Issue #43
Last Update December 24, 2005
National Where's Kerry? by Sten Grynir John Kerry is either running a brilliant campaign or a very poor one. We'll know in a couple of weeks. President Bush has had the headlines all to himself for the last several months, and the headlines have not been kind. Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, 9/11 hearings, torture in our military prisons, Halliburton misdeeds, Supreme Court repudiation of administration claims that, in war, the President is above the law, have all created an impression of an incompetent administration running amok and lying to the public. Unfortunately for his standings in the polls, the impression appears to be true.
While support for himself personally and the actions and policies his administration has pursued have plummeted, his opponent does not seem to have benefitted. Polls have consistently shown a seesaw battle, with Kerry achieving a slim lead, then Bush catching up (buoyed temporarily by the Reagan funeral), then Kerry ahead, then Bush in a dead heat again. While the public seems to have decided that Bush was a mistake, they have not yet decided that Kerry is the man to replace him. Kerry has done nothing that makes the public enthusiastic about him, and hasn’t given the swing voters an emotional reason to switch.
Perhaps the Kerry campaign is following the adage that when your opponent is shooting himself in the foot don’t get between him and his gun. This theory says that a Kerry that makes the news distracts from the bad news about Bush. Perhaps the Kerry campaign is conserving its funds for a homestretch push; with Bush’s enormous war-chest a real factor, the Kerry campaign might not want to find itself in the position of being outspent three or four to one in October.
The Democratic convention, at the latest, must be the kickoff of a vigorous Kerry campaign. The month of August must show Kerry to be a dynamic, attractive leader, or the bounce that Bush will get from the Republican convention will be insurmountable. It is sad but true that the electorate believes that someone who can’t campaign effectively can’t govern effectively. Leaving hard campaigning to September and October will be a fatal blunder. Kerry must campaign, visibly and effectively, in July and August or run the very real risk of being invisible to the voters. As a famous boxing promoter once said, you can’t beat somebody with nobody.
The bad news about Bush is already fixed in the public’s mind. Unless there is some further disaster in the offing, headlines about Bush from now on will either be ambiguous or helpful. Kerry must shift the focus to himself; the headlines from now on must be about Kerry, and they must be positive. Michael Moore can’t win the election for Kerry all alone.
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