Occam’s Razor

John Kerry: Yesterday’s News

John Kerry may have lost the 2004 election but he is clearly running for 2008. His consolation prize for losing was a couple million names on his email list. Since last November he has been busy stuffing my email box. It was vital to him that I knew he was doing his best to put kids first, stop John Bolton’s nomination as our U.N. Ambassador, keep Senate filibuster rules in place, submit bills to help Iraq war veterans, among other efforts. Occasionally I bite and sign an electronic petition. It’s a pretty painless thing to do. But I realize these efforts don’t amount to much. I understand what is really going on. John Kerry doesn’t want me to forget about him when he runs for president again in 2008. Next time he figures he doesn’t have to spend quite as much effort going house to house in key precincts in early primary states. Instead he can solicit those of us on his massive mailing list for campaign cash.

Well, I have news for you John. It’s not that I don’t respect you or your positions. You are a liberal Democrat after all. It’s just that, well, you are yesterday’s news. I like many other Democrats was lukewarm when you emerged from the Democratic pack. On the other hand there was the alternative: four more years of George W. Bush. So it was easy to write those checks. I sent you $450 in the last campaign. When I couldn’t give any more money to you because of election laws, I gave to the Democratic National Committee. And I gave lots more to MoveOn.org and other interest groups. But here’s the thing John: just because I gave you money didn’t mean I was enthusiastic about you as a candidate. And I’m sure not enthusiastic at all about you running for president again.

2004 was a year when a Democrat should have won the White House. George W. Bush had racked up an appalling record. But still you lost. I admit you did well in the debates. But you still bungled the larger campaign. Your campaign seemed to be run by a bunch of rank amateurs. They were clueless responding to organizations like the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. So much mud was slung at you but you didn’t know how to sling it back. For months you dithered over actions like calling Bush to task for his bungling on the war in Iraq. Maybe you spent too much time fretting that maybe it would make you look unpatriotic. Or perhaps you were too intimidated by the Swifties to simply acknowledge the truth that Howard Dean so eloquently and convincingly stated back in 2003. Whatever. Rather than setting the agenda you fell for every trap the Republicans put out for you. Rather than being on the offense you were continually on the defense. You could have acknowledged that your vote on the Iraq war was simply a mistake. Then you would have had credibility. Instead you tried to have it both ways.

You came across as an egghead because you are an egghead. I am sure you had your share of adversity in life, and I certainly acknowledge that you served honorably in Vietnam. But you come from a privileged and elite background and it shows. I’ve never seen anyone who looked more at home in a three-piece suit than you. You must have been born in a suit. So you didn’t connect with ordinary Americans. Whatever sense of empathy you tried to project, we could tell it was insincere.

And now with 2008 clearly in mind you are doubtlessly trying to follow your media handlers’ advice by trying to project the image of a new John Kerry. The new John Kerry seems to be markedly more anti-gay and “mainstream” than the one that ran in the election. Now you want to pretend you are a Washington outsider. Sorry John, you are so intimately connected with the inside the Beltway political establishment that you might as well be a zebra trying to change its stripes. You look ridiculous and insincere in this latest role. We all see through it. But somehow you find yourself saying stupid stuff like the Massachusetts’s Democratic Party made a mistake for supporting same sex marriage in their platform. You said it does not conform to the broad views of party members.

Are you sure about that John? My sense is that if you asked most Democrats they’d say they definitely support gay marriage. They might support civil unions, but not because they believe in a “separate but equal” status for gay couples, but because they realize it may be a pragmatic step toward ensuring that gays someday have the same privileges as any other citizen. In other words John, a mainstream Democrat believes passionately in equal rights and responsibilities for all. Who is the out of the mainstream Democrat, John? I would say you are, particularly because I don’t believe you really believe your own dogma. When you said during the campaign that you were for civil unions but not for gay marriage we Democrats sensed your position was just marketing. Your latest image remaking is bogus too.

You want to know why so many of us were drawn to Howard Dean? It was because he was the real deal: a man who said what he meant and was passionate in his convictions. It was obvious from the tone of his voice, his body language, his red face and his throbbing neck veins that he meant what he said. He didn’t mince words. He wasn’t afraid to call a spade a spade. He connected. You don’t.

So sorry John. I am sure you are a nice man and one of our better senators in Congress. But you really aren’t all that special and I don’t consider you presidential material. I am sure you would have been infinitely better than the bozo currently in the Oval Office. At least you have some critical thinking skills. But there are many better Democratic candidates out there. In match ups of potential Democratic challengers you are an also ran. Forty percent of Democrats surveyed prefer Hillary Clinton. You only draw eighteen percent.

John, if you are the Democratic nominee in 2008 you will likely get more money from me. We Democrats must remain united, even if our picks turn out to be somewhat odious. But I will be working for someone else during the primaries. Do not assume that because I sent you money that I am necessarily enthusiastic about you as a candidate. For most of us on your precious mailing list, you are yesterday’s news.

May 10th, 2005 at 09:23pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | one comment

Selling Fear

For a left brained person like myself it is hard to understand how a couple weeks before the election, polls can show George W. Bush a few points ahead of Senator John Kerry. Kerry should be the obvious choice. In normal times he would be the obvious choice. But in this election the usual factors that would defeat an incumbent may not work.

When a president’s approval rating hovers in the mid forties (where Bush is at currently) his reelection is usually in deep trouble. When this happens independents will usually break for the challenger, not the incumbent. Any impartial observer of this election would have a hard time understanding how anyone could vote for four more years of George W. Bush. His record is a disaster, both domestically and internationally. He has created the largest annual budget deficits in our history in just four years, after taking over a surplus. On the jobs front he will certainly be the first president since Herbert Hoover to actually lose jobs during his term. Middle class jobs are disappearing and those that replace them tend to pay less. Health insurance costs are going through the roof resulting in more people without health insurance. Gas prices are at all time highs. Internationally we failed to find and kill the person who carried out the 9/11 atrocities, invaded a country that was no threat to us and managed to earn the disgust of much of the international community. When handing out political favors Bush’s rich friends always get top preferences. So how could it be that Bush could possibly win this election?

It could be the liberal media isn’t liberal at all, which is pretty obvious to me. It could also be that Kerry is an incompetent campaigner. The presidential debates dispelled that notion. Not only did Kerry win all three debates but also Kerry comes across as presidential and very sober. Unlike Bush, Kerry actually has realistic plans for dealing with our current problems. Perhaps the “liberal” label pinned on Kerry still causes independents to recoil in horror. I don’t quite understand it because I don’t see anyone, Republican or Democrat, seriously talking about getting rid of liberal programs like Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. But it’s pretty clear that if there were a median scale with 1 being very liberal and 10 being very conservative, Kerry might rate a 3 but Bush would be a definite 10. In other words Bush is much further from the mainstream than Kerry could ever hope to be. At least Kerry actually advocates fiscal responsibility. The Bush solution is to open the treasury vault wide to all of his cronies. There is no limit to the amount of tax money he is willing to give away to special interests that will lend him support.

So why is Bush even competitive? The only thing that comes to my mind is that much of America is still gripped by fear. Why shouldn’t it be? Since 9/11 it’s been an “all fear, all the time” administration. To ensure that we are always fearful the Department of Homeland Security makes sure we always know the current fear level. Simply go to the DHS home page to see how fearful the government wants you to be today. Oddly it has never gone below “elevated” so we should always be on our guard.

Fear is a powerful motivator. Upon examining my own motives my fear of terrorism was one of the reasons I began an active search for a federal job close to home. Working in L’Enfant Plaza in Washington D.C. and having worked in the city on 9/11 I experienced some of the horror of that day personally. I was ultimately successful and now work three miles from the house at the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia. So if fear can motivate a left brained person like me it likely can motivate a whole lot of others too.

In retrospect we understand that the 2002 elections were won on fear that our nation was going to be rife with incidents of Islamic terrorism. We were told that only the Republicans had the maturity and judgment to deal adequately with such a grave national emergency. Never mind that the Democrats had backed the same antiterrorism legislation as the Republicans. Republicans in general and Bush in particular were utterly shameless in their pandering to our fears. And we succumbed. As a nation we wanted to suck our thumb and pretend our Big Daddy would make everything right.

In poll after poll while Bush gets poor marks on domestic issues he gets high marks on national security. So as long as Bush can persuade voters that terrorism is still a major national problem he can keep riding the coattails of our 9/11 fear. To some of us trusting Bush to do right on national security seems ludicrous. A president who preemptively invades another country that had no connection to our national security or 9/11 logically is not demonstrating good judgment. But apparently what is at work here is not a left-brain analysis but a right-brain reaction. Lots of people are right brain dominant and are ruled more by their feelings than by dispassionate logic. If I had to guess I’d bet there are a whole lot more left brained Democrats than Republicans.

I think my reaction to find a job outside of Washington D.C. was an entirely logical response to 9/11. I had witnessed the smoldering wreckage of the Pentagon on 9/11 firsthand. So my fear that I might be a future victim if I worked in the city was entirely plausible. On the other hand to think that we are protecting our national security by invading countries that pose no threat to us is illogical. Yet it was an emotional response that many could relate to. It said to the world “Don’t mess with the United States or we’re going to squash your country like a bug.” The reality of course was something completely different. We can win a conventional war against any other nation except possibly China. But as we seem to be demonstrating in Iraq we are unlikely to succeed in the securing the peace phase following the war. But terrorism generally operates outside nation states and breeds the most in countries that most closely resemble anarchies. Logically to win the war on terrorism we should be securing nuclear and chemical stockpiles and changing the conditions that breed terrorists. But that doesn’t have a whole lot of PR value. It doesn’t satisfy our need to see some concrete results. When we have bunker busting bombs blowing apart alleged terrorist bunkers we feel better. “See? We’ve destroyed an apartment complex in Falluja today harboring terrorists! We’re winning the war on terrorism!”

If the Bush-Cheney team can keep us in fear and if it succeeds in populating the meme that its strategy is actually making our nation safer it might win the election. So this election may come down to whether Democrats can succeed in engaging the left brains of voters. If we can do this we should be able to win this election. If we don’t not only will we lose but also we actually put our national security in a lot more jeopardy. When times are tough and scary we need to think clearly and with reason, not succumb to “feel good” emotional balms for our fears. Let’s hope we can disengage the reptilian portions of our brain just long enough to throw Bush out of office on November 2nd.

October 17th, 2004 at 02:44pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2004 | no comments

No Escape from the Truth

I love presidential debates. It’s a shame we have to go four years between them because they are such fine theater. Despite attempts by the Bush team to control every aspect of the debate it turned out that the candidates came through in all their resplendent humanity. Unfortunately for George W. Bush the American people got to see the real Bush, not the stage-managed Bush. For Bush prior to last Thursday the 2004 Presidential Campaign meant reading from prepared scripts to partisan crowds meticulously screened to ensure zero dissent. The picture presented was fundamentally false as is almost everything else about George W. Bush.

But last Thursday we got to see the real W. And it was not a pretty sight. It turned out that the real Bush was peevish. Scowling. Haughty. Sneering. Aloof. Detached. He looked like a man getting a high colonic. And he conveyed all this without evening opening his mouth. When he did open his mouth he was rambling, repetitious, bumbling and at times wholly incoherent. I actually felt sorry for my Republican friends on Thursday night. I’d hate to have to try to sell swing voters on the virtues of George W. Bush based on this performance, viewed by 62.5 million Americans.

Not that Kerry had a perfect performance. He started out a bit rough but he improved as the debate progressed. While he took notes as Bush spoke Kerry wore a very slight but noticeable “cat that ate the canary” smile on this face. But I would have looked smug too. It would be hard not to smile while watching your opponent make such an utter ass of himself. But unlike Bush at least Kerry could put together a sentence with some nuance to it. This is a skill that Bush simply does not possess. About all Bush could say was “It’s hard work” ad nauseam. How would he know? Bush has never known hard work. Yet even if he had known hard work, what’s the point of hard work if it doesn’t achieve results? Of course it’s hard work to try to turn a flawed strategy into something viable. It’s hard work because you are going against inertia.

But even if Bush had the gift of glibness that night Kerry had one other weapon in his arsenal for which there was no adequate response: the Bush Record. I thought Dick Gephardt was being charitable when during the primaries he called Bush “a miserable failure”. All Kerry had to do was articulate his failures so those who had spent the last four years detached from politics could hear them. It wasn’t so much Kerry who was devastating to Bush. It was Truth: pure, unadulterated and unembellished truth plainly articulated that really turned the tide for Kerry. You cannot BS the truth.

Yes, Kerry had W metaphorically pinned right down on the mat. How can Bush possibly claim that Saddam was a threat to the United States when there was no evidence to support it? No weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq despite pre-invasion claims that Saddam was reconstituting weapons of mass destruction. It turned out that in spite of complete assurances to the contrary that there was no connection at all between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. We have nine thousand troops in Afghanistan where the enemy of 9/11 still lurks and 115,000 troops in Iraq, which holds no national security interest to our country whatsoever.

It was a brilliant stroke for Kerry to quote back Bush’s own father on the dangers of trying to take over Iraq. It was also brilliant to quote Bush’s own Secretary of State on the “Pottery Barn Rule”: You break it (Iraq), you own it. Every time Kerry uttered yet another simple but obvious truth about Bush’s inept war on terror the fog cleared a little. By the end of the debate it had lifted entirely and Bush was naked. We could see George W. Bush for who he truly is: a pretty pathetic, fraudulent and spineless guy high on rhetoric but short on accomplishments.

And it will not get any better for either Bush or Cheney. I have little doubt that John Edwards will clean Dick Cheney’s clock in tomorrow night’s debate. It is certainly advantageous that Edwards is an ex trial lawyer and a maestro at debating. But again it won’t take much for him to show the fraud that is Dick Cheney either. There are too many quotes out of Dick Cheney’s mouth to possibly take him seriously as an authority to be trusted. As the leader of the neoconservative wing of his party and arguably the real power behind the presidency he has nothing good to show for it. All of his assertions have proven completely wrong.

The Bush team can only hope that prejudice and hubris will win them this election. That’s all they’ve got: their committed base. But it’s not enough to win. There are more Democrats than Republicans in this country, and the Independent vote is going to skew toward Kerry. Although it is hard to see a month before the election, only the most improbable of events or the most inept last month of campaigning by Kerry and Edwards will keep John Kerry from the presidency.

October 4th, 2004 at 09:18pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2004 | no comments