Post-Election Post-Inauguration Reflection

After I watched the President's speech, which appeared to ignore the reality of Iraq, I was speaking with a friend about the glorious early evening of November 2, when we drove home together thinking Kerry had won, stopping at a liquor store to get the only appropriate beer to celebrate the election returns: Sam Adams.

Alas, it was not to be. But why, what did Kerry do wrong? I've got a few more thoughts on this subject, which I fleshed out with my friend yesterday.

First of all, I think Kerry should not have been afraid to admit that he now believed the war in Iraq was a mistake, even to acknowledge that it was a change in his position. Errol Morris the filmmaker wrote an op-ed in the New York Times this week where he argued that Kerry lost because, while he embraced the Vietnam warrior in his past, he glossed over the anti-war protester that returned from the war. Morris argued that Bush, on the other hand, showed America everything that he authentically was. (I would argue with Morris that Bush actually has created a nice image of himself, ignoring the privileged well-to-do upbringing he lived to become a good-ol'-god-fearin'-boy, but that's quibbling.)

Kerry could have nicely traced the narrative with Iraq with his experience in Vietnam. Kerry fought in Vietnam, volunteering for risky duty, only to realize once he returned from the war that the United States' policy was badly flawed and then he worked to change it. So too, could Kerry have made a similar case about Iraq. He could have argued that, yes, I did support the war and removing Saddam Hussein in principle, but once I saw what had happened and the means that the Administration used to go to war and to carry out the post-war operations, Irealized that the U.S. policy was badly flawed. He could have then argued that he was running for president to change the policy, just as he had tried to do in the early 1970s. This would have been a more natural way to explain his various votes and would have avoided Kerry making the disastrous statement at the Grand Canyon on August 9 that he still would have voted for the war, even knowing that there were no WMDs.

Second, Kerry should have spoken out and addressed the dispicable Swift Boat Veteran allegations swiftly and without hesitation. He should have sat down with Diane Sawyer or Barbara Walters or whomever and answered every question they put to him about it, and then put the damn thing to rest. Instead, it lingered on and the public, in critical states like Ohio, began to have reservations about Kerry.

Finally, what about the social issues that supposedly killed Kerry, like gay marriage? Personally, I think Kerry should have stated, clearly, in one of the debates that his position on gay marriage was precisely the same as Dick Cheney's, which it was. That might not have been enough. Indeed, my friend argued that Kerry needed to have a Sister Souljah-moment with respect to the issue, and find some over-the-top action by an extreme gay rights group to condemn, which would have been a better way to address the issue than to engage in the triangulation that President Clinton supposedly recommended to Kerry (that Kerry endorse state bans on gay marriage, something Kerry principally told an aide "he was never going to do.")

We then began to think about what such a moment could have been for Kerry. Suddenly, it hit me: Kerry should have given a speech condemning Gavin Newsom's willful flouting of the law in San Francisco. No matter whether you think gay marriage is right or not, what Newsom did, by ignoring the clear dictates of the law in California, was really no different than what Chief Justice Moore did with the Ten Commandments in Alabama. (My personal view is that Newsom did some terrible damage to the Democrats, and, while I agree in principle with the concept of equality he was standing for, Newsom should have done one marriage to test the law, and stopped there.) But to stand up for the rule of law, which is in essence what Kerry would have been doing, would have been in no way inconsistent with his principled view on equality and anti-discrimination. By condemning Newsom's action, Kerry could have separated himself from the radical element in the party on gay marriage, and perhaps given himself some cover.

Now, who knows if that would have been enough. But it certainly would not have hurt. In the end, we're left where the Republicans were in 1992. But remember how things turned around for them...

- posted by Joshua @ 8:11 PM