Kerry Misses

Last night Kerry gave his acceptance speech, the most important speech of his campaign, if not of is political career. Kerry's main goal in this speech was to show himself to the American public, and especially to the swing/undecided voters. In this he failed. In the first ten minutes of the speech, Kerry attacked Bush for lying to get us into war, accused Cheney of being an evil polluter, and Ashcroft of destroying the Constitution. Clearly this was meant to appeal to his base, but most likely will alienate many swing voters who don't think in these loony-left terms. These attacks were followed, as they often have been in this past Democratic campaign, by insisting that he is taking the high road while the Republicans are not. As John Podhoretz points out:

He directly accused Bush of fighting a war not because it was in this country's national interest but basically because he "wanted" to.

He all but described the Iraq war in Michael Moore terms, as a war about oil, when he said that in his administration, "No young American in uniform will . . . be held hostage to our dependence on oil from the Middle East."
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Kerry has every right to go after Bush with everything he's got. But in essence, while calling on the president to engage with Kerry in a battle of "great ideas," Kerry articulated only one big idea last night.

Kerry's big idea is this: He was a war hero and Bush is a lying scoundrel.

So, in the end, it appears Kerry has decided to run as Howard Dean with some medals.

In terms of showing himself to the voters, his main emphasis was on Viet Nam, and virtually nothing about himself since then. Dick Morris writes:

Then, after this long rendition of his childhood, he tells us at length what it was like to serve in Vietnam for the four months that he was there. So far, so good.

But then he spent only about one minute talking about what he has done since.

Beyond a brief allusion to his efforts for crime victims and to prosecute crimes against women as an assistant district attorney, his support for Clinton's plan for extra cops and a balanced budget and a reference to his work with John McCain on the POW and MIA issue in Vietnam, that's it.

What did this man do as an adult? What happened during his service as Michael Dukakis' lieutenant-governor in Massachusetts and in his 20 years in the United States Senate?

What bills did he introduce? What initiatives did he sponsor? Which investigations did he lead? What amendments bear his name? What great debates did he participate in?

What did he do for his constituents in Massachusetts? What businesses did he persuade to come to the Bay State? Which elderly did he help get their Social Security benefits? What injustices did he correct?

Kerry's biography ends at 24.

In terms of the most important issue of the day, the War on Terror, Kerry basically said nothing. "Let there be no mistake: I will never hesitate to use force when it is required". But when exactly is that? For Kerry it seems to be only after we have been attacked. Once again we see that his view on the war on terror is a legalistic one - we need proof before we act. And the proof that Kerry needs is a smoldering building or city. This is simply not serious given the threat we are confronting.

Basically, Kerry said that he should be President because he served four months in Viet Nam (35 years ago), because he was born in the west wing of the hospital, and because his initials are JFK. He'll need to do better than that to convince the swing voters.