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Edited on Fri Sep-03-04 08:27 AM by BillyBunter
I wonder how many DUers, and other members of the Democratic base, would have looked at an anti-Bush speech analogous to Zell Miller's anti-Kerry speech, as a rousing success, as an example of Democrats being "tough." My guess is, a lot. Yet we know what kind of reaction Miller's speech has received among the media, and most people will only "see" the speech through the filter of that very same media. There are two faces that will probably be remembered out of the RNC: one of them is Miller's, of course, and the other is the woman with the purple heart bandage on one of her chins. Both of them thought they were being clever, no doubt, but it turns out they hurt the cause they were there in support of.
Miller's speech, then, can safely be called a disaster. The Republicans are running from it, the media are lambasting it, and people across the internet are making Photoshopped images of Miller as Emperor Palpatine, Jerry Van Dyke, and so on: the man has become a joke, not one day after his speech.
Yet, there are still many people who urge Kerry to behave more like Miller, and less like a statesman.
His speech last night in Ohio has already received negative attention from the press: Time magazine criticizes him for doing his own "hatchet work," whereas Bush left that to others; Jeff Greenfield has described it as looking backwards instead of forward. He spoke to an American Legion audience the day after Bush did; whereas his comments promising them better funding drew applause, his comments criticizing Bush's handling of the Iraqi war were met with silence. That's the American Legion in a live setting with the candidate, not some focus group locked in a room with a moderator asking them hypothetical questions.
So you, have two key audiences: the media and the public, who seem to react poorly to negative campaigning from Kerry. Focus groups, recently maligned by James Carville as not really representing peoples' attitudes, also react poorly to negativity -- of course, the American Legion can hardly be considered a focus group. Yet we still have many people here who demand "red meat" attacks from Kerry, and attack him for being spineless and running a Gore-cum-Dukakis-cum-McGovern campaign whenever he doesn't attack.
It is also clear at this point that the Republicans are girding for a campaign so dirty that voter turnout will be low enough for them to win with their base alone. In that sense, they are trying to goad Kerry into sinking to their level where they will, as the saying goes, beat him with experience. Undecideds generally break for the challenger in an election, but they are also the people who are most likely to be discouraged by a nasty campaign.
So the dynamics of the race, along with a lot of data, suggest Kerry runs as positive a campaign as he can, while Kerry's supporters chafe at what they see as a passive campaign approach, and demand action, an eye for an eye, a Miller for a Miller, as it were.
Something's got to give.
We're the base. We're the people who are pulling the lever for Kerry no matter what; the people who man the phone banks, proudly display the bumper stickers, send out the literature, walk the neighborhoods, talk to co-workers about our candidate, write the checks, get angry over every slight, wince over every drop in the polls, and exult when the poll numbers tick in our favor. Some of us have done impressive research that ended up appearing in national media outlets. But the most important thing we can give to Kerry is our understanding, our appreciation of just how complex a task it is to run a national campaign.
On paper, Zell Miller looked like a slam dunk: a prominent, lifelong Democrat, and the guy who had, 12 years ago, nominated Bill Clinton in his successful campaign. Every angry attack that came out of Miller's mouth was met with a roar of approval from the Republican audience, who mirrored the rage in Miller's red eyes and popping veins; I saw Bush's father, perhaps the most experienced politician in America, sitting in a sky box smiling his approval of Miller's attacks. But the Republicans, after looking at poll data, listening to the media and yes, in all probability, listening to focus groups, dropped Miller like a monkey would a hot penny. Karl Rove a genius? Maybe. But even a genius makes a lot of miscalculations in this game. I haven't heard anyone calling for Rove's head.
Let's let the experience the Republicans had with Miller guide us at least some. I'm not expecting Kerry to run a "high road" campaign, and I never did. I do expect him to understand the terms of the battle laid out in front of him, the challenges he faces in trying to fend off the attacks from the saner versions of Zell Miller the Republicans have hired, while keeping the undecided vote clearly in mind. And while he does this, he needs us to cut him some slack. He's going to make some mistakes, and not everything is going to break his way. Keep giving him your support, your efforts, your ideas -- but your understanding as well when his campaign, after carefully weighing a variety of factors, some of which we never see, chooses to go down a road we would rather it didn't.
Politics is personal. We tend to identify with our candidates and our causes, and attacks on them become an attack on us, by extension. It is, then, only natural that we would like to see Kerry out there slugging away in response to every attack -- he is, in some ways, our champion, and champions should fight. Unfortunately, no one can fight every battle. Let's remember that --let's allow our candidate to take, not the high road, but the smart road, let's let him choose the battles he fights while we, his base, have the discipline and the toughness to wait for November 3 for satisfaction. And above all, let's make sure that Kerry doesn't lose because we helped the Republicans along in their mission to goad Kerry into sinking to their level, perhaps creating a Democratic version of Zell Miller or the bandaged lady in the process. Those two images belong squarely to the Republicans, and no one needs another one.
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