On Sunday, May 2, 2004, the New York Times reported on its front page, “Kerry Struggling to Find a Theme, Democrats Fear.” John Kerry has been planning to run for the presidency for years. For virtually all of 2003 and through the early part of this year, he has been engaged in the Democratic primary contests. He has emerged the winner in February, yet here we are in May searching for a theme.
The following paragraph from the Times story may cause you to have gross convulsions. “Last week after completing the most in-depth poll of his campaign, Mr. Kerry unveiled yet another theme for his candidacy: ‘Together we can build a stronger America’. It is the sixth such theme since he launched his candidacy 18 months ago.”
After 18 months, Kerry with his patrician background, has determined that his strongest message is, “Together we can build a stronger America.”
As an old soldier, as an old Democrat, as a Midwesterner, my sole response is , “Good Jeeezus Kerry, where have you been?” How many young people will be inspired by this business of building a stronger America? Not many. And how many middle aged people are going to turn handsprings over a slogan that should never have seen the light of day. And how many minorities are going to be turned on by this absolutely mushy platitude when they are out of work right now.
This is disastrous and Kerry does not recognize the inanity of his latest slogan. It lends validity to a piece of April 27, 2004 in the Village Voice, “John Kerry Must Go.” The first paragraph reads:

“With the air gushing out of John Kerry’s balloon, it may be only a matter of time until political insiders face the dread reality that the junior senator from Massachusetts doesn’t have what it takes to win and has to go. As arrogant and out of it as the Democratic political establishment is, even these pols know the party’s got to have someone to run against George Bush. They can’t exactly expect the president to self-destruct into thin air.”

This is a pretty damning thought – and unfortunately, well deserved.
Now if Kerry needs some themes to run on, here are a few:
As Richard Clarke said, Iraq is the wrong war in the wrong place.
As of May 14, we have lost 777 soldiers and squirted away more then $200 Billion dollars. Enough is enough. Now it is time to withdraw and to go home.
As predicted by Bush Senior and by Brent Scowcroft, we have managed to alienate and anger the rest of the world, both Arab and non-Arab by our incursion into Baghdad. It’s time to repair that damage by withdrawing our army of occupation now.
Let us settle the prisoner issue now using NO U.S. MILITARY PERSONEL TO DO THE JOB. My theme includes those in Iraq, Guantanamo and Afghanistan.
Let us gain credibility in the Arab world by not backing everything Ariel Sharon proposes to do. Sharon says there is no right for Palestinians to reclaim their homeland. Bush says, “Yes, that’s right.” This is like the Canadians agreeing to give California to Mexico. For once, let us be even-handed.
My theme is that the presidency is a full time job. In Bush’s first 40 months in office, he spent eight (8) months at his ranch in Texas. There is a hole in the air to the Waco airport so that Bush could complete 33 round trips, nearly one per month. In his first 40 months in office, Bush was on vacation 20% of the time.
When the Presidential briefing on August 6, 2001, was supposedly given to Bush, it is clear that George Tenet did not deliver it. Bush was again on vacation. When the 9-11 Commission heard testimony from Bush’s National Security Advisor in the Spring of 2004, Bush was again on Easter vacation and was conducting a tour of his ranch for, among other people, the National Rifle Association. Again, our theme is that Kerry will treat the presidency as a full time job.
The Kerry campaign understands fully that virtually every Iraqi HATES the U. S. occupation. Therefore, we will move to end the occupation and not impose more U. S. troops on the Iraqi public.
My administration will never lie to you and drag this country into another disastrous unending war. Bush lied to you about the intelligence coming out of Iraq. The Kerry administration will not do that.
Unlike George Bush, President Kerry will address the British House of Commons. It is a disgrace when an American Chief Executive is asked not to speak to the House because of the rude reception he was sure to receive.
The Kerry campaign is now inviting John Edwards, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark and Dennis Kucinich to make the case that Bush and Cheney are frauds. We need more voices on the campaign trail.
The theme of our campaign is to ask Bush and Cheney how many Purple Hearts and Silver Stars they won in the war in Vietnam. Cheney seems to be the Chief Provocateur on the subject of military service. In his case, when the draft presented itself, he sought five deferments and said he had “Other priorities.” Bush fled to the National Guard and then was a no-show.
There are a dozen themes, all infinitely superior to the theme of “Together we can build a better America.” That is self serving, consummate manure and is completely unworthy of a presidential contender.
The point here is that Bush has gotten us into an endless war. He has NO exit strategy. His only suggestion is to “stay the course.” “Staying the course” means more dead on our side and more dead on the Iraqi side. “Staying the course” means spending a fools fortune beyond the $200 Billion spent so far. There is an old G.I. expression that holds, when the brains run out, just “Stay the course.”
The other day Bush was being interviewed by a friendly reporter. He was asked what is wrong in the war. This was a few days in advance of the disclosure of the mistreatment of prisoners. Bush replied in his smirky, half grinning way that Fallujah was “under control” and the rest of the country was “returning to normal.”
Jeffrey Gettlemen, a reporter for the New York Times who had just completed a tour in Iraq strongly disagreed – in a polite fashion. Gettlemen, who is one of the most interviewed reporters since his return said upon hearing Bush’s rosy assessment, that Bush had things quite backward. Gettlemen made the point that the opposition to the U.S. forces is not ragtag elements who are disaffected. On the contrary, Gettlemen said that in the week before he came home, he found all sorts of Iraqis who were prepared to kill Americans. In a good many cases he found violent opposition to the American occupation from farmers and towns people.
My trust is in reports such as Jeffrey Gettlemen rather than in George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld or Mr. Chaney. We are hated in Iraq. We are hated in all the Arab world. We are hated in Western Europe which is why many of us think it is the better part of valor to stay away from that part of the world while on vacation.
There are two keys here. First is disengaging from Iraq. Pull the tooth of the Iraqi occupation. Cut the losses of American troops which will soon reach 1,000.
The second key is trying to settle the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In that case, we can no longer be an honest broker. We forfeited that title when Bush unilaterally denied the Palestinians the right to negotiate with the Israelis about return to their lands that had been in their possession for hundreds of years.
We will now find out if Kerry has a stiff back-bone. He should not be deterred by Iraq coming apart again. It was only joined by the British in an artificial arrangement in 1921. Even General Abezaid, the supreme commander, says the country will only achieve peace when Iraqis set out to do so. If they want a three part country, Kurds, in the north, Sunnis in the middle and Shias in the south, so be it. It is, after all, their country. If we sent them the money to rebuild their country while we bowed out, it is quite likely our offer would be well received.
The purpose of this essay is to say to John Kerry that not much time remains to get his campaign running as it should. Having Kerry fail resulting in the re-election of George Bush is unthinkable. No man has generated more hatred in this country or abroad than Bush has achieved in his first term. There is time to save the campaign, particularly if Kerry reaches out to other men who are anxious to serve him. Waiting until the Democratic convention may well be too late.
Those are my thoughts for John Kerry. If Kerry is wed to his “Together we can build a better America,” my fear is that George Bush is going to be the principal executive in the “better America” for the next four years.
Now before the Kerry campaign goes another step it needs for Kerry to stop his niggling debates. Did he own an SUV or not? If it belonged to his wife, say so. Why does he get into such inconsequential debates?
Another silly debate is whether he threw his ribbons or his medals over the fence. The campaign is into May and we are still quibbling about ribbons and medals. Straighten it out.
Can you imagine Bush and Chaney attacking Kerry on his war record. Kerry’s answers are so ambiguous as to encourage more scurrilous comment from a draft dodger and a draft evader.
Kerry has got to deal with his reputation for dodginess. Tim Russert asked his perfectly logical question which demanded a simple yes or no answer. The question was, “Do you believe the war in Iraq was a mistake?” Instead of knocking this one out of the ballpark, Kerry, as is his wont, restated the question. He said, “I think the way the president went to war was a mistake.” By restating the question, he left the fundamental issue unanswered. This foolishness has to stop.
Finally, there is the matter of the Catholic Church. When John Kennedy ran for the presidency, he made it clear that his actions would be his own, not those of the Catholic Church. It is high time for Kerry to tell the Vatican that there is a separation between church and state in this country. The Vatican should be told in no uncertain terms, that they have NO place in the American political process just as Washington politicians have no place in calling the shots on Catholic spiritual matters.
The advice of this old essayist may not be welcomed by John Kerry, but he rejects it at his peril.
E. E. CARR
May 4, 2004 (updated May 14, 2004)
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Democrats are champions at throwing easy races. Hillary recently dethroned Kerry for this coveted title, and I look forward to seeing which poor sucker is charged with losing the next unlosable race come 2020. Kerry couldn’t handle a puppet who accidentally went to war. Clinton couldn’t take someone who openly mocked people with disabilities and bragged about assaulting women. Gore and Clinton even got extra style points by winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote, which is the mark of a true expert election-thrower.
My advice is more simple than Pop’s: run someone who has both an ounce of charisma, and a tape recorder. The charisma will be useful for winning over the hordes of voters who have long since discarded reason, and the judicious application of a tape recorder to DT should rapidly win over everyone else.