Gay vs. Too Straight!
Tie goes to Bush.
By Mickey Kaus
Updated Thursday, Oct. 14, 2004, at 12:27 AM PT
Debate #3: 'Did I mention that Dick Cheney has a lesbian daughter?'
1) kf's line: A technical draw that helps Bush more than Kerry. Why? a) The trend was against Bush going in to the debate; b) It's two hours after the event. I don't remember many specifics. I do remember that Bush was personable, upbeat, human and articulate (he seemed to have gained about 20 IQ points since debate #1) while Kerry was near-funereal. He even looked like a mortician. Where's the Man Tan when you need it? c) The CW going in had Kerry's campaign appealing to swing voters while Bush mobilized his base. But in the debate both moved to the center--Bush just did a better job of getting there, talking about education for minorities while Kerry was stuck defending racial set-asides. Ron Brownstein speculated , pre-debate, that Kerry's biggest task was "untying himself from big government." Will Marshall of the DLC said he needed to "belie the claim that he is some kind of pre-Clinton liberal." If Kerry did either of these things, I missed it. d) My gut tells me that, contrary to voluminous polling data, many voters are looking for reassurance that it's OK to reelect Bush. If so, I think he gave them that reassurance.
2) The CW held that a debate on domestic issues played to Kerry's strengths. Wrong! A debate on domestic issues helps Bush because it excludes the subject of Iraq, Bush's bleeding wound. Duh! Kerry's best line of the night, to my ears, was his pledge to "calm the waters of a troubled world." He should have said that about ten times--but in a domestic debate he was lucky to get it in once.
3) When I criticized John Edwards for gratuitously mentioning Dick Cheney's gay daughter, I got lots of email suggesting that Edwards was simply being nice. Sorry, that won't fly after Kerry bizarrely, needlessly and explicitly raised the subject again ("I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, ....") There must be some Machiavellian strategy behind the Democratic urge to keep bringing this up--most likely it's a poll-tested attempt to cost Bush and Cheney the votes of demographic groups (like Reagan Dems, or fundamentalists) who are hostile to homosexuality or gay culture or who just don't want to have to think about it. Or maybe Kerry was just trying to throw Bush off stride. In either case, the fake embrace was even creepier coming from Kerry than it was coming from Edwards--Edwards had at least been debating Cheney at the time. After the debate, Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said Cheney's daughter was "fair game." Fair game? Who was being attacked? (It was supposed to be a discussion of whether homosexuality is a "choice" or innate. Bush had said he didn't know.) ... P.S.: If Kerry was being Machiavellian, he went way too far in the culturally liberal direction by talking about friends who "finally sort of broke out"--e.g. came out. (With the support of their wives!) Why "finally"? Is liberation from sexual repression a priority item for Kerry's first term? Of course not, but Kerry's language can't have made socially conservative voters comfortable--negating the effect of the Cheney mention, if that was supposed to make them uncomfortable with Bush. ... Update: Here's some evidence (in a NYT "undecided" panel) of Kerry's Mary Cheney mention backfiring ("a low blow"). ...
4) Finally, a Pedro Martinez moment: Excellent Kerry move to thank Bush for his leadership "in those days after 9/11." Good job, George. I'll take the ball now. ... P.S.: Of course, Kerry had to be prodded into this cunning graciousness by moderator Bob Schieffer's set-up. ... Note: As alert, channel-surfing reader E.C. notes, Martinez himself was re-dramatizing the point on Fox even as Kerry spoke. ..
5) Schieffer's next question (about being "surrounded by very strong women") was another set-up for Kerry, allowing him some desperately needed self-humanization. When Kerry talked about his mother, he suddenly became a person again! Maybe he should think about his mother, like a method actor, before every debate. ... Too bad his mother anecdote was lame, and the debate was already almost over. ... P.S.: At least his (also human) Teresa joke will make it into the sound-bite rotation. Theresa didn't look too pleased--but then, she rarely does. ...
6) While Bush tried to be moderate in general, he wisely moved to the right on immigration, casting his plan in the toughest possible light. He said he opposed an "amnesty" because he doesn't want to "reward illegal behavior," but missed a huge opportunity by failing to cast Kerry's plan for "earned legalization" (of illegal aliens already here) as just such a de facto amnesty. ...
7) Kerry's missed opportunity came on Social Security I thought. He scored by characterizing Bush's plan as an "invitation to disaster." If he'd hit Bush even harder--arguing that $2 trillion in added transition costs would kill the program, "end Social Security as we know it--he might have gotten a debate-dominating, Johnson-vs- Goldwater moment out of it. (Bush, meanwhile, missed a demagogic moment by failing to jump on Kerry's lingering support for partially means-testing benefits. If Kerry gets through the whole campaign without this position becoming a liability, it will be a new day for us means-testers.)
8) Kerry's summary of his health care plan was very appealing:
We take over Medicaid children from the states so that every child in America is covered. And in exchange, if the states want to -- they're not forced to, they can choose to -- they cover individuals up to 300 percent of poverty. It's their choice.
I think they'll choose it, because it's a net plus of $5 billion to them.
We allow you -- if you choose to, you don't have to -- but we give you broader competition to allow you to buy into the same health care plan that senators and congressmen give themselves. If it's good enough for us, it's good enough for every American. I believe that your health care is just as important as any politician in Washington, D.C.
You want to buy into it, you can. We give you broader competition. That helps lower prices.
In addition to that, we're going to allow people 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare early. |
