Would Someone Please Talk To John Kerry?
Sen. John Kerry, R-Mass., said people should get over his fumbled, and nonetheless bad, joke about young people staying in school and thereby out of Iraq. “This is getting silly,” Kerry said on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”
He also said he hasn’t decided yet if he’ll take another shot at the White House in 2008.
If most elections are really the same old popularity contests they used to be in high school, I strongly urge Mr. Kerry not to run. He was not particular popular in 2004, and it seems his standing is sinking with each passing year.
In a Quinnipiac University poll taken the week after the November 7 election, Kerry was selected as the least popular of 20 national leaders.
Trying to make a joke of it, the senator admitted he “would have voted myself last, based on when it was taken.”
I believe Mr. Kerry is missing the point.
Not in the way Richard Nixon did. His narrow loss in the 1960 presidential election was followed by a failed bid to become California governor in 1962. However, Nixon still had some fine qualities, a base of support and a hint of megalomania.
He was also in a party, and a nation, which were actively evolving. Even though evolution wasn’t – and isn’t – widely supported within some Republican circles, Nixon went on to narrowly capture the White House after all in 1968, and overwhelmingly four years later. Of course, the creeping megalomania and fully blown paranoia eventually cut that second ride short.
Senator Kerry may have many fine qualities. Humor and charisma are not among them, though he certainly has enough ego to stay in the senate. He has no obvious base of support, other than general Dubya-haters, and he won’t be running in 2008. At this point, it’s questionable whether Kerry’s party, or his nation, is actively evolving.
Anyway, this is no time for joking, Senator Kerry. Some history tends to repeat itself. Some doesn’t.
Please do not run for president again. Surely, there is another, more positive way, for you to spend the next couple of years.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:21 am
Kerry was my third choice to represent the Dems in 2004, although I have genuinely like him going back to the days when we were both protesters. He is honest, well-intentioned, and good Presidential material, but he has had a problem as long as I have been following him. In his anxiousness to communicate, he often starts talking before he starts thinking and all too frequently ends up scratching his tonsils with his toe nails.
December 1st, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Hey TC,
You bring up a good point. As you often do.
You like John Kerry. Heck, I don’t dislike the guy. But, Like Pip, I have great expectations for anyone who would be U.S. president.
I’m reasonably sure that many of the folks holding elected and appointed office in this country are not wicked or depraved. I disagree with many of them at times. At times, fundamentally.
The most damage I’ve witnessed over the years has come from what I see as a paranoid, ego-driven, insulated power structure, combined with a good deal of incompetence.
Maybe Kerry isn’t such a bad guy. Heck, maybe GW isn’t such a bad guy, either.
It’s just this country, and this time in history deserve an awful lot better than either of these two men.
You know my position. I don’t believe the Republican or Democratic parties, as currently constituted, can provide the entree for such individuals, or allow for the structural changes – the overhaul – our current system desperately needs to go forward.
I don’t believe the shaky status quo which barely holds us all together in the U.S. will continue to do so for long, unless genuine, positive, radical change begins to take hold.
Who’s going to do it?
I don’t have a clue. I just don’t think any of the “names in the news,” or the parties they represent, will allow, or are capable, of making it happen.
But I am an American, so I’m still optimistic!
Crazy, huh, TC?
December 2nd, 2006 at 10:08 am
I don’t know about that, Tim. The only presidential candidate I have ever voted FOR was Clinton. In every other election I was voting AGAINST someone. I’d disagree with your assessment of Bush. IMNSHO, he is the worst pResident in history, the worst liar ever to hold the office, and one of the least compassionate people on the face of this earth. In a way, that may be a good thing. Bush’s regime is so corrupt that it has shaken name Americans out of their complacency. The Dems can begin to improve things tight now if they remember they represent the people, not the money.
December 2nd, 2006 at 5:33 pm
I’m glad we don’t agree about EVERYTHING, TC.
That would be too boring.
I’m afraid I view GW as more of an empty vessel, filled only with what others have poured in over the years.
Not exactly a “Dexter,” but someone in need of acting as if in order to get along. He’s the closest thing to an empty suit I’ve ever seen in politics, but I don’t think he’s a wicked soul. Unfortunately, that maybe why he can be, and I think has been, so dangerous.
I AM continually amazed he is my president. But I’ve been amazed most of my adult life by that circumstance.
I wish I COULD agree with you regarding Dems, but after all this time, and some personal experience, I honestly don’t believe either party is close to allowing independent thought, real honesty, and true integrity, lead the way.
Besides, I am overwhelmed by the hard-line vitriol inherent in each party’s base, and to that extent, believe a legitimate third party is the only thing that may break the iron grip the extremists and their backers have on American politics.
Finally, Tom, I really believe our future depends on an expanding center, and that’s going to require the kind of amity we haven’t seen around here in more than two generations. Neither party, as presently constituted, is going to be able to go it alone.
So I continue to say,
Up the revolution!