What caused the Kerry meltdown?


Why has John Kerry's campaign collapsed so badly?

Josh Marshall, of TalkingPointsMemo, notes that John Kerry now trails Howard Dean in Massachusetts. Not just New Hampshire. Massachusetts. His home state.

How did it get so bad? Because John Kerry is a confused candidate with no message and no rhetorical self-discipline.

For example: Kerry came to Minnesota in September and I saw him speak when he piggy-backed on a party fundraiser. He spent five minutes talking about foreign policy, and said something I thought was extraordinarily dumb: "The first thing I'll do after I'm elected President is go back to the United Nations and . . . " [I don't remember the rest real well, he didn't say "apologize" but it certainly felt pretty wimpy].

Now, if Kerry is nominated how long would it take Karl Rove to do an attack ad quoting Kerry saying: "If I'm elected President the first thing I'll do is go back to the United Nations . . . " Hell, the commercial's probably sitting in the can already.

His UN comment is emblematic of a "red-meat for the party hacks, the consequences be damned" approach to speech-making, going all the way back to the "regime change" gaffe. Kerry looks both impulsive and opportunistic when he speaks like this.

One of two things is true: either Kerry lacks the self-discipline to avoid giving rhetorical ammunition to Bush, or he's made a conscious decision to pander to the Democratic base regardless of consequences, including the consequence of making the general election harder to win. If this is a calculated decision, Kerry is making a colossal mistake: the number one issue for Democrats this year is electability. If Democratic voters conclude that Dean is not electable, they aren't going to go farther left to find an alternative.

Dean has shown some talent by nimbly moving back to the center after sewing up the anti-war left. In doing so Dean simultaneously bolsters his comparative electability vis-a-vis other Democratic candidates and better positions himself for the general election. In contrast, Kerry is so awkward he hasn't even established a political baseline from which he can then credibly maneuver.

Kerry's failure to position himself is a product of a muddled message. How bad is Kerry's message? It is impossible to accurately describe him as a candidate in 10 words or less. With the other candidates, you can do this: Dean's a centrist (successfully) pretending to be an anti-war leftist, Clark is the ex-general, Edwards is the trial lawyer/southern DLC candidate, Gephardt is pro-labor and pro-war.

My pecking order at the moment is Clark, Edwards, and Gephardt. I can live with Dean (I may have to). But not Kerry: his failure to define himself makes him more vulnerable than the other candidates to the right-wing attack machine. They already have a short, memorable tagline for him: "Massachusetts liberal" and/or "Ted Kennedy-liberal." These taglines could stick to Kerry in a way that, say, "Vermont liberal" wouldn't stick to Dean.

At this late date, Kerry still does not have a grasp on how to play to his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. A very bad sign for a candidate who, by all conventional measures, should have been the clear front-runner.

Posted: Mon - November 24, 2003 at 10:37 PM        

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