Why Kerry Supporters Are Little More Than ‘Against Bush’
By Rachel Alexander (07/27/04)
Recent polls reveal that while John Kerry is doing as well in the polls as George W. Bush, an alarming number of Kerry supporters cannot explain why they support Kerry. A Washington Post/ABC poll conducted in June found that 55% of Kerry supporters stated they were voting for Kerry more to vote against Bush than to support Kerry. Only 44% were voting for Kerry because of Kerry. Whereas only 16% of Bush supporters indicated their vote for Bush was primarily a vote against Kerry; 83% were voting for Bush because of Bush.
Is it wise to support a candidate based primarily on a visceral dislike of the other candidate, and why can’t Kerry garner positive support? Hate generally does not motivate people in positive ways; to the contrary, hate was responsible for some of the most evil events in history. Yet Kerry’s core liberal support, which is no secret, comes from MoveOn.org and Michael Moore, both disconcertingly angry entities. Moore acknowledges that his primary motivation for producing the angry documentary Fahrenheit 911 was to defeat Bush. Eerily though, his anger is also directed at the U.S. in general. Moore has said, “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or ‘The Enemy.’ They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow – and they will win.” He has also said that Americans are perhaps the dumbest people on the planet, and that people who run small businesses are rednecks that run the towns and suppress people. Moore claims there is no terrorist threat in this country and that it is a lie.
MoveOn.org, the self-appointed new mouth of the Democratic Party in 2004, proudly supports Moore. In a recent press release, MoveOn.org PAC national field director Adam Ruben proclaimed, “Michael Moore is a hero to many, for saying things no one else will say,” and asked their 2.2 million members to support Moore by seeing Fahrenheit 911 on opening weekend. Oddly, the MoveOn.org web site is strikingly devoid of support for Kerry; there is little mention of him except in the fine print.
Democrats find it difficult to support Kerry because of his waffling on issues and painfully obvious Democratic amorphousness on principles. There are two main issues this election and Bush has a respectable track record on both; the war on terror with its close Iraq counterpart, and the economy. Kerry’s position on the war on terror and Iraq has echoed Bush’s position most of the time, other than occasional waffling, because liberals have learned since Carter that they cannot be dovish on foreign policy while there are serious threats to national security unless it is clearly a Vietnam-scale quagmire. Kerry’s position on the economy is not considerably different than Bush’s position either, because no matter how the Democrats try to spin the numbers, the economy has greatly improved over the last year, leaving Kerry with little to propose that could realistically be improved, other than possibly a couple of narrow areas such as the loss of manufacturing and teaching jobs. Kerry has found himself in the position Bill Clinton was in as president during much of the 1990’s, forced to accept more conservative positions reflective of the country or risk losing popularity.
But the biggest reason why Democrats are not falling strongly behind Kerry is because Kerry is essentially the epitome of the ungrounded Democrat. Kerry’s waffling is especially symptomatic of modern Democrats’ growing problem, which is that their positions on issues are not founded on an underlying philosophy, but picked rather haphazardly. The Republicans’ core philosophy is based on limited government, limited taxation, moral absolutes, and maximum freedom. The Democrats don’t have a core philosophy. They know they want some amount of big government, but have no method for determining how big it should be, although they clearly disassociate themselves with communism and its underlying philosophy of Marxism, which ironically would at least provide them with principles. Democrats know they want fairly high taxes, but have no idea how high taxes should actually be, nor how to determine which groups should be taxed at higher rates; again it is all decided rather arbitrarily, the only consistency seems to be reactive opposition to whatever the Republicans want. Democrats do not really like moral absolutes, and even condemn privately held morals, yet their insistence upon no moral absolutes is itself a moral absolute, making it a bit troubling to defend this position. Their support of freedom is limited to a carefully chosen group of freedoms, all centered around the objective of criticizing and silencing the majority, particularly the majority that holds moral absolute values.
Kerry has done a dismal job of pulling together these amorphous positions into a theme. And not only has he waffled at different times on the issues, but he has gone one step further and tried to create the illusion that he actually takes both positions on issues. His admission, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion [for Iraq] before I voted against it” has been easily exploited by the Bush campaign. His position on abortion is another typical example of Kerry trying to have it both ways, claiming he believes life begins at conception, an extremely conservative view, yet voting against the partial birth abortion ban, an extremely liberal position. Most Democrats are frankly afraid to promote Kerry for fear they will be asked what Kerry’s position is on any particular issue. Obviously, being able to coherently explain Kerry’s positions on various issues requires a lot of time and research, which must be regularly updated since he frequently changes or modifies his positions. No one wants to look stupid for not knowing the positions of a candidate they are supporting.
The Democrats in charge of Kerry’s campaign are well aware that a theme of hatred will cost them the election, and have told Fox News that participants at the Democratic convention have been instructed not to make any anti-Bush remarks. There was speculation as to why Hillary Clinton was originally excluded from speaking at the convention, but it doesn’t take much analysis to realize that the Kerry campaign and DNC organizers were concerned that her negative and critical persona would be a liability. Similarly, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle, Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton, and other obligatory popular attack dog Democrats have been relegated to appearances early on or late in the evening, outside of major network coverage, to minimize their visibility. Michael Moore and James Carville aren’t even on the program. Instead, there are relatively obscure personalities speaking during the major networks hours of coverage alongside Kerry and Edwards, as well as the candidates’ families, in an attempt to give them a softer edge. The Democrats’ 2004 prize, Ron Reagan, Jr., has been relegated to the end of the night on Tuesday, after most people have gone to bed. Perhaps the Democrats are now regretting asking him to speak; ironically, his father was a wonderful speaker who brought people together.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, it is too late to define Kerry with a positive theme. With Michael Moore and MoveOn.org leading the efforts to elect Kerry, Kerry has finally been defined to the voters – as the candidate of hate.
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