Last Kerry Post-Mortem
Now that the hullaballoo of the election is over, I am looking back at Kerry and seeing less and less that I am happy with.
His best moments were clearly the debates. He was outstanding in all three, and clearly was better than Bush.
Besides that, however, Kerry never did anything particularly surprising or bold or just plain special.
I think most of the energy in the Kerry campaign came from the millions of people who were simply dying to get Bush out.
Kerry had a golden opportunity to beat a seriously flawed opponent, he had tons of money, he had a highly motivated electorate and he still failed. He failed in so many ways to make an issue over the plethora of scandals associated with Bush. In high profile settings, did Kerry ever ONCE mention Valerie Plame, Halliburton, Enron, Abu Ghraib, intelligence failures before 9/11, or the administration hyping Saddam's weapons? These all are huge issues, and just a small sampling really of things that Kerry never addressed. Did Kerry ever speak about the environment to any degree? Did he ever tell us his vision of the world? Did he ever say anything that was truly inspirational?
Most disappointingly, I never felt as if he understood the importance of what he was trying to do. Sure, he wanted to win, but to so many people, this contest was incredibly important-- almost life-or-death. How many times did you hear someone say-- this was the most important election in their lifetime or in a generation? Frankly, Al Gore put up a better fight at the end of the campaign, and after the election as well.
The campaign was severely limited by imagination and by nerve. It derived too much of its momentum from people who just wanted to get rid of Bush, such as me.
Stanley Hilton, who is a tad flakey, claimed on his website that he thought Kerry was running to lose-- that it was a skull-and-bones thing. Kerry was only supposed to put up a good show. I doubted this idea before, but maybe there was something to it.
Kerry would have made a fine, even great, president, and he was as good a man as we are ever going to have as a viable presidential candidate. But I think he was actually TOO good. He didn't have the cut-throat instinct. He just played by the rules and hoped people would see that he was a straight shooter and that he was in the people's best interests. Obviously, he took too much for granted.
As I've said, the only consolation is that Bush may over-reach BADLY, and in so doing turn people away from his brand of Republicanism for a long time. But I certainly won't bet on it either.
His best moments were clearly the debates. He was outstanding in all three, and clearly was better than Bush.
Besides that, however, Kerry never did anything particularly surprising or bold or just plain special.
I think most of the energy in the Kerry campaign came from the millions of people who were simply dying to get Bush out.
Kerry had a golden opportunity to beat a seriously flawed opponent, he had tons of money, he had a highly motivated electorate and he still failed. He failed in so many ways to make an issue over the plethora of scandals associated with Bush. In high profile settings, did Kerry ever ONCE mention Valerie Plame, Halliburton, Enron, Abu Ghraib, intelligence failures before 9/11, or the administration hyping Saddam's weapons? These all are huge issues, and just a small sampling really of things that Kerry never addressed. Did Kerry ever speak about the environment to any degree? Did he ever tell us his vision of the world? Did he ever say anything that was truly inspirational?
Most disappointingly, I never felt as if he understood the importance of what he was trying to do. Sure, he wanted to win, but to so many people, this contest was incredibly important-- almost life-or-death. How many times did you hear someone say-- this was the most important election in their lifetime or in a generation? Frankly, Al Gore put up a better fight at the end of the campaign, and after the election as well.
The campaign was severely limited by imagination and by nerve. It derived too much of its momentum from people who just wanted to get rid of Bush, such as me.
Stanley Hilton, who is a tad flakey, claimed on his website that he thought Kerry was running to lose-- that it was a skull-and-bones thing. Kerry was only supposed to put up a good show. I doubted this idea before, but maybe there was something to it.
Kerry would have made a fine, even great, president, and he was as good a man as we are ever going to have as a viable presidential candidate. But I think he was actually TOO good. He didn't have the cut-throat instinct. He just played by the rules and hoped people would see that he was a straight shooter and that he was in the people's best interests. Obviously, he took too much for granted.
As I've said, the only consolation is that Bush may over-reach BADLY, and in so doing turn people away from his brand of Republicanism for a long time. But I certainly won't bet on it either.
posted by spooked at 11:39 PM
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