John Kerry lost the election the moment he saluted those desperate many at the Democratic convention.
Certainly, the Democrats never displayed a particular interest in winning this race, evident by their insigificant efforts to legislate a paper trail on voting machines, or confront aggressively the lame flip-flop charges generated against their candidate.
But Kerry could have risen above it all had he drawn vitality from the lessons he claimed to have learned from his Vietnam experience. That he chose instead to turn his back on that period in his life, let alone reframe it from the perspective of being a war “hero,” put his entire performance into a comic book realm.
Kerry conveyed, like the DLC, he considered the “doughface” liberals to be hazardous to the health of his campaign, despite the only life his candidacy ever exhibiting coming about as a direct result of speaking to these numbers.
Kerry should have addressed the convention not only as a soldier who returned from Vietnam, but as one whose experiences led him to wage a battle against it once he did, against the lies that led us into that misadventure. Where were those comrades? At home, with the voters who would have given him an unquestionable popular win, had they been inspired to get out the vote.
The left isn’t causing the Democrats to lose, the Democrats lose because they are an elitist, condescending version of the nutters currently running the GOP show.
They will never win the hearts or minds of Americans, because they sold theirs to corporations long ago, and it’s not exactly a secret.
Speaking of Hearts and Minds, the AEI will be doing a presentation tomorrow, featuring the “liberal” Robert Kaplan.
Helena Cobban on Kaplan.
Something about the editorial pages of the WSJ makes the lunatic come out in everybody.