FINE POINT: ON POLITICS: Curtain rises on Kerry
Michael Tackett
Published July 25, 2004
The following memo might be sent to the Democratic nominee on the eve of his nominating convention in his hometown of Boston.
Dear John:
They will tell you that this election is yours to lose. They will say that Iraq is a mess, the economy is rocky and there is no good answer to the question "are you better off than you were four years ago?"
Don't listen. Candidates who operate like that, even if they leave their convention with a strong double-digit lead like the last Democratic nominee from Massachusetts who pretty much thought he was on his way to the White House, lose.
His staff was arrogant, and so was the candidate in 1988, Michael Dukakis. Now he is so marginalized that your campaign keeps him like a crazy aunt in the basement, largely locked up, out of public view, and as far as they can keep him from a television camera. And you, no doubt, in that year, were among those hailing him as "Duke."
Conventions are a mirage, an illusion, yet the only chance you really have to air an infomercial courtesy of the broadcast and cable networks. Don't be too seduced. If your campaign can't pull this off in a positive way, you won't have much to worry about in November. You will be doomed.
Don't be swayed by the fact that this is indeed a strange year with the Democratic Party even more strangely unified behind someone who, well, they don't exactly get Bill Clinton-style excited about.
Democrats normally spend the first few days of the convention fighting over a platform no one will read. They try to whip up a few demonstrations for the cameras. Someone else will want his name placed in nomination to drink in the applause.
Not this time. But don't be seduced by this either. They are not unified because of their love and affection for you, John Forbes Kerry. They are unified by their anger and disaffection for George Walker Bush. You will have to capitalize on it just the same and not slobber over them to have a Sally Field "they really like me!" moment.
It's about you
Remember, it's not about them. It's about you.
People don't cast their ballots because somebody had a great convention, with electrifying speeches, good music and good visuals. They don't vote because they are jazzed by the vice presidential candidate. It's simple: You vs. Bush.
Looking at the lineup of speakers, it seems that you understand that. A little heavy on the swift-boat heroism, but that is the aspect of your life that makes you likable and more than any other single thing is probably responsible for your winning the nomination.
You get the "formers" out of the way quickly. Jimmy Carter. Bill Clinton. Al Gore. All on Monday night. And you sandwich Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in that day too, so that no matter how brightly she shines, she is competing with her husband for the spotlight and not you. Gore's positioning is pretty close to a sleight, but it's not your fault he endorsed Howard Dean.
Another Dean backer, former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun apparently got what she wanted out of her brief presidential run, namely some restored credibility, because you allow her to speak on Tuesday, though in a decidedly and properly low-profile slot.
All week long you will hear people blathering about the relevance of the national political convention in the modern era. Don't listen. It doesn't matter if the networks bray about boredom. They will still have the bright lights on when it matters most for you, when you deliver your speech. It will be the 30 minutes--and don't make it much longer--when you have the stage to yourself.
You have set the stage as Veteran's Day, a good move if you haven't overplayed your hand. All day, the talkers on TV will be referring to this as "the biggest speech of John Kerry's political career" when you accept the nomination Thursday. Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, whose Vietnam injuries left him an amputee, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, and then your former brother in arms in Vietnam, Jim Rassman, the Green Beret whose life you saved in the sniper ravaged waters of Southeast Asia. You make the point.
Hit the high notes
The speech is less about what you say than the way you say it. You have the party's poet laureate, Bob Shrum, who wrote Ted Kennedy's speech in 1980, so hitting some high notes shouldn't be too hard.
Try as you might, whenever you give a formal speech, you sound like you are giving a formal speech, like one that would be judged in your former prep school competitions on diction, grammar and stentorian elegance. Not the times we live in.
You need to be something that you rarely convey: accessible, warm, someone people actually wouldn't mind in their living rooms for the next four years. When you leave, you will feel like you can't lose. You can. And you better run like it.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune |
