www.townhall.com/columnists/suzannefields/printsf20041111.shtml
If you want aphotograph of John Kerry, you're more likely to find one on a milk carton than in your daily newspaper. After his gracious concession speech on the morning after, he disappeared. To the winner goes the spoils of victory. the loser gets media obscurity.
The senator says he's assessing the "feasibility" of another run in 2008, but nobody is paying attention. The names bandied about by the scribes and Pharisees a week after the election include Howeard Dean, Evan Bayh, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and John Edwards as "some Democrats to keep an eye on." And of course Hillary Clinton. She's in a category by herself.
With 20/20 hindsight, it's clear that John Kerry was the wrong candidate at the wrong time from the wrong place. (Massachusettes is the poisoned well of American Politics.) Despite all the Bush-bashing, the negative caricatures of John Kerry as the windsurfer whose convictions depend on the way the wind blows dominated the perception of the majority of voters. for all the Bush-bashing, the caricature of the president as cowboy ("le cowboy," as the French put it) stuck to him, too. But Americans like cowboys. He was Shane, the Duke, the poke in the white hat, evoking the essence of the myth of our western heritage.
JOhn Kery never understood the America of the heartland. Bill Richardson recalls the time in New Mexico when he put a cowboy hat on the candidate's head and someone on Kerry's staff demanded that he take it away. Syas the governor: "This I think an example of the East Coast not connecting with the West Coast and with the rest of the country."
The candidate must persuade us that he is comfortable with who he is. George W. persuaded us and John Kerry didn't.
George W. is alot like that, for better and for worse. the only time he looked ill at ease was in the debates, a formal occasion that didn't suit his temperment and where he was as skittish as an "overhandled" racehorse. Although John Kerry was considerably taller than the president, we only noticed when they stood next to eachother on stage. at the other times, we saw George W. as stading tall.
Everyone could see how passionately the president wanted to be re-elected, but we also knew that if he lost he could enjoy life in Texas after Washington. John Kerry, by contrast, seems to have everything a man could want in the way of money, status and elegant houses, but can anyone believe he will enjoy returning to his old life in the Senate? He wasn't a distinguished senator and the Senate was merely a station on the way to somewhere else. The presidency was to be the end of the line. Now what??
Of all my liberal friends, Bush-bashers to the man and woman, not one actually likes John Kerry. He was the grin-and-bear-it candidate: "We must do it for the Democratic Party."
Exit polls can illuminate issues, not character. If you don't like the cowboy comparison, thry this from the funny pages. Like Popeye, the president is the man who will look you in the eye and tell you: " I yam what I yam what I yam." The message to the bashers is plain: "Eat your spinach."
If you want aphotograph of John Kerry, you're more likely to find one on a milk carton than in your daily newspaper. After his gracious concession speech on the morning after, he disappeared. To the winner goes the spoils of victory. the loser gets media obscurity.
The senator says he's assessing the "feasibility" of another run in 2008, but nobody is paying attention. The names bandied about by the scribes and Pharisees a week after the election include Howeard Dean, Evan Bayh, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and John Edwards as "some Democrats to keep an eye on." And of course Hillary Clinton. She's in a category by herself.
With 20/20 hindsight, it's clear that John Kerry was the wrong candidate at the wrong time from the wrong place. (Massachusettes is the poisoned well of American Politics.) Despite all the Bush-bashing, the negative caricatures of John Kerry as the windsurfer whose convictions depend on the way the wind blows dominated the perception of the majority of voters. for all the Bush-bashing, the caricature of the president as cowboy ("le cowboy," as the French put it) stuck to him, too. But Americans like cowboys. He was Shane, the Duke, the poke in the white hat, evoking the essence of the myth of our western heritage.
JOhn Kery never understood the America of the heartland. Bill Richardson recalls the time in New Mexico when he put a cowboy hat on the candidate's head and someone on Kerry's staff demanded that he take it away. Syas the governor: "This I think an example of the East Coast not connecting with the West Coast and with the rest of the country."
The candidate must persuade us that he is comfortable with who he is. George W. persuaded us and John Kerry didn't.
George W. is alot like that, for better and for worse. the only time he looked ill at ease was in the debates, a formal occasion that didn't suit his temperment and where he was as skittish as an "overhandled" racehorse. Although John Kerry was considerably taller than the president, we only noticed when they stood next to eachother on stage. at the other times, we saw George W. as stading tall.
Everyone could see how passionately the president wanted to be re-elected, but we also knew that if he lost he could enjoy life in Texas after Washington. John Kerry, by contrast, seems to have everything a man could want in the way of money, status and elegant houses, but can anyone believe he will enjoy returning to his old life in the Senate? He wasn't a distinguished senator and the Senate was merely a station on the way to somewhere else. The presidency was to be the end of the line. Now what??
Of all my liberal friends, Bush-bashers to the man and woman, not one actually likes John Kerry. He was the grin-and-bear-it candidate: "We must do it for the Democratic Party."
Exit polls can illuminate issues, not character. If you don't like the cowboy comparison, thry this from the funny pages. Like Popeye, the president is the man who will look you in the eye and tell you: " I yam what I yam what I yam." The message to the bashers is plain: "Eat your spinach."
