Here’s one of the best assessments I’ve read so far of John Kerry and his campaign. An excerpt:
For all the talk of Bush’s malaprops, the man can sometimes make a simple point clearly. Untroubled by nuance, detail or fact, Bush travels the country saying things like, “Because we acted, our economy is growing.” That’s not how Kerry speaks on the stump. Here’s the candidate in Akron Saturday, trying to go after Bush on what should be easy targets, Friday’s announcements of disappointing job numbers and the biggest increase ever in Medicare premiums:
“What makes me angry — and I say this nicely — what makes me angry is the complete breach of faith with the American people. They promised four years ago to strengthen Medicare. He promised again a couple of nights ago to strengthen Medicare. And you wake up Friday morning on a day when a lot of the news is being hidden by what’s happening in the hurricane down in Florida, what’s happening in Russia with 200 people tragically killed by terror, and the news is hidden, but it isn’t going to be hidden for long from Americans. Because what they did yesterday was, this president of the United States, made history twice.”
Four hundred words later, Kerry was still going at it.
Ugh. I cringe when I think about the upcoming debates.
The sad thing is that when Clinton was running, Bush was consistently on the defensive — the defining moment was probably when Bush called Clinton and Gore “bozos” and Clinton just called the comment “sad.” Kerry can’t do that.
I’m more optimistic about the debates, though, because even his straight talk is muddled more often than not. If someone can coach Kerry to keep it simple and hammer away at obvious weak spots, they should go his way. The thing about Bush is that after four years he no longer has the advantage of reduced expectations — he won the Gore debates by not making an ass of himself, but against Kerry he’ll need to actually win.
(And, FWIW, that example wasn’t particularly damning if you actually read it. No worse than most Bush speeches in terms of clarity, anyway.)
True, although that was the excerpt that most stood out for me in the article. The whole piece is worth reading, actually.
Maybe the debates will work out. I’ve read that most people pay attention only to the first debate, so Kerry had better not pull a Gore orange-makeup-and-sighing thing.
This is one of Kerry’s key issues he needs to fix quickly. When people feel they’re lives are complex, rightly or wrongly, simplicity sells. Shorter more succint messages, repeated often, is how he can better compete with Bush. The difference is Kerry’s statements would actually be true.