{"id":859,"date":"2003-11-18T13:18:57","date_gmt":"2003-11-18T18:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/859.html"},"modified":"2003-11-18T13:18:57","modified_gmt":"2003-11-18T18:18:57","slug":"kerrys-new-staffers-help-shape-a-persuasive-new-campaign-theme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/kerrys-new-staffers-help-shape-a-persuasive-new-campaign-theme\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerry’s new staffers help shape a persuasive new campaign theme"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard John Kerry’s stump speech a few times this year and I’ve always thought it was pretty good. He’s experimented with a few different tacks, including various emphases on his record as a war hero, but substantively, Kerry has always made a strong pitch about his priorities.<\/p>\n

That said, the competitions within his staff over the months did cause Kerry to shift his tone and theme from time to time. In the early summer, Kerry’s theme was about “strength” — the importance of having a strong presence internationally, a strong economy, a strong safety net, etc. For some reason, his campaign dropped that one. Then Kerry talked about all the reasons he was “angry” with the Bush administration, when he was trying to sound like Dean over the summer. When that flopped, Kerry began to stress “experience.” The campaign talked about Kerry’s experience in Vietnam, experience in the Senate, experience on civil rights, etc.<\/p>\n

With the mass staff departures from the Kerry campaign last week, and the introduction of a new campaign manager, Kerry unveiled a new theme in Iowa over the weekend. Like Slate’s William Saletan<\/a>, I think it’s perfect for him.<\/p>\n

As Saletan, who was in Iowa covering the state party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson dinner, wrote, Kerry has unveiled a new campaign theme, but I think it’s one he’ll be keeping for a while. At least, he should.<\/p>\n

“On a series of issues, Kerry contrasted President Bush’s promises with what Bush has delivered, leading the crowd in a refrain against each ‘raw deal,'” Saletan wrote. “With a nod to FDR, Kerry promised a ‘real deal, where we stand up and fight for working people…where we make our economy an economy that’s based on people and products.'”<\/p>\n

That’s good, but it wasn’t the best part. Kerry continued to play on this “real deal” theme effectively on other points as well.
\n
\nA few months ago, Al Franken was on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart promoting his new book<\/a>, and he encouraged one of the presidential candidates to use Bush’s flight-suit photo-op in their campaign. As Franken put it, someone should mock Bush by saying, “Playing dress up is fun…”<\/p>\n

I guess some of Kerry’s new staffers caught the interview. In Iowa, Kerry accused Bush, you guessed it, of playing “dress-up” on the USS Lincoln.<\/p>\n

“I know something about aircraft carriers for real,” said Kerry. “If George Bush wants to make national security the issue of this campaign, then I have three words for him that I know he understands: Bring it on!”<\/p>\n

This “real deal” theme also worked when Kerry took on Howard Dean, though he didn’t have to mention the Vermont governor by name.<\/p>\n

“We are a Democratic Party that offers real solutions, real leaders — the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Bill Clinton,” Kerry said. He added, “We need to offer answers, not just anger. We need to offer solutions, not just slogans. So, Iowa, don’t just send them a message next January. Send them a president.”<\/p>\n

This is the perfect message for Kerry. There’s no point in him trying to tell everyone how “angry” he is; Dean’s already wrapped up that constituency. Positioning himself as the responsible grown-up who’d make a great president makes sense.<\/p>\n

As Saletan said, “This is what Kerry’s message should be, because it’s who he is. He’s the guy to whom battlefield bloodshed is real and foreign policy isn’t a foreign language…. Kerry isn’t pretending to be the guy who makes your heart race. He’s saying, go ahead and have your fling, but when it’s time to marry, you know who to count on.”<\/p>\n

I don’t know if it’s too late for Kerry or not, but I hope he sticks with this new message and it begins to resonate in Iowa. We’ll see what happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve heard John Kerry’s stump speech a few times this year and I’ve always thought it was pretty good. He’s experimented with a few different tacks, including various emphases on his record as a war hero, but substantively, Kerry has always made a strong pitch about his priorities. That said, the competitions within his staff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}