John Kerry - Let's Be Friends and All That
First, an explanation: I haven't listened to every speech in the
last two days. First, I've been at work later. Second,
we've got family in (R's sister-in-law and our cutie-pie niece),
and I thought I'd spend time with them instead of Carol Moseley Braun
and Dick Gephardt.
I'm also not going to analyze Kerry's speech, comma by comma.
Millions of bloggers, pundits, and amateur smartasses (not unlike
y.h.n.) will be taking apart his speech. I want to talk about the
whole idea of going negative as a political strategy.
The whole convention has been framed with the concept of going
positive. The Dems are saying they're going to use positive
messages, not bitter attacks and tearing down the opponents.
Kerry had a nice moment in his speech, tonight, addressing this not-so-new high-mindedness:
I want to address these next words directly
to President George W. Bush: In the weeks ahead, let's be optimists,
not just opponents. Let's build unity in the American family, not angry
division. Let's honor this nation's diversity; let's respect one
another; and let's never misuse for political purposes the most
precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United
States.
My friends, the high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place.
And that's why Republicans and Democrats must make this election a contest of big ideas, not small-minded attacks.
The whole approach has been perfect, from a political view. I
was worried about it at first, for reasons I'll talk about in a
minute. But it's done a number of things. It's allowed the
Dems to throw all sorts of haymakers at the unnamed "them" - in effect,
eliminating the enemy completely by refusing to name them. It
simply erases the debate; instead of being a campaign against Bush and
Cheney, et al., it simply says, "they're gone. They cease to
exist. When we start over again, building a new world on the
rubble of the past, they will be but a distant memory."
It also puts the pressure on the Repubs to continue the
positivity. The first time Bush or Cheney or anyone uses Kerry's
name, it's over. They broke the rule. (This was also the
advantage of the Dems holding their convention first.)
Here's the concern I had about the whole going-positive thing: defeating an incumbent is all about going negative.
This isn't my idea. A political consultant I know points this
out regularly. If it's only a race between two people for an open
seat, then the contest can be about the better candidate, the better
ideas, the bolder strategy.
But when you run against an incumbent, it's not enough to simply
demonstrate your competence. It's not two candidates applying for
a job. You have to say, not only that you can do the job, but
that the other guy is incompetent and needs to be fired.
This is a harder fight. It requires pointing out mistakes,
calling out bad policies, denouncing bad Cabinet-members. In
short, all the stuff that's commonly called "going negative."
Anti-incumbent campaigns are always negative, by necessity.
And a candidate who's not willing to do it is going to lose.
But this time, the Dems did it right. They didn't pull many
punches, but it was not against Bush. They raised and
de-personalized the debate so it became about the country itself - in
Jimmy Carter's words, the very soul of the country. Kerry has
made Bush smaller with his speech tonight, and with the whole tone of
the convention. It's up to Bush now to claw his way back to
visibility.
9:05:11 PM 
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