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[bryant]

Right. You're going to get one of these once a day between now and Tuesday. They're mostly directed at my friends who are feeling mopish about the potential for a Kerry victory.

Today, I've got an Al Giordano essay for you. Al is one smart cookie. He predicted Kerry's victory in Iowa. He knows Kerry and Kerry's people really well. He is not randomly making stuff up to make himself feel better.

See, here's the deal. Kerry fits nicely into the frame of "another boring liberal from Massachusetts." If you want to take the lazy way out, you just recycle all the Dukakis stories and you've got yourself a news cycle. Now, I liked Dukakis -- but Kerry is simply a tougher candidate. He knows what it means to be on the national stage. He is the guy who refused to let go of the BCCI scandal, he's the guy who defeated an incredible popular William Weld in his last election, he's the guy who wins.

If Kerry wasn't charismatic -- if he wasn't good at what he does -- Nixon wouldn't have singled him out for special attention in the 70s. Nothing's changed. The media frame is wrong. Kerry is not Dukakis.

Read Al's piece. More tomorrow.

Comments

Re: Hold me, Bryant

[rfrancis]

Not to keep harping on Zogby's appearance last night, but another interesting thing he said is right along the lines of your comment -- something to the effect (sadly I can't find a transcript yet) that there are effectively two countries now vying for dominance. That's an appalling thought, particularly how well that's gone historically.

-R

Re: Hold me, Bryant

[bryant]

One of my serious answers to the question is that I think the United States ought to decentralize significantly. Not dissolve, but put more significant power back in the hands of the states. I might think that Texas (sorry, Ginger) would be worse off if it didn't have a liberal federal government preventing certain things, but that doesn't mean I think that Texas shouldn't have the ability to make its own mistakes.

Re: Hold me, Bryant

[rfrancis]

I tend to agree that the argument can be made that increased federalist tendencies on both sides of the aisle, in particularly on some hot topic issues, have rubbed the country pretty raw. On the other hand, states rights have been used to back some awful things in the past. Democracy is hard.

And now I go to lunch. :)

-R

Re: Hold me, Bryant

[jeregenest.livejournal.com]

I just think that all the crazy free market republicans should take their ideologies to the logical extreme and stat that the only states whose electoral votes count are the ones that pay mroe in taxes then they get back in bnefits. Oh wait, those are mostly traditional Democratic states....