THE WANDERER, AUGUST 12, 2004

JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH

The Bullwinkle and Rocky Ticket

     John Kerry failed to get the expected "bounce" in 
the polls after the Democrats' convention, and it's 
hardly inside stuff to say his campaign now has an aura 
of doom. Everyone agreed that his acceptance speech was 
one of his better oratorical efforts, yet nobody seems to 
have found it inspiring. He talked about his "faith," but 
gave no hint of what he has faith in; talked about his 
military record, but didn't define his position on the 
Iraq war; talked about his family (who in turn talked 
movingly about his rescue of a drowning hamster); and 
talked about his long political career hardly at all.

     At the end of his speech, even the most attentive 
listener would be hard put to say what he stands for. I 
also read the text of the speech, and I still don't know.

     This is Kerry's problem. He's less a candidate than 
an abstraction. He has many variations, but no theme. 
THE ECONOMIST, the intelligent British newsweekly, tried 
to sum Kerry up in three pages, but while studying his 
career respectfully, was as unable to define him as the 
American press. If even those who have followed his 
public life in detail can't say with certainty what he 
stands for, it's no wonder the voters aren't sure. All we 
know is that he has shown more concern for hamsters than 
for human fetuses (though of course he is "personally 
opposed" to abortion and will do all in his power to keep 
it legal).

     Kerry's campaign is almost entirely negative. Not 
nasty negative; just negative in the way an absence is 
negative. He won the Democratic nomination because he 
wasn't Howard Dean; he is counting on winning the 
presidency because he isn't George W. Bush. He is running 
as an undefined alternative. This might work against a 
Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression, but it won't 
do against a president who, for all his flaws and 
failures, has a strong, clear profile.

     I myself think Bush has been a disastrous president, 
but most of his disasters are time bombs -- the huge 
deficits, for example -- whose effects won't touch most 
voters before November. In fact, they are designed to 
fall on people who don't vote yet. Or haven't even been 
born yet. (Bush may want to protect the unborn, but he's 
left some unpleasant surprises for them.)


A Hokey Refrain

     After eight years of Bill Clinton, a born 
politician, the Democrats are offering the sort of 
candidate Clinton supplanted: another Michael Dukakis, a 
Massachusetts liberal trying to escape the liberal label. 
Kerry was in fact Dukakis's lieutenant governor, but he 
has obviously learned nothing from his mentor's crushing 
defeat by the elder Bush in 1988.

     Kerry's strongest argument against Bush is that he's 
not a real conservative. This would be an excellent theme 
for a challenger in a Republican primary, but it's a 
strange argument for a liberal Democrat to make, and 
Kerry is hardly the man to make it. I can't recall any 
president being denied re-election because of voter 
indignation over deficits; Ronald Reagan ran up big 
deficits too, and carried 49 states in 1984.

     Clinton had the discernment to distance himself from 
the likes of Sister Souljah, the raucous rapper, in 1992; 
he gave the Democrats a new tone, oriented to the middle 
class. But into the vacuum that is the Kerry campaign, at 
the Democrats' convention, came a sort of underclass 
renaissance, with Al Sharpton bellowing and various 
rappers supplying the sound track music. The convention's 
TV ratings were meager; maybe the viewers knew what to 
expect. But higher ratings might have sealed Kerry's 
fate.

     Kerry also chose as his running mate the other 
Democrat who wasn't Howard Dean, John Edwards. Maybe 
Edwards provided a bit of charm back in an Iowa winter, 
but it's lost on me. He reminds me of a cheerful cartoon 
rodent; the ticket, come to think of it, looks a bit like 
Bullwinkle and Rocky. His speech was eagerly awaited, but 
he spoke to the country as if it were a huge backwoods 
jury, descending to the hokey refrain, "Hope is on the 
way!" with the delegates dutifully joining the chant. 
Kerry picked it up in his own acceptance speech. It was 
his nearest approach to a campaign theme.


An Evasive Strategy

     The convention, like Kerry's campaign, strangely 
avoided real discussion of the most obvious issue: the 
War on Terror. It barely mentioned the Mideast. Kerry 
made a passing swipe at Saudi influence on the Bush 
administration (an echo of Michael Moore's film 
FAHRENHEIT 9/11?); Edwards made an equally brief promise 
to protect Israeli security. Otherwise, treatment of the 
whole subject was oblique, though the party's prevalent 
antiwar sentiment was clear enough.

     The entire party is participating in Kerry's evasive 
strategy. It's a liberal party, united chiefly by its 
fanatical belief in the sacramental status of abortion; 
but it wants to sound vaguely conservative at the same 
time, at least until November 2.

     This is an awkward position to be in, and Kerry, 
like Dukakis, lacks the Clintonian touch, the charm and 
finesse to disguise embarrassing contradictions while 
sounding sincere. Clinton could address a crowd split 
evenly between vegetarians and cannibals and get a 
standing ovation at the end; both sides would be 
convinced that at heart, he sympathized with them. But 
Kerry can't find even an illusory common ground in a 
country closely and sharply divided.

     Bush at least speaks in decisive platitudes; Kerry 
is said to have a better grasp of nuances, complications, 
ambiguities, and the like. This may be fine for an IQ 
test, but subtle distinctions don't win elections. The 
2004 election pits a believer against a doubter. In 1952 
and 1956 the Democrats served up an eloquent doubter, 
Adlai Stevenson, against a war hero, Dwight Eisenhower; 
Eisenhower ate him alive both times. Kerry and the 
Democrats are portraying Kerry as a war hero too, but he 
lacks Ike's stature as well as his famous smile. (Kerry's 
smile looks as if it hurts his facial muscles, which seem 
constructed to impart solemnity.)

     Who, really, is John Kerry? That people are still 
asking this question so late in the campaign is a bad 
sign for the Democrats. All we really know is that 
several of his fellow veterans and one hamster owe him 
their lives.

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                                        --- Joseph Sobran

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