Message in a Babble
by Tom Frank
The New Republic - Only at TNR Online
Post date: 09.21.04
One can only pity George W. Bush, who has just one real campaign advisor--one who's known, moreover, for being an evil genius. John Kerry, on the other hand, is blessed with thousands of campaign advisors--few of whom are evil, none of whom are geniuses, and all of whom have something to say every day. At least they've finally agreed that their candidate lacked what The New York Times called a "simple and concise message 'frame' through which to filter all their attacks on Mr. Bush." Or, as a school teacher might call it, a topic sentence. So it will be this: Bush makes "wrong choices," whereas Kerry offers "new direction." Yesterday, after delivering a speech about Iraq to showcase his new commitment to having a point, Kerry headed uptown for a big test of his new, improved candidacy: an appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman." It would not, however, turn out to be a night for concise message frames.
Unlike Jon Stewart, who, during Kerry's visit to "The Daily Show" last August, managed to step on Kerry's blabologues every time they seemed to be snowballing, Letterman let Kerry go--and go. Surprisingly, and perhaps to his credit, Letterman asked serious questions throughout the interview, evidently less worried than Stewart about providing his audience with comic fodder. Kerry, as one would expect, responded solemnly and at length. Who knows whether it helped his poll numbers or not? What Kerry's appearance made clear were two things: Someone needs to send Kerry that memo about the new topic sentence; and Kerry still needs some serious practice before he debates Bush.
At least the interview started reasonably well, with Letterman poking fun at the negotiations over who will sit and who will stand during the upcoming debates between the candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. Kerry offered, "Well, we compromised and now George Bush is going to sit on Dick Cheney's lap." Fine, perfectly fine--no need for comic magic here. Kerry also looked respectable in a grey suit, blue shirt, and red tie.
Soon, however, things got unnecessarily involved. Letterman asked Kerry about his recent conversation with Bill Clinton, which was widely reported to have been a serious pep talk about how to put the Kerry campaign on a proper course. Asked what he and Clinton discussed, Kerry answered: "We just talked about the race. You know, he is probably the best observer of American politics. I mean, he's the only Democrat who's won twice in 50 years or more, and he's worth listening to. We had 23 million new jobs created, we balanced the budget" and blah blah blah. By the end, Kerry had exceeded the desired word count by 85 percent at least.
Kerry must simply have left his message frame in the car. "The truth is, Dave," he began at one point, "we have an amazingly divided America, and, in a sense, that's one of the issues of the campaign, because the president ran saying he was a uniter not" a blah blah blah, but Kerry wants to blah blah "to the American people about things that" blah blah blah and he particularly wants to blah blah "young people back into the system" so that blah blah blah like "cleaning up the environment" and blah blah blah like "health care for our citizens" can blah blah blah. In short, an opportunity to plug that concise new message got wasted in a long and meandering trip through Hideous Remains of Stump Speech Lane. This wasn't New Kerry; this was Kerry Classic.
To make things worse, when Kerry gets defensive, he really gets talking. Letterman triggered an avalanche when he asked about recent changes that Kerry has made to his campaign--namely, about why Kerry had just hired some Clinton campaign veterans. Kerry's answer was, "Just because, you know, as a campaign grows--a presidential campaign is an enormous undertaking. The White House has all these people in place over the course of four years. I won the nomination in March, and suddenly you're building literally a multi-million dollar corporation in the span of days, and you've got to grow, and there are stages of it. After the convention ..." Apparently, an answer like "They're great people, and I wanted them on board" was taken.
The question, really, was why on earth softballs like this were catching Kerry so off guard. Even if campaign shake-ups have been too recent for Kerry to have thought of a pat answer to questions about his new hires, this excuse certainly doesn't work for questions about Iraq. When Letterman asked Kerry if we'd be in Iraq today if Kerry had been president instead of Bush, Kerry said, "No." Then, as Kerry was about to erupt again, Letterman asked if Kerry would have invaded Iraq if he'd had the same intelligence reports that Bush had at the time. Kerry responded: "If we had the same intelligence that President Bush had--we know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction, we know there was no connection to Al Qaeda, we know there was no imminent threat, and under those circumstances, I would not have taken America to war." Which answered Letterman's question not at all, so Letterman repeated it, basically. Kerry then went into a long litany about inspections or alienating the universe or who knows what. No voter--not even the most gullible swing voter--would have failed to sense something was making Kerry uncomfortable. And this was Letterman--hardly the toughest inquisitor.
Kerry did have one good run on Iraq, however. Gone was the hackneyed let's-focus-on-issues-that-really-matter-to-the-American-people style of speak, and in its place was pretty straight talk about the mess we've created. Kerry's point was, anomalously, simple and clear: Bush was ignoring the problems on the ground and neglecting to prepare Iraq for any sort of stable future. "If election personnel are going to be kidnapped and beheaded," Kerry said at one point, "we're not going to have an election." Kerry offered some broad outlines of how he would handle the situation, while emphasizing that the situation constantly changes. His main point, however, resonated: Bush was "selling this rosy scenario while our young men and women are risking their lives for our nation, and they deserve the truth from the commander-in-chief." Whatever allowed Kerry this bout of lucidity needs to be cultivated.
Last night, Letterman, pointing to the seat next to his desk, repeated one of his favorite quips: "The road to the White House goes right through that chair right there." At this point, though, it's not even a quip. Kerry has simply performed a standard campaign rite, and, even if he didn't manage to impress many television viewers last night (and, given the mystery of swing voting minds, who's to say he didn't?) he's at least one step further along the way. What may prove more important, however, is that Kerry got a valuable warning: When it comes to reasonable, tough questions, he needs reasonable, succinct answers--and very soon.
Tom Frank is a reporter-researcher at TNR.
