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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
It may be Bush's war, but Bush has made it Kerry's problem. Kerry still struggles to articulate a clear, concise critique of the war. During the two-day tour through Ohio, Kerry criticized Bush for misleading the country about the reasons for war, for rushing into war, for going to war because he "wanted to," for ignoring the advice of military leaders about the war, for failing to build a bigger coalition for the war, for forcing out Army Gen. Eric Shinseki after he raised questions about troop levels that would be required for the war, for failing to provide body armor for the troops he sent to war, for misrepresenting the costs of the war, for spending $200 billion on the war when people are suffering back home, and for "opening firehouses in Baghdad" when budget cuts are forcing firehouses to close back in the United States.
"I would not have done just one thing differently than the president on Iraq," Kerry said at a campaign stop Monday in Pennsylvania. "I would have done everything differently than the president on Iraq."
Fair enough, but the Republicans have beat Kerry by focusing on one big thing and sticking with it. Virtually every day for the last six months, Bush and Cheney have used the war -- their war -- as the centerpiece of their attack on Kerry's credibility and character. And each time they use it -- in stump speeches by Bush and Cheney, in convention addresses by their surrogates, in TV ads -- they use it exactly the same way with almost exactly the same words. They say that Kerry was for the war and then against the war, and that he voted both for and against funding that was needed to "support our troops."
"My opponent and I have different approaches," Bush said in his convention speech last week. "I proposed, and the Congress overwhelmingly passed, $87 billion in funding needed by our troops doing battle in Afghanistan and Iraq. My opponent and his running mate voted against this money for bullets, and fuel, and vehicles, and body armor. When asked to explain his vote, the senator said, 'I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.' Then he said he was 'proud' of that vote. Then, when pressed, he said it was a 'complicated' matter. There's nothing complicated about supporting our troops in Congress."
Delegates booed and chanted "flip-flop," and the notion that Kerry has vacillated arbitrarily on the war was planted even deeper in voters' minds. The perception isn't accurate, of course. When Kerry voted for the use-of-force authorization in October 2002, he raised many of the same concerns that he raises now. And his for and against votes on the $87 billion were, in fact, votes on two different measures: one that would have paid for the war by repealing Bush's tax cuts for those making more than $400,000 a year, and one that simply added the costs to an already exploding federal debt.
Those votes might actually appeal to voters concerned about the budget deficit, but all they've heard about them is the flip-flop charge. As Kerry spoke to voters Friday on the front lawn of a home in Newark, Ohio, Mike Fox stood across the street, holding up a Bush-Cheney campaign sign. Fox, who owns a lock and security business and served as a city councilman in a nearby town, said he'd have no objection to raising taxes to pay for the war. "I'm in favor of supporting the troops in whatever way it takes," he said. "If it takes calling Mike Fox, who is not a rich American, and asking for more money, they've got it." When told that Kerry had supported such a measure, Fox seemed perplexed and changed the subject.
Back at the campaign event, John Glenn was complaining that Republicans were engaged in "the old Hitler business -- if you hear something repeated, repeated, repeated, repeated, you start to believe it." Glenn said voters should "separate out fact from fiction," but many of them lack the information they'd need to do so. The Republicans have no interest in explaining Kerry's votes to them -- at the Republican Convention in New York, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander defended the use of the "flip-flop" label but then told Salon that he didn't "know the details" of the two votes on the $87 billion -- and Kerry either can't or won't explain them himself. At the Newark event, a supporter all but begged Kerry to state clearly that the vote against the $87 billion was actually a vote for fiscal responsibility. Kerry didn't. At the next stop on the campaign trail, an aide grumbled: "I don't know why he can't take the extra 30 seconds to explain himself."
It's not like the candidate feels pressed for time. At stop after stop in Ohio, campaign events had an undisciplined, almost leisurely, feel. The Newark event stretched on for more than an hour, even though there were -- by design -- fewer than 100 people there. The next day in Akron, Kerry spoke for more than 45 minutes, an eternity at an outdoor rally on a hot and humid summer day.
The Akron speech was rambling and unfocused, as were most of Kerry's speeches during the Ohio swing. He opened each speech with a long pander to the local folks, invariably invoking the names of the local high school football teams and a reference to some local eatery where he'd "heard" that they make the best whatever -- pizza, hamburgers, meatball sandwiches -- for miles around. The rest of the speech was a grab bag, and Kerry filled it with different bits at each stop. He revisited applause lines from old speeches and tested some new ones, and along the way he interrupted himself often with asides, explanations and tangents that made the speeches hard to follow.
For all the talk of Bush's malaprops, the man can sometimes make a simple point clearly. Untroubled by nuance, detail or fact, Bush travels the country saying things like, "Because we acted, our economy is growing." That's not how Kerry speaks on the stump. Here's the candidate in Akron Saturday, trying to go after Bush on what should be easy targets, Friday's announcements of disappointing job numbers and the biggest increase ever in Medicare premiums:
"What makes me angry -- and I say this nicely -- what makes me angry is the complete breach of faith with the American people. They promised four years ago to strengthen Medicare. He promised again a couple of nights ago to strengthen Medicare. And you wake up Friday morning on a day when a lot of the news is being hidden by what's happening in the hurricane down in Florida, what's happening in Russia with 200 people tragically killed by terror, and the news is hidden, but it isn't going to be hidden for long from Americans. Because what they did yesterday was, this president of the United States, made history twice."
Four hundred words later, Kerry was still going at it. He eventually mentioned the job numbers and the Medicare increase, but along the way he detoured with references to Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, Halliburton, Ken Lay, tax cuts and prescription drugs from Canada. Kucinich said Saturday night in Steubenville that Kerry was "finding his voice" on economic issues, but he still seemed to need a map.
Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's campaign in 2000, told Salon Monday that Kerry's advisors need to get him on a clear, consistent message and keep him there. "The message gurus need to sit back and say, 'Take all of this other verbiage out of your vocabulary and just say these three things every day, even if it sounds boring, just say it, say it, and keep saying it.'"
