I wonder what would have happened if Kerry had been honest about himself. I don't suppose you're getting the "metro vs. retro" ads out in the boonies but they're in the Washington Post print and online, and the NT Times print and online.
I saw a cartoon yesterday of two Republicans in New York, looking like the couple out of Grant Wood's "American Gothic," confronting Democrats with too many earrings, women in business suits and tennis shoes, and all the other odd things you see in cities that you don't see in the boonies.
I always wear black casual clothes in NoVa and DC but switch to khakis and blue golf shirts or T-shirts in the boonies, to me the divide is more about style than substance.
I know that someone who might look like a black ghetto resident may really go to church several times a week and may be extremely offended by the mildest of curse words, while someone who looks like a preppy may live in Dupont Circle, Metrosexual Central, and have multiple sex partners on the weekends. You just can't tell by looking at people in the big city what they are like at home.
Bush doesn't lie about being a hell-raiser in his youth, although he's not proud of it. He understands hell-raisers, he used to be one, which helps give him the common touch.
Kerry ought not to pretend that he wasn't anti-war in 1971. He ought to revel in it. It is one of his strengths.
If I were Kerry, I might say that I protested the war in Vietnam for reasons which have nothing to do with the War on Terrorism. Or I might say that fighting terrorism isn't really about war, the Republicans have that wrong.
But pretending that I don't believe what I really believe is foolish. It doesn't fool anybody. |
