Managing Kerry Down The Stretch
By Jackson Murphy on 11/17/03
Is it safe to assume that at least one Democratic Presidential hopeful has probably jumped the shark already? Sen. John Kerry’s campaign for president is a walking and talking metaphor for near imminent failure. Phrases like “on life support” and “rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic” are heard early, and seemingly often. The campaign is in such a complete state of turmoil that it might even give states of turmoil a bad name.
In baseball the first person to hit the bricks in a washed-out season is the manager. So Kerry axed his campaign manager, Jim Jordan, Sunday night. And when the manager goes the other coaches usually shouldn’t stay either, so Kerry’s chief spokesman and deputy finance director cleaned out their lockers too. James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal quipped, “these guys are so desperate for bad economic news that they're trying to increase the unemployment rolls one Democratic staffer at a time.”
According to The New York Times, “Mr. Kerry held a 45-minute telephone conference call on Sunday to discuss the firing with aides, many of whom had been hired by Mr. Jordan and who were described by participants in the meeting as distraught and unsettled by this latest instance of turmoil in the Kerry campaign. Rather than calming the waters, three people who took part in the call said, Mr. Kerry was pummeled for nearly an hour by campaign aides who asked if Mr. Jordan was becoming a scapegoat for the candidate's shortcomings.”
Anne E. Kornblut of The Boston Globe argues that these changes are a, “vivid snapshot of the anguish spreading through some corners of the Democratic field as Howard B. Dean barrels toward the presidential nomination with increasing velocity.”
The pile on, particularly from Kerry’s home town media, is staggering considering Kerry was once considered the front runner. The Globe’s Joan Vennochi added that the, “campaign needs more than a new campaign manager. It needs a new candidate.” And Tomas Oliphant agrees. “When something is wrong, the campaign staff can be a metaphor, but the real problem is always the candidate.”
At the same time, and again just like a baseball manager, the Kerry castaways in the past have turned up in Little Rock working for Wesley Clark and these ones may do so again. Managers always get a second chance. Candidates on the other hand rarely do.
This shake up is not necessarily coming too late. After Labor Day in 1999 Al Gore both retooled his campaign team and decided to seriously fight Bill Bradley. And it is hardly ever too late in politics. Most voters could care less who works for the candidate, if they even know at all. Once more, like baseball, there are late inning heroics, walk off homeruns, and relief pitching. But the most important thing to remember is that the team is not going to win unless it has raw talent.
Come to think of it, the re-staffing of the Kerry campaign with former staffers of Sen. Edward Kennedy might not do the trick either.
Kerry desperately wants to come out swinging. His new television ad makes him the first candidate to begin attacking President Bush by using the footage from the USS Abraham Lincoln. It was probably a preemptive use of the idea just as much aimed at stealing the thunder of Howard Dean than it was an attack on Bush.
The question on everyone’s mind is whether or not Kerry has the talent to be president. He clearly has the resume, the experience, and he sometimes looks and feels fairly presidential too.
So maybe he will start to get his swing back. Then again he just rode a Harley-Davidson onto the set of “The Tonight Show.” “You notice how quick we filled the spots...Done," Kerry said told the Associated Press after the show. "This campaign is moving. We know exactly where we are going, know exactly what we are doing.”
Sure you do Mr. Kerry. Seriously, even if Grady Little himself was running this campaign it couldn’t be doing any worse and who’s kidding who, Kerry is no Pedro Martinez. Kerry would say otherwise and did at the “Rock The Vote” debate. “You know why I will be a great president of the United States? Because I've been a long suffering Red Sox fan. I know adversity.”
No argument about his knowing all about adversity here. Even as he makes more changes than an angry George Steinbrenner he’s still left with only one person to blame, John Kerry.
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