All right: John Kerry’s website. Let’s see what is his message?
Front and center is a story about him being a Vietnam Veteran.
Next up is that he likes Veterans and he likes them
Next up is that he supports soldiers in Iraq.
Let’s look at his first listed speech, and see if there’s a central message:
Allright, he likes civil rights and supports gays and lesbians (but this is after all a human rights dinner, so let’s see if this is a theme or a one shot.)
Then there’s a whole bunch of George Bush is really bad and everything is his fault.
"Yet today, our nation is off course – not only in the march toward equality, but on great issues ranging from the economy to education to health care and social justice.
Let me put it plainly. On every one of those issues, and more, this Administration has moved America backwards or in the wrong direction: The budget busted, the stock market down, unemployment up, the uninsured up, crime rates up, and America increasingly isolated in the world." etc
Then he lets it be known that he’s a veteran.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit… right to choose… bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
Doma’s bad.
Ok. Next Speech:
George Bush is a liar. He sucks. He’s a fuckup.
Everything’s all fucked up. We’re not ready. It’s Bush’s fault. Bush has failed to make America safer since 9/11.
Kerry’s gonna fix this by making sure the people on the front lines are prepared and he’s gonna send more soldiers places.
No unfunded mandates
Next speech (actually the one after as the next looks like a repeat):
He’s a Vietnam Veteran.
There were Latinos in Vietnam.
He’s a Vietnam Veteran.
He learned a lot as a Vietnam Veteran
Bush sucks because he didn’t land the plane on the aircraft carrier himself.
Bush is a liar. He’s dishonest.
Oooh, ooh. His vision:
“I’m running for President to give Americans a clear choice between two very different visions.”
Cool let’s see what it is:
"y vision of America doesn’t put CEO’s golden parachutes ahead of senior citizens’ golden years.
My vision of America doesn’t encourage the wealthiest Americans to get wealthier because we saddle our children with debt.
My vision of America doesn’t glorify a creed of greed where Enron executives bilk the retirement savings of ordinary investors, where polluters are given a free pass and powerful corporations enjoy sweetheart deals at the expense of everyday Americans.
My vision of America is not content to run a farm system for prisons and pay $50,000 a year for prison cells instead of investing $10,000 a year in Head Start, Early Start, Smart Start, and Healthy Start.
My vision of America isn’t driven by political strategists who give bills fancy names and then refuse to fund them. The President dares to call his education bill ‘The No Child Left Behind Act’ but with the stroke of a pen he turned it into an unfunded mandate denying teachers, children and parents the resources needed to do the job…"
And, about five more of what his vision isn’t.
We can sum up this “vision” as “George Bush has a sucky vision.”
Let’s see schools, jobs, hispanics. He’s big on hispanics (apparently this is a speech to hispanics. No mention of how big he used to be on gay rights.)
Raise the minimum wage to help hispanics.
Education is important. Hispanics. Hispanics.
Hispanics. Hispanics. Hispanics. Hispanic interests. Immigration.
George Bush is a failure.
Hispanics.
George Bush sucks.
Allright let’s looks at his issues.
Agriculture - Likes farmers, wants to help them. They’re cool.
Children - Very important.
Civil Rights - Very Important
Crime - bad.
That’s enough of that.
So let’s see what is Kerry’s message?
Seems to me that “George bush sucks” is the prevailing theme, followed closely by “I am a Vietnam Veteran.”
So again. I will ask. What is his positive message? What is his vision?
I don’t see one.
After reveiwing Kerry’s cite (though not exhaustively,) I stand by my original characterization that Kerry’s campaign message is that Bush sucks.