{"id":511,"date":"2004-09-03T21:53:05","date_gmt":"2004-09-03T21:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:08:45","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:08:45","slug":"the_bounce_and_the_drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=511","title":{"rendered":"The Bounce And The Drop"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve argued for a while on the blog and to my friends that the election wasn’t likely to be as close as the CW has showed it to be. I’ve been hard-pressed to explain exactly why, except for my total acceptance of Mickey Kaus’<\/a> “Cocoon” theory, and my own subjective impression that the media in 2004<\/a> is treating Kerry like they did Gray Davis in 2003.<\/p>\n

That’s not a service to Kerry, as it wasn’t to Davis.<\/p>\n

So Instapundit<\/a> and Kevin Drum<\/a>, link, with varying emotional responses, to the latest Time Magazine poll<\/a>, showing an 11 percent lead for President Bush<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I have the feeling that it’s probably too late – the tires have lost traction and now we are just waiting for physics and gravity to do their job. <\/p>\n

But it’d be nice to see Kerry go down fighting.And I don’t mean the kind of silly flailing he did last night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are three clues I’ll offer the Senator and his staff for free; if they want more, they will have to rent them somewhere, since they seem clue-deficient themselves.<\/p>\n

* No one who matters cares about Bush of Cheney’s Vietnam service or lack thereof. Dedicated Kerry supporters are waxing wroth about it, but they’ll vote for you anyway.<\/p>\n

* We know you went to Vietnam, and we’re pretty darn sure you acted bravely while you were there. But we also know that you opposed the war before you went over, left early after being slightly injured, met with the North Vietnamese while a member of the Naval Reserve, and were a leader in an antiwar organization that can charitably be called ‘colorful.’ Every time you bring up your service in Vietnam without framing your complex history (and here’s the text of a free speech<\/a> that might do it for you), you make people trust you less, not more.<\/p>\n

* You’ve said a number of things that you need to explain. So has Bush, but unlike Bush, who is running on his character and personality (you wish!!), you’re running on your ideas. So every time you try and zing Bush for something he said, he just gives that Gary Cooper look to the audience and their hearts melt. (Remember the scene in ‘Blazing Saddles’ where Cleavon Little says “You’d do it for Randolph Scott…<\/i>“??) Sadly, you come across – no matter how much you try and loosen up on your Serotta or snowboard – as the stiff rich guy who is the stock villain in most modern comedies. Trust me, you’re going to have to win with ideas.<\/p>\n

So it would be nice if you had some. I’ve explicitly criticized<\/a> a lot of what you’ve said about foreign policy, for example, as a combination of empty rhetoric (more internationalism!) and impractical ideas (send the Saudi money back!). Get smart and get specific. Tell us what you’d do in Iraq in the next 90 days, exactly, that’s different than what Bush has done. Tell us what international forces will come in and augment ours, and what you’ll give up to get them there.<\/p>\n

What would be nice would be a different candidate, sadly. Is it too soon to talk about rebuilding the Democratic Party into an effective force for some progressive values that might actually make a difference?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve argued for a while on the blog and to my friends that the election wasn’t likely to be as close as the CW has showed it to be. I’ve been hard-pressed to explain exactly why, except for my total acceptance of Mickey Kaus’ “Cocoon” theory, and my own subjective impression that the media in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}