Portrait Of A Liberal
By Randall Nunn (08/15/04)
The media is hard at work trying to create the perception of a meaningful Kerry lead in the polls and momentum for the Democrats leading up to the Republican convention. This perception is creating concern among some conservatives that the Bush campaign is losing some of its focus.
One must be careful in this pre-convention period to separate the hype and spin from reality. And the reality is that many Americans are not yet truly focused on the issues and the important decision to be made in November. If the Bush team effectively articulates its position on the key issues and wages an aggressive campaign, the president is likely to win handily in November.
The Bush forces need to avoid a defensive campaign and must set the agenda rather than let the media dictate the issues. If a position can be articulated well, the American people will understand it and generally make a sensible and correct decision about the particular issue. But if the Bush campaign tries to appeal to all sides and dilutes the impact of its message, the Democrats and their allies in the media can twist and distort and work their magic with their skillful use of bias and innuendo. All one has to do is look at the difference in the way the media treated Michael Moore’s propaganda film and the way they are treating the recent book about Kerry’s Vietnam service. Fahrenheit 9/11 was based little on fact while the Kerry book is largely based on factual information and accounts of participants, yet the media praised the propaganda piece and bashed the factual work. The media is so clearly partisan that the Bush campaign must get its message out in spite of it, since it cannot rely on neutral and unbiased reporting. To do that, the Bush campaign must clearly and sharply define the issues, deliver its position with force and clarity and give voice to the concerns of its core constituency—the “average American voter.” And since the “average American voter” is conservative rather than liberal, supports the “traditional” American values and believes that the defense of this country is one of a president’s primary responsibilities, if the Bush campaign properly defines the issues and its positions on those issues, many Americans on election day will have a rather clear and easy choice—vote for someone who stands for much of what they believe in or vote for someone who opposes many of the values that are important to them.
This election is about specific issues and today issues motivate voters more than political parties do. There are issues not being used effectively by the Bush campaign that could be used with great effect if the campaign has the courage to go after Kerry on them. For example, in a time of rising oil prices and concern over this country’s dependence on Middle Eastern oil, why is no one talking seriously about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? The answer is that the Bush forces seem to be unable to articulate effectively the need to drill for such oil and the fact that it can easily be done without damaging the environment. They have been intimidated by the media and environmentalists into avoiding the issue when it could easily be positioned to put Kerry on the defensive. Bush will get few of the votes of the “environmentalists” in any event because for all of their supposed intelligence and understanding they are nothing more than hard core liberals indoctrinated to such an extent that they could no more vote for a conservative Republican than they could harpoon a whale. Bush should quit wasting his time trying to appease them or explain science to them and instead seek the understanding and support of the majority of us who intuitively know that if we can have thousands of oil wells in the continental United States that are not wrecking the environment, we can surely do the same thing on a couple thousand acres of tundra in Alaska.
Most of us know that we are being held hostage on a number of issues by the coalition of environmentalist interest groups, the media, Hollywood kooks and other far-left special interest groups who align with them. These groups are already working feverishly to defeat President Bush and he risks little in further antagonizing them. Go after the rest of the voters—the ones who live and work in the real world and who understand that reasonable compromises are sometimes necessary to insure economic progress and national security.
When you are surrounded by a determined and hostile enemy and send for the cavalry, the last thing you want to see coming to your rescue is a band of pointy-headed liberals on bicycles. We know that President Bush had the courage and determination to confront the enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq. We do not know whether Senator Kerry would have done so. Is this country ready to swap an untested liberal senator for a tested and experienced chief executive? The percentages don’t favor such a decision in these perilous times. Properly painted, the portrait of Senator Kerry will be frightening indeed to most thinking Americans.
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