WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2004 By John F. Bailey. July 29, 2004 and November 3, 2004: The following column was written just after the conclusion of the Democrat and Republican Conventions. There is a postcript on my thoughts on what I saw last night. After one of the most indicting defeats of a party not in power in American electoral annals, the comments I made in July hold up:
The Republicans are in. After three days of sloganeering and no substance, the Democrats continue their shadow campaign which is banking on touchy feely shibboleths of the past to sway the American electorate into returning them to the White House. They promise a lot: One America, Hope is on the Way, (not “Solutions are on the way,” an important difference), and tonight with John Kerry making his acceptance speech they have one last chance to tell us four things:
How they Will Win Back Allied Respect and Aid.
How they will revive the economy with out advancing the deficit even higher.
How they will solve America’s energy/infrastructure/health care crisis without increasing the deficit.
How they will strengthen the military all without ballooning the deficit.
So far their only answer is to rescind the tax cuts to the top 2%.
The Democrat hope for election lies in America voting for slogans and sophistry and second-guessing, with hope that a leadership that cannot even plan a campaign and how to execute a platform, can stabilize Iraq (mostly through talks), organize intelligence, and stop the job drain.
Well, they can’t they just say they will, with no definite plan to do so.
Their most compelling argument is that they represent somehow a better America, they smile better and are more compassionate than the incumbent administration.
They claim the Bush administration lied, yet in preparing testimony for the 9/11 commission, a very respectable man stole classified documents and has not yet found them. What do you bet those documents had cryptic notes in the margin to the effect of saying “F—k this. It will kill our Mideast talks if we do this” from President Clinton in the margin to not move faster against Al Qaida because it will disrupt Bubba’s grand Middle East peace plan.
Until the little paper filcher from the National Archives, no less, finds those documents, that is what I believe. Those memoranda may be the “ lowered spear,” proof that the Clinton Administration chose to ignore the Al Qaida threat before the Bush Administration took over.
What else is a skeptical reporter supposed to think? Why steal papers from the National Archives ( the pudgy perpetrator seen stuffing papers into his pants, and not stopped by National Archive personnel, by the way) lose them unless they contained something very damaging to the present campaign rhetoric?
What’s more telling is The New York Times absolutely dropping this story on another third rate burglery. What is happening to Pudgy? I mean let’s secure the National Archives shall we? How can a National Archive clerk see Mr. Paper Thief stuff papers in his crotch and not say, “Excuse me sir, you can’t take those documents?” And let him do it?
How Quickly We Forget
What the Kerry-Edwards team is saying when they criticize the planning for the Iraq war is that they would have committed a more massive effort. They would have used more draconian force against the Tikrit resistance, they would have talked the allies into participating. Well, the Bush administration did do that.
They just would not allow the French and German businesses to participate in the post war reconstruction. Is Kerry saying he would do that? At what price? Would he demand troops for business participation?
Looking at it purely logistically, you have to have one overall plan for reconstruction, that’s why you keep it “in-house” so to speak. This is of course, criticized in retrospect because Halliburton, etc. is benefiting. Well gee, it is like Louis Cappelli using his own construction firm on his own project.
How Would K-E improve relations with our “allies”?
The Kerry-Edwards team demonstrates a naivete and a disrespect for the American electorate on not offering solid information on how they expect to win back the allies – relaxing tariffs, for example, relaxing immigration quotas, submitting to international trade laws, agreeing to international treaties at the expense of our self-interest, among other things that the Bush Administration has balked at during the last four years. Is that what the Kerry team believes? Is that what they would do if elected?
Is the Election About the Best Hair and the Best Jokes?
On the other hand this election will be proof once and for all that the American people would rather have President with good hair and a good guy image, rather than a record of accomplishment. (Editor's Note:Women voted for Kerry 54% to 46%)
Boston insiders WPCNR has interviewed who have connections with the administration of the Boston city government have privately told WPCNR that when they wanted something they always went to Senator Ted Kennedy, not Senator Kerry, because Kerry would “yes them, and do nothing.”
NO WMD? Plenty of Time to Call Mayflower Van Lines
The Bush Administration, of course, has not orchestrated public opinion very well. They suffered a tremendous setback by the military torture bungles that Seymour Hersh reported. They also suffer from the Weapons of Mass Destruction problem.
Let’s remember: if the WMD were there, they had to go somewhere. That logical somewhere is across the border into Syria.
Is it possible that while the Bush Administration was talking with allies trying to get support to invade Iraq in the United Nations, that Uncle Saddam was trucking his nasty stuff across the border to Syria or Jordan? Remember those before-and-after photogtraphs Colin Powell showed us? Have we forgotten those?
Contrary to the Democrat campaign, the Bush Administration did try and talk the allies into participating, Britain, Turkey, Spain, Japan did. We forget that.
Poppycock.
So this spin that the Bush Administration acted unilaterally is poppycock. The French and Germans wanted part of the business action and that is why they did not help.
We await Mr. Kerry’s first month in office to see how he will approach the Iraq problem. We do not know. We bet he will call a conference. Then we shall see how decisive, what a good negotiator, and what a strong leader he will be, as we have been told over and over during the convention he will be.
Mr. Bush handled his crisis. He rid the world of the Al Qaida problem in Afganistan and the Saddam problem in Iraq, sending a message that you cannot mess with America. Now we are being spun the story that Al Qaida has been made stronger by the Bush attacks.
Are You Kidding Me?
You lose two major bases of operations and you’re stronger? You lose your hierarchy and you’re stronger?
That is a matter of serious debate. Al Qaida is reduced to having Iraqis blowing up Iraqis, who hopefully are getting tired of this hideous tactic. They used to blow up Americans.
And, just to show you how balanced The New York Times is, (this column was written July 29), two days ago they did an elaborate report on how the loco cleric in Najaf has disrupted the Iraqi conference on elections in Bagdad on the front page. However, buried deep in The Times is a squib on how the Afghan army just retook an airport from the Taliban and is starting to have success. Why wasn’t that frontpage news?
It’s been less than a year.
Now just about 9 months after Saddam was toppled, people complain Iraq is not normalized People complain about the resistance. Well, at the end of World War II it took three years to normalize Germany and Japan, admittedly there was no resistance, but there was the Berlin Airlift and the tension with the Soviet Union. It took far longer.
It’ll Be Better With Us. Trust Us.
But, I digress. The point of this column is to show that the Democrats are talking nothing new here. There is no substance to their message, they have made this election a popularity contest between good hair, good teeth, good people in Kerry-Edwards and bad people, bad hair, and bad teeth, and Mr. Bush’s tendency to mangle meaning in his adlibs.
The reporters reporting on the Democrat convention let the Democrats have their way with them. Only one reporter, David Brooks of The Times, of all places, commented specifically on the Democrat campaign of smoke, saying, “it’s been three days and no one has said what they are going to do if elected.”
Cal Thomas in a column two weeks ago, took the television reporters to task for not pointing out the things that President Clinton was saying in the run up to 2000 in which Clinton was strongly for the removal of Saddam.
Yesterday, (July 28, 2004) WPCNR had my brother-in-law, a man who supported Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and the Bushes. It was his opinion that Kerry will win the election, much to his chagrin.
Should that happen, we should fasten our seatbelts, as Bob Murphy would say. Because we have no idea how Kerry will be able to handle the presidency.
On the other hand he will have the media on his side. They should make us feel better as America struggles. Since they seem to be rooting for this phoney.
This weeks’ big issue is Kerry criticizing President Bush for saying he would remove troops from Europe. Kerry’s lack of understanding showed itself in his saying we cannot let our European allies down. What allies?
November 3, 2004
These were my thoughts after the conventions had just ended. Tuesday's voting confirms what I wrote then: the Kerry campaign of meanderance never connected with what Americans wanted to know. It was not enough to say "Anybody But Bush," Americans wanted to know "What are you going to do, and how are you going to do it?"
Mr. Kerry never articulated that, and masterminded the most amazing rejection of a party when it was not in power in the history of the republic. He lost his party four senate seats. He cost his party about ten House seats. This is unheard of in a challenge campaign. Usually, the party of the incumbent President loses seats, does not gain them.
Get out of the Northeast
The big broad swath of red states across the center of the country, with those two splotches of blue on the West and Very Upper East Coast, paints a picture of a Democratic Party that has lost touch with what Americans think and feel, and that many Americans still are proud to be Americans.
John Edwards could not deliver his home state to Kerry. That is amazing. No southern state went for Mr. Kerry. That used to be unheard-of, too. Your minority Senate leader, Mr. Daschle was tossed.
The Democratic leadership under the Clinton banner has lead the Democrats to their own political Little Big Horn. They underestimated the Indians and became convinced of their own innate goodness, their own high opinions of their vision for the world, and that naturally they would prevail if they simply said the right things as they always have.
Political polls once again have proven to be useless because people lie in polls.
Were the Republicans smarter, or the Democrats dumber in how they conducted their campaigns?
Well, the Republicans had one message: security. That obviously worked.
The Democrats delivered the message "We're better people. Bush is not good for
America. We have better hearts. We're smarter. We know better how to raise up America's reputation in the world. We will give you more health care, more jobs, more period. Increase military strength."
They also seemed to be saying, "We are better than you are. We know best."
But they never said how they would do best. The American people outside the Very Upper East Coast which believes its own lies it tells itself, obviously did not believe the Democrats were better people, had purer hearts, were smarter, or knew better how to raise up America's reputation in the world, and were highly skeptical of their ability to deliver on the same promises they have heard for the last twelve years.
They also did not believe Mr. Bush was as bad a person as the Democrats painted him. They respected him.
When you do not respect your enemy that is when you make serious miscalculations. The Democrats seriously misjudged Americans' stomach for taking out terrorists and desire to do so.
The Democrats thought most Americans hated Bush as much as they, the Democrats did. They were sadly for them way wrong.
Now the Democrats have to look to the Clintons and perhaps Chuck Schumer to reconnect with the other side of America, and the only African-American Senator in America.That should be interesting.
Curtis Sliwa on WABC this morning noted how Hillary Clinton seemed to jump with joy when an anchor announced Bush had won Ohio. Ms. Clinton now gets her chance.
