SOTU, Not Me-Too.
Plus, the surprise applause line of the night.
By Mickey Kaus - SLATE
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2004, at 1:30 AM PT
I'd rather be trashing Kerry, but I see that Walter Olson is highlighting a promising line of attack against Edwards (although one I suspect he's more than well-prepared for). ... 10:23 P.M.
A man of principle, the principle being "whatever seems to work." John Kerry has been on TV tonight talking about the "Two Americas" and the need for an "optimistic" campaign! At least when Joe Biden shamelessly stole another politician's spiel, it was a politician in another country. ... 9:50 P.M.
Dead Man Pitching: Gephardt's TV ads are still running here in New Hampshire. He looks good! ... P.S.: I've heard it replayed so often, the Dean scream is starting to sound good to me too. It's the sort of thing that works for Steve Ballmer! Who'll be the first hip-hop artist to sample it? Update: Already done, of course. This one is better than this one, but they can both be improved on (like, with some lyrics). [Thanks to alert reader E.C.] ... 9:05 P.M.
SOTU and yet so-hum? 1) Like many others, I didn't notice many Democrat-destruction-related program activities.--i.e. plans designed to occupy the center by coopting Democratic issues. This makes me think a) Bush's polls must have showed him losing a lot of support on the right, especially on immigration; b) he's leaving himself vulnerable if the war fades in salience (and wasn't that the lesson of Iowa?); or c) maybe he's suckering the Democrats into attacking him on domestic policy--e.g.for leaving so many uninsured. Then later on, in say May, he'll propose a big increase in the ChIP program or something along those lines to cut off whatever line of attack they've taken. ... P.S.: Did you notice the huge ovation Bush got for ... community colleges? I think it was his biggest applause line of the night, practically. Why? Because there must be at least one of these institutions in every congressional district, run and supported by respected local leaders, and they have tremendous lobbying power. ... P.P.S.: They're also hell-bent on undermining welfare reform by allowing aid recipients to avoid work by taking classes. ... Update: Sullivan notes the lack of even a boilerplate paragraph expressing empathy for those who have yet to find jobs in the "strong" economy. Bush tried to convince people the economy is good by citing statistics. Isn't that His Father's Mistake Which He is Determined Not to Repeat? In fact, the empathy paragraph is such an obvious, automatic inclusion I wonder if everyone who worked on the speech just assumed it was there (even though it wasn't). ... 8:25 P.M.
The Shvitzer: I met Jerry Nachman once, in a hot tub! (Don't ask.) He was a great guy. Everything they say about him rings true. ... I can't believe they're not making them like him any more. But I don't know where they are putting them. ... 8:21 P.M.
Iowans Reject Kerry by 62-38 Margin! The Kerry victory in Iowa reminds me, not unsurprisingly, of Gary Hart's come-from-behind victory in New Hampshire in 1984. At the time I was working for the presidential campaign of Sen. Ernest Hollings. I'd written a profile of Hart a year earlier and decided that while somebody like Hart was the ideal Democrat, Hart himself was too strange, and his judgment too suspect, for him to be president. On the day of the New Hampshire primary I found myself standing outside a polling place in Salem, N.H., next to an enthusiastic young Hart worker. A Hart "surge" was clearly happening, although none of us knew its magnitude until that evening. I turned to the happy Hart guy next to me and said something like "You know, Hart looks good at first glance, but as people know him more I'm not sure they'll like him." I immediately felt like an ass for declaring that I knew something about Hart that he didn't. But the rest of the campaign did more or less correspond to a scenario in which Democrats found out more about Hart and decided "on second thought, no.".
I expect a similar scenario to unfold with John Kerry. The idea of John Kerry is appealing. The reality is less so (and a lot more less so than was the reality of Hart). As the primaries proceed, my guess is voters will learn more about Kerry and his support will fade. But it might not happen! I don't want to commit--or rather, by predicting Kerry's quick demise, I've already committed--what a Slate colleague calls the Howell Raines Fallacy, the assumption that the great and good American people, in their wisdom, will inevitably come to agree with you (or, in Raines' case, the New York Times editorial page). It's an easy fallacy for a democrat to slide into--and on the issue I spent most time on, welfare reform, it wasn't a fallacy at all. (Over generations, voters never liked the old welfare system, and they were right.) But of course voters make mistakes all the time. I obviously think Iowa Democrats just made a big one. It's up to the citizens of New Hampshire, who presumably know Kerry better, to correct Iowa's error. If they don't--well, one of us is wrong! |
