January 28, 2004
UNPOPULARITY CONTEST:
In Next Round, No Certainties (TODD S. PURDUM, 1/28/04, NY Times)
[M]r. Kerry has only begun to be tested on the national stage. He has yet to compete among black and other minority voters, or in the South and the big swing states that tend to decide general elections. The quirks of personality, pedigree and policy that left him struggling to connect with audiences for much of last year still leave him vulnerable to assaults from Democrats and President Bush.Mr. Kerry spent five austere and not always popular years of his adolescence boarding at St. Paul's School, just up the road in Concord, and it was there that he first displayed the hot political ambition as well as the cool personal reserve that have marked his career and this race. He has spent much of the past five months in a grinding effort to reintroduce himself to voters here, many of whom have known him for nearly two decades as the junior senator from neighboring Massachusetts but seemed drawn instead to Dr. Dean's fresh face.
"I'm all that's left standing of the Old Man in the Mountains!" Mr. Kerry declared Monday in Portsmouth, comparing his craggy Yankee profile to the famous granite rock formation at Franconia Notch that crumbled last year. Mr. Kerry hopes that he will soon loom alone on the political landscape, but, as Robert Frost memorably wrote, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall."
There's something profoundly odd about a political party that thinks its most electable candidate is someone who is described--either openly or implicitly--in every profile as unlikable. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 28, 2004 9:27 AM
"No Certainties". I am not sure. The one constant all througout the last year has been the Dem elites' unmitigated hatred of Geroge Bush. This virus appears to have spread beyond their first victims, the Deaniacs, and is now spreading to a broader segment of the party which is quite glad nominating almost anyone who they think can beat Bush and ask no further questions.
This makes you want to paraphrase a former First Lady: "Kerry, he makes us feel comfortable about our worst instincts" -- while Dean did not quite.
Posted by: MG at January 28, 2004 9:40 AMThe battle line are already being drawn for November. No matter what Dem was speaking last night, it sounded like they were ashamed to be Americans. Is that a strategy they think will win over voters? I am just amazed that they think a majority of Americans do not like this country. Dean, Kerry, Edwards, what is the difference? Some people are saying that Kerry will give Bush a closer race than Dean. Maybe in la la land.
Posted by: BJW at January 28, 2004 10:47 AMAm I the only one who thinks that John Kerry is winning these first elections because he's the tallest candidate? With so many polls suggesting that most of the voters don't know much about any of the candidates, they have to be choosing based on something simple, right?
Posted by: Brandon at January 28, 2004 11:12 AMBrandon -
You are correct! Ceterus Paribus, the taller candidate usually wins, I recall reading. It's scary how people ascribe qualities to good looking (or athletic) folks that the folks simply do not deserve. It's seems to operate on three levels: the level people openly acknowledge; the level that people will whisper among close friends; and finally the level that operates subconsciously.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at January 28, 2004 11:23 AMOJ,
Not one but two of their candidates.
MG,
I have a lot of Democrat friends and their hate has been palpable from the 2000 election campaign. It really stems from their fear of losing control for an extended period. It also stems from their feeling of the absolute self righteousness of their Progressive, anticapitalist, Utopian Socialist beliefs. This is no longer the old core Democrat Party. These are the "useful idiots" who came in from the cold following the McCarthy era and with the party's legitimization carried on the C.P.U.S.A.'s agenda of infiltrating every form of of influence in American life with their ideals. My friends are the victims of that effort and have become essentially "useful idiots." The infiltration of the party converted, overwhelmed or drove out the old core moderately conservative party members ... like me. Kucinich honestly represents the fruit of those labors; the quintessential "useful idiot." The rest are opportunists in drag.
Declaration: I am currently a NH Independent who voted for Bush and Cheney yesterday. I believe they are going to need every vote they can bring in by November.
The forces of Mordor have been forming in the North. Men of the West ... arise!
Posted by: Genecis at January 28, 2004 11:44 AM