Kerry Delusional Thinking

The Republican Convention is over. The dust has settled from the "pomp and circumstance" portion of campaign politics we call the National Party Conventions. Of the two, the Republicans clearly put on the better show. They were more well organized. The speakers were well chosen and stuck to Bush's conservative message against their generally moderate leanings. Zell Miller's speech was the equivalent of Barry Bonds on "Home Run Derby". The final outcome of both conventions is this: Bush the statesman of today scores a sizeable bump while outlining a plan for his next administration; Kerry the Vietnam War Veteran cannot (will not?) lay out a plan for the future and suffers a "negative bounce."

So I wake up this morning readying myself to analyze the Presidential race. I come across many examples of angst amongst John Kerry supporters about what he should be doing to bring himself back from the precipice in the polls. The comments from the left show a lack of understanding of what connects with average people.

Here's a relevant example:

From The Friday Project: in an interview with Director, Writer and Comedian Sam Seder, The Friday Project asks: "What does John Kerry need to do to win in November?" Seder answered, "I think Kerry needs to focus more on the economy and begin introducing more populist language into his campaign. The war in Iraq is a disaster and he should continue to speak of it but he must remind Americans that Bush has been a failure in every facet of his Presidency. In the final analysis, all of us who don't want to see the rich get richer at the expense of the rest of society, a series of bloody needless wars and diminished civil rights, need to mobilize voters who have never voted before."

In a nutshell, this is the left's advice to John Kerry: go populist, beat on the anti-Iraq drum; beat up on Bush; beat up on the rich; beat up on Iraq again; pull out the race card; find more voters in the penumbra of a disinfranchised electorate.

All along, the "real" electorate is wondering what John Kerry will do as President. This is evident from the recent polls.

Michael Grant, in an article which appeared at National Review Online during the primary season, opined as to why Jonathan Edwards would beat John Kerry in South Carolina. One of the reasons he stated was, "It is assumed [by South Carolinians] that people from Massachusetts are effete snobs who order their dinner in French with a haughty air. Kerry isn't helped by the fact that, in his case, this happens to be true." Kerry's problem of being an elite Northeasterner is not only with people in the South (no, Jon Edwards will not help Kerry there), it is also a problem he is having with most Americans--excepting Democrat voters. He cannot connect because he seems an elitist and he offers nothing in his campaign which would suggest the contrary.

Kerry's campaign has done very little to express to the country his plan if he becomes President. It's as if he assumes that the average voter already knows what he will do as President, and that they need only be reminded of their latent hatred of President Bush. Or, more to the point, as Theresa Heinz-Kerry recently stated, people who didn't accept her husband's national health care plan are "idiots," John Kerry himself seems to imply by his lack of a coherent statment of his agenda that voters who do not already understand his "plan" for America are just wrong-thinking conservatives "duped" by the "lies of this administration."

The polls make it clear: that kind of thinking is delusional.