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Just 48 Days Left
Deck the SOBs: Does Kerry Have What it Takes to Fight Back?

By Mark Grueter

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Dick Cheney said recently that a Kerry presidency will result in another terrorist attack: “If we make the wrong choice [on November 2], then the danger is that we’ll get hit again -- that we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.” But as usual, instead of hitting back, the Kerry/Edwards racket appealed to the non-existent campaign referee. Edwards denounced the Cheney comment as “un-American” as if it were un-American to take cheap shots or to deliver controversial criticisms of your opponents. Yes, the Republicans are bullies and they play the role well. But don’t we know by now that you don’t deal with bullies by whining and complaining to the primitive authority figures on the scene (in this case, the media and the elusive ‘public’). You strike back with even more ruthless blows. Surely, John Kerry has seen such films as “Back to the Future”? Anyone who cares about civility in political discourse must know a bit about confrontation as well. As it stands now, the race for the Presidency in 2004 is a street fight.

Kerry appears to be controlled by advisors and pollsters who tell him to “stay on message” and to keep things positive. The American People vote for candidates who are optimistic, unifying and hopeful. Focus groups consistently show that “Americans” hate negative attacks. Well, well, Americans may in fact say these things in focus groups, but as the Republican convention demonstrated, the all-important swing voters often respond favorably to negative attacks, if not in theory, then certainly in practice. Though the speeches were often couched in cozy rhetoric, the GOP convention was decidedly negative and divisive, the speeches nasty. And yet the party received about a 10 point “bounce” in the polls, the shift occurring amongst the swing voters. Would these same wizard pollsters and focus-group hacks care to explain that?

At the Democratic convention, we saw all the uplifting, phony rhetoric, but instead of bitter attacks behind the rhetoric, we saw practically nothing, which is why Kerry did not get a bounce. The strategy of staying positive and posing as if above the fray of political attacks has failed. Kerry badly miscalculated by not responding early and adamantly to the “Swift Boat Vets for Truth,” who detailed a series of allegations about Kerry’s service in Vietnam. If Kerry served half as honorably as he so pompously insists, he should have no problem providing detailed explanations of the questions posed. Now, with Kerry down about 5 or 6 points, he needs to hit back and he needs to do so now, with the moment of truth coming in the debates. Ironically, the John Kerry that triggered the disgust of the Swift Boat Vets - the one of him slamming the war in Vietnam in 1971 - is the John Kerry he needs to be in order to turn this campaign around.

The time to screw the focus groups and instead go on the offensive is long overdue. The timid, meandering language employed by Kerry throughout the campaign does not simply suggest that he is an unprincipled flip-flopper; it proves the point. Even The New Republic now believes his position on Iraq is unintelligible. Indeed, Kerry’s refusal to come out against the war (and not just Bush’s way of running it) could cost him the election. As the dead pile up, vague assertions about running the war better by relying more on international support feel less and less credible and I’m not sure candidate himself even believes this. Kerry has no solution for Iraq and it shows.

Of course, liberals other than Kerry are hitting Bush hard, using the weapons of polemic and comedy. Pick your poison. Seymour Hersh’s new book explains why Bush and his top commanders are responsible (and not the grunts) for the ongoing and systematic abuse of prisoners in places such as Guantanamo Bay – a reckless dereliction that set U.S. diplomatic relations back 30 years. One not-so-obscure Internet group (http://www.awolbush.com/) is offering $50,000 to anyone who witnessed Bush performing his duties as a National Guard Officer from May 1972 to October 1973. No one has yet come forward to claim the winnings. It now seems pretty clear Bush left the Guard (the place his dad got him into so as to avoid actual combat) to help elect one of his father’s friends, while refusing orders to report to duty. This alone makes Bush unfit to be Commander in Chief.

Kitty Kelley just released a book criticizing the Bush family. Among other things, she alleges Dubya snorted coke with one of his brothers at Camp David while George H.W. Bush was in office. Why not ask the questions: “Mr. President, have you ever used cocaine? Did you or did you not use cocaine while your father was President?” Now, past drug use does not, in my view, make one unqualified for the office, but why doesn’t the public deserve to know the truth? And how would cultural conservatives respond if they had proof their hero is a liar and was a cokehead?

And not all Democrats, it seems, are without a sense of humor. The satirical group known as Billionaires for Bush is perhaps the best thing we have out there (although many of the leftie protestors in NYC during the GOP convention, when confronted with the ‘Billionaires’ antics, were too dim to recognize them as satire and instead treated the group as an enemy). Al Franken is no slouch either. But the essential point is that voters need to see the traits of humor and earthiness in the candidates themselves. And so far, both Kerry and Edwards have failed the test, utterly. Meanwhile Bush, while no Groucho Marx, manages to sneak in a decent joke here and there. And certainly in the down-to-earth qualities, he trumps the Democratic candidates. On personality alone (I know at this point, it’s tough to distinguish between Bush’s surface personality and all of the lies he’s told, but try) who wouldn’t vote for Bush over Kerry?

Why not hire people like Al Franken, instead of gnomish hacks like Bob Shrum, to help shape your message? I don’t find Jon Stewart funny (and I resent his sycophantic interviews) but his Daily Show colleague Stephen Colbert recently produced a great piece of anti-Bush political propaganda in the form of an advertisement. The commercial, which poses as pro-Bush, is not over-the-top at all and it should be bought by the Democratic Party and aired on local stations across the country. But the Democrats seem unwilling to relinquish authority over the direction of their campaigns. Bringing in James Carville might help, but he’s still very much an insider, incapable of reaching people who don’t already plan on voting for Kerry anyway.

Lastly, even though Kerry disappoints time and time again, it’s still far too early to tell who will win this election. Those who now predict the outcome are just guessing and should be ignored. I’m just not sure Kerry is capable, as the next two months unfold, of doing the things that almost everyone knows he needs to do in order to win.

Click here to see Grueter's previous column.

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Mark Grueter is a writer living in New York City. He can be contacted here.

© 2004 Me Three