HELP WANTED:Therapist, witch doctor, or hypnotist. Light John Kerry's Fire.

Great Debates
1

When I watch Kerry on TV, and I think back on his days as a trial lawyer, I am so glad he was a prosecutor…

I know that his life cannot be as boring as it is for the rest of us to bump up against him.

I love him for VVAW and I would drag my body over five miles of broken glass if it would guarantee him winning, but, o lordy, please, just don’t make me listen to him giving a speech.

I know that Scaramouche is hiding in there somewhere (hell, his old lady is a serious pistol and she’s SIXTY fer cryin’ out loud…).

To frame this in therapiztspeak (god forgive me…) I see the authenticity deficit noted by Alice Miller in Prisoners of Childhood.http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465062873?v=glance

(Oddly enough, Ice-T was invited to give a seminar on this subject at Harvard (I swear before Jesus, this is true!) and later mentioned how authenticity did not seem to be a problem in the ghetto.)

Anyway, how can we awaken John’s inner Zorro?

2

He’s saving it for the end of the campaign. Doesn’t want to come out of the gates and run out of steam.

Yea, that’s it. Gotta be it. Please lord, let that be it.

3

The thing is, I love the guy. WAY more than Dean. He needs Edwards as an exemplar, if not as running mate.

(Or, for that matter, Ice T wouldn’t be a bad coach. The comments I alluded to were directed to Terry Gross in a typically spectacular Fresh Air.)

4

So? Kerry does display much, much more of the “fire-in-the-belly” than Dukakis had in '88. And, anyway, I hope we’ve learned something from that experience – in hindsight, Dukakis would’ve made a much better president than did Bush I. (John Lovitz said it perfectly when he played Dukakis in the contemporary SNL debate skit: “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy!”)

And consider the competition: Kerry’s speeches might be boring, but they are much, much more fun to listen to than those of Bush II. (Except in the sense that Bush’s speeches are entertaining in a sick-humor kind of way.)

5

Bah.

Kerry has a bad case of Al Gore disease. His speeches are pure tedium, and all they do is pander, pander, pander to interest groups.

It must necessarily be so, though. If John Kerry were to unleash an inspiring address, outlining his vision for America, it would be pure orthodox liberalism. The Democratic Party has been at great pains to hide orthodox liberalism from voters in recent years, because it loses at the ballot box every time.

6

Unlike our dear friend President Bush, who never panders to special interest groups. :rolleyes:

One could say the same thing about Orthodox Conservatism. Bush tried to portray himself as a “compassionate conservative” (which is an oxymoron) in 2000, and a “Uniter not a divider” so he wouldn’t appear to be such a right wing extremist. Of course, that still didn’t win him at the ballot box. :wink:

7

Let’s hope he’s taking acting and public speaking instruction in the back room to be unleased say, by the Democratic convention. It boggles my mind to see someone who has been in public office for so long, yet seemingly hasn’t learned how to raise his voice or use inflection to deliver a rousing speech. Give the man a few cups of coffee or something! And what does this say about MA voters? Is being half-dead considered normal in MA? :rolleyes:

8

Consider for a moment their other Senator. I agree that it would really help if Kerry found a way to be enthusiastic without just being negative. I’m not sure this is a debate, though.

9

Blalron, all politicians pander to a degree. But Kerry is taking it to extremes. He’s telling every audience exactly what they want to hear.

This is causing interesting contradictions with his previous voting history, too. He hasn’t been a conspicuous supporter of clean coal technology in the past, but he was a vocal one on his recent trip to West Virginia. :rolleyes:

As far as orthodox conservatism being as much of a loser as orthodox liberalism, I really don’t think that’s the case. I believe conservatism is closer to the American center than liberalism is.

There’s a lot of evidence to support this view, but the thing that convinces me most is that, since WWII, the Republican Party has managed to carry, in every election, several states at least. The Democrats not only have suffered the embarassment of carrying only one state for their party, they’ve had this happen twice.

10

The ironic part is that a lot of the folks who deride John Kerry for his dull speaking skills will also defend George W. Bush’s inept speaking skills.

Personally, I’ll say the same thing I said during Al Gore’s 2000 campaign: I’m not electing a drinking buddy, so I don’t really care how (un)charismatic a candidate is, as long as he’s got the right stuff upstairs. Which automatically puts Kerry ahead of Bush, as the latter has nothing there…

11

Certainly not me! Bush is a far worse whenever he opens his mouth.

I agree. The incumbent generally has the advantage. Sadly, we live in a sound-bite world and many of the undecided and swing voters need a dynamic personality and some real rah-rah to get motivated to vote or fall off the fence on Kerry’s side.

12

Mebbe. But Clinton did exactly this with great success. He, too, was everywhere on every issue.

Really? I haven’t seen anyone recently defending Bush’s malapropisms. You have examples, I suppose. There are those who’ve said in the past, that Bush’s stumbling speach patterns aren’t necessarily indicators of his lack of intelligence (we have plenty of other indicators of that now), but I’m not sure those arguments can be defined as a “defense of inept speaking skills.” They were merely statements pointing out that a correlation hadn’t been demonstrated. Perhaps I’m conflating “speaking skills” with “speechmaking.” Or more likely, you’re not differentiating between the two, because I think the OP is indeed talking about “speechmaking,” and you’re simply harping on Bush’s poor diction.

13

Good heavens, is Muhammad Ali his campaign strategist and they’re going for the “rope-a-dope” strategy? PLEASE start fighting, John! The Bush ads are beginning to sting, and some are so easily refuted. The “no” votes that Bush points to regarding defense spending are largely from the early 1990s, when even Dick Cheney reccognized the need to cut defense spending. John, we nominated you because we thought you could beat Bush. And you can. But you have to try.

14

Forensics in general were my topic.

My opening sentence apparantly drew no iindignation:Kerry would put a jury to sleep in five minutes.

(By the way, a terrifying percentage of most juries is asleep as any given point in a trial…)

My relief at his having been a prosecutor, and therefor his lousy courtroom style would not harm anyone, most likely, is countered by chagrin that he was, what?

a prosecutor.

They are, by nature, venal, corrupt, cowardly extortionists, who make their wretchd living by extracting guilty pleas from the innocent in return for visiting just a little devastation on their lives, rather than complete pulverisation.

That said, he talks to everyone like a prosecutor opening his case. He needs to talk like he was closing his case.

Compare with John Edwards. John did NOT make millions by putting juries tlo sleep.

15

I think you might be asking for more than you can have here.

Not necessarily you, BobLibDem, but in other threads a lot of Dopers have made it clear what they want in a candidate - that he not be Bush. Once that condition is fulfilled, their wish list is pretty much 100% satisfied.

And they get peevish if you try to figure out if there is anything more to Kerry than that.

I have never heard exactly what it was that distinguished Kerry from the pack of other Democrats. AFAICT, he got the presumptive nomination because he was the last one standing. But there really isn’t any issue with which he had identified himself, and, not being a Democrat, I can’t tell what the attraction is. It seems to me that Kerry is the front-runner because he seems to be the front-runner, and therefore has the best chance to beat Bush.

But in order for his campaign to catch fire, he has to have something to offer to voters who are not already in the “anybody but Bush” crowd. And he hasn’t had to put anything like that forward to win the primaries.

Obviously it is not too late for Kerry. But you can’t beat something with nothing, and so far, he has shown nothing. And, as you mention, that “nothing” is giving the Bush campaign the opportunity to characterize him as they like.

As hard as it is to believe, I think Kerry is going to have to have an at least partially based issues campaign, and those issues are going to have to be something other than “isn’t Bush awful”. That goes over big on the SDMB, but otherwise…

Kerry can count on about 40% of the vote no matter what. Just as Bush can, from the opposite side. But the remaining voters have (in my view) to be given a reason to vote for Kerry instead of only against Bush.

My $.02 worth, but if the economy continues to recover, Kerry’s chances suffer. He needs something to talk about. So far, his campaign seems to have been almost entirely reactive.

Still early days.

Regards,
Shodan

16

"Not really much to say on this subject except…underestimate Bush at your peril. He’s not nearly as stupid or clueless as you are trying to make him out to be. The fact that he doesn’t do well as a public speaker, doesn’t come off as smooth and polished (like a politician), doesn’t have slick answers that delve into the mystery’s of the word ‘it’ or ‘if’, is seen by some as being a positive…i.e. ‘He’s not like those OTHER politicians!’ "
–xtisme, 4/24/2004

Why not? Other than as a convenient way for you to handwave away a large number of apologetic defenses, I mean. Saying “Bush might not be a good speaker, but he’s smart, really!” looks like “defend[ing] George W. Bush’s inept speaking skills” to me.

17

I think in most years, a recovering economy is good news for the incumbent. However, I think the issue of the year is how does the Iraq war play out? If the turnover is a failure and the caskets keep coming back, then Mr. Bush had best pack for Texas. If however the new Iraqi government is a successful budding democracy, then Mrs. Bush may start picking new White House china. My guess is that it winds up somewhere in between, and whoever runs the most intelligent campaign takes the prize.

18

Kerry’s sluggishness is definitely starting to worry me. When I hear him giving a speech or trying to counter missiles from the Karl Rove scum machine, the one impression I take away is that of a genuinely tired man. Someone who doesn’t have patience or the stomach for the bullshit anymore.

Now, this morning Jeff Greenfield from CNN pointed out that Clinton was behind Bush Sr. by 15 points in May of '92- Kerry’s numbers aren’t anywhere near that scary. But I’m starting to miss Howard Dean’s pedal-to-the-floor zest, and I never thought I’d say that.

19

Well, Dean made a show of the fieriness some of you (notably the Bush supporters) long for Kerry to show, and look what happened to him. Kerry won the nomination, with a near-sweep of the states almost unprecedented in a contested nomination, by being the way he is and doing what he’s still doing; appealing to moderates. This is who Kerry is, and a serious, responsible, cautious persona certainly has a strong attractiveness of its own, especially this year. That’s the winning strategy as well as being his nature. *Changing * his approach significantly could be fatal. The superficial rah-rah shit that fuels the Bush campaign again is often an effective approach when people generally think things are going well - but that isn’t the case this year.

I do think the swing voters who will hire the next President will be looking for the White House to get some adult supervision above all else. Let’s be patient - there’s a lot more rounds in this prizefight, and Bush’s best shots so far aren’t landing.

20

So one is a “lot,” eh, rjung? Not that it really matters since Bush’s defenders aren’t the topic at hand. Thanks for digging up the quote you did though. Not that I expected one; my remark was more intended to be rhetorical. I just didn’t phrase it well. Still, as I said, I appreciate the effort.

You might be right. I’ve given it a little more thought and I can understand your reasoning and the conclusion you have drawn.