Kerry Afterthoughts
After checking out the blogosphere's reaction to the Kerry speech, a few things dawned upon me.
1) There is a great disconnect between those of us who watched Kerry from home and those commentators actually at the convention. On the networks last night, both convention commentators on the left like Chris Matthews and those on the right such as Brit Hume were gushing over the Kerry speech while armchair pundits looked on with dropped jaws. I have a feeling this speech was much like Nixon's 1960 debate performance: the quality of which all depends on perception. If one were to have listened to Kerry's speech on the radio or seen it at the convention in the middle of thousands of screaming Democrats, I can imagine one would get the impression that Kerry had hit a home run. But the vast majority of people saw the speech on television. That means they saw Kerry hush the crowd. They saw him sweat profusely. They saw up close how uncomfortable he was. They saw his inability to connect with the folks. Like the Nixon/Kennedy debate, I suspect that pundits like Matthews will be changing their tune on this speech over the next few days.
2) I agree with most of the other blogger reviews I've read on the speech and the convention as a whole. Both the convention and the candidate nominated therein are compromises. The entirety of the convention was packed with a bevy of speakers that represented all interests in the Democratic Party and the content of Kerry's speech was no different. Kerry did not signal any great vision to move the party in a new direction. Instead, he appeared more as a loyal Democratic soldier than a Clinton-esque leader. Kerry's message was not directed at moderate Republicans or the Perot/McCain group. Instead, it was filled with buzz words to shore up the 49% of the nation that voted for Bill Clinton. There was something for all of these folks in Kerry's speech --- including environmentalists, teachers' unions, Deaniac pacifists, Lieberman hawks, tax-and-spend liberals, Rubin deficit hawks --- the list goes on and on. In other words, if you're among the 49% that voted for Clinton in 1996, you probably felt comfortable with John Kerry's proposals last night if not with the person proposing them.
3) While 49% does not a majority make, any candidate who garners a vote share of that size will certainly keep things awfully close. Additionally, by moving national security issues to the forefront of the Democratic agenda, Kerry has succeeded in breaking the anti-war stranglehold that has been on the party since Democrats revolted over Vietnam in the late '60s. My guess is that Kerry feels his appeal to the Clinton voters combined with his seriousness about the war on terror will put him over the edge. I am not convinced, and neither are most bloggers. As Andrew Sullivan pointed out, the Democrats have shown with this convention that they "have found the right stance in general, but they may not have found the right general for the stance."
Final thoughts: Kerry showed himself last night to be a competent public servant with an interest in a wide range of issues. But when it comes right down to it, he's still a compromise candidate. Like Dole in '96, Kerry was everyone's second or third choice among Democrats. He is not a leader, but a soldier, and his mission seems to be to win the White House and bring the DNC inside to govern by committee, just as his speech was prepared by committee. Or, in the words of Jonah Goldberg: "The funny irony is that Kerry is a committee of one."
We don't need a committee in the White House. We need a president.
1) There is a great disconnect between those of us who watched Kerry from home and those commentators actually at the convention. On the networks last night, both convention commentators on the left like Chris Matthews and those on the right such as Brit Hume were gushing over the Kerry speech while armchair pundits looked on with dropped jaws. I have a feeling this speech was much like Nixon's 1960 debate performance: the quality of which all depends on perception. If one were to have listened to Kerry's speech on the radio or seen it at the convention in the middle of thousands of screaming Democrats, I can imagine one would get the impression that Kerry had hit a home run. But the vast majority of people saw the speech on television. That means they saw Kerry hush the crowd. They saw him sweat profusely. They saw up close how uncomfortable he was. They saw his inability to connect with the folks. Like the Nixon/Kennedy debate, I suspect that pundits like Matthews will be changing their tune on this speech over the next few days.
2) I agree with most of the other blogger reviews I've read on the speech and the convention as a whole. Both the convention and the candidate nominated therein are compromises. The entirety of the convention was packed with a bevy of speakers that represented all interests in the Democratic Party and the content of Kerry's speech was no different. Kerry did not signal any great vision to move the party in a new direction. Instead, he appeared more as a loyal Democratic soldier than a Clinton-esque leader. Kerry's message was not directed at moderate Republicans or the Perot/McCain group. Instead, it was filled with buzz words to shore up the 49% of the nation that voted for Bill Clinton. There was something for all of these folks in Kerry's speech --- including environmentalists, teachers' unions, Deaniac pacifists, Lieberman hawks, tax-and-spend liberals, Rubin deficit hawks --- the list goes on and on. In other words, if you're among the 49% that voted for Clinton in 1996, you probably felt comfortable with John Kerry's proposals last night if not with the person proposing them.
3) While 49% does not a majority make, any candidate who garners a vote share of that size will certainly keep things awfully close. Additionally, by moving national security issues to the forefront of the Democratic agenda, Kerry has succeeded in breaking the anti-war stranglehold that has been on the party since Democrats revolted over Vietnam in the late '60s. My guess is that Kerry feels his appeal to the Clinton voters combined with his seriousness about the war on terror will put him over the edge. I am not convinced, and neither are most bloggers. As Andrew Sullivan pointed out, the Democrats have shown with this convention that they "have found the right stance in general, but they may not have found the right general for the stance."
Final thoughts: Kerry showed himself last night to be a competent public servant with an interest in a wide range of issues. But when it comes right down to it, he's still a compromise candidate. Like Dole in '96, Kerry was everyone's second or third choice among Democrats. He is not a leader, but a soldier, and his mission seems to be to win the White House and bring the DNC inside to govern by committee, just as his speech was prepared by committee. Or, in the words of Jonah Goldberg: "The funny irony is that Kerry is a committee of one."
We don't need a committee in the White House. We need a president.
<< Home