For almost the entire campaign, Kerry was essentially absent. And then, in a matter of a few weeks, he won it all. After all the deranged drama of Dean and the cheery charm of John Edwards, Kerry suddenly seemed a safe bet. Tedium was in. And when I say tedium, I mean levels of boredom that ordinary mortals cannot hope to emulate. The minute Kerry starts to speak, you can hear the life drain out of a room. When he appears on television, the right hand gravitates almost instinctively toward the remote. The word 'pomposity' doesn't quite capture the condescension of the man. Think Clinton's ambition matched with Gore's endlessly self-callibrating mind. Now remove all charm whatsoever. There's a reason he went un-noticed in the primary campaign. No sane human being would ever want to notice him. He's a human anti-histamine. He's Botox for the brain.Some of the analysis in the article is, I think, incorrect. Specifically, more violence in Iraq probably will not hurt Bush, unless it is extreme. As the violence continues, voters become somewhat inured to it, and will filter it out of their voting calculation.
As Dick Morris and others have written, Kerry does best when he is out of the spotlight and is still mostly an unknown to most people. As he gets more attention, it is very likely that people will not like what they see, especially if the Bush campaign does a good job of defining him.
No comments:
Post a Comment