Good advice, graciously offered
Here I present Reason to Like Conservates More #5462: We offer our honest opinions, and best advice, to our enemies.
Mr. Kerry has a problem with rhetoric. He doesn't have his own sound. You may hate Mr. Bush's sound but it's his, and a lot of people like it. He sounds normal, which for all its pluses and minuses as a style does tend to underscore the idea that he is normal. Mr. Kerry and his speechwriter, Bob Shrum, have long relied on a sort of proto-New Frontier sound that is the rhetorical default position for lost Democrats. Now is their chance to reinvent the Democratic sound. JFK himself came forward as JFK. He didn't present himself to the world with a cigarette-holder, a jut-jawed chin and rimless eyeglasses. That is to say, he did not make believe he was FDR, the party's giant who'd died just 15 years before. JFK knew to be JFK. Kerry should be Kerry.Granted, Peggy Noonan's next line is, "This is assuming there is a Kerry." And for that, we're told we're just the same as any Democrat. "All politicians are crooks," and the like.
For those who don't pay much attention to politics, this is The Great Disconnect. Every republic needs leadership, and when men and women engage in the pursuit of the trust of their countrymen, they engage in two parallel and mutually required pursuits. Statesmanship is what candidates and officeholders say to all the people, explaining their vision and and defining their character. Politics is what they say when they're snickering at one another, jockying for leverage within the political class. Some of us don't mind the latter, and may actually find sport in its give and play. But all of us should work to concentrate on the merits of the former, for that is how we should base our vote.
And the vote is how the people practice statecraft themselves, advising their government how they choose to be governed. Without it, they are mere spectators, watching the wrong sport.
