead of getting his shot in, he fed into the Republican image of him as a dillitante.
Then the Republicans put on the most professional convention in memory, topped off by a fairly impressive speech. Okay, the second half, that dealt with foreign policy was impressive. The first half, on domestic issues was ridiculous. Anyone with an even passing knowledge of mathematics knows that the President's domestic proposals are pure fantasy. But the second half made George Bush look presidential even as he dug his heel into the throat of John Kerry's record and policy positions. It was a fascinating thing to watch.
Kerry, of course, managed to fuck up his response yet again. In an unprecedented move, the challenger gave a televised response speech from Springfield, Ohio. The Senator spent so much time dicking around, thanking high school bands and misstating the record of the Boston Red Sox, that by the time he got serious about tearing the President a new asshole, the networks cut away. The biggest audience he's likely to have before the debates melted away.
The results of this are predictable. Zogby International last night released a poll showing the President up by two points. And the poll was released before the Bush speech. I imagine the speech is good for another two points.
George W. Bush is the most vulnerable president since Jimmy Carter, more vulnerable even than his father. A season candidate with a professional team could make easy work of this administration. Instead, the Democrats nominated John Forbes Kerry, a man not only incapable of winning, but seemingly desperate to lose.
Barring something miraculous happening, this election is all but over.
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