Six tips to get Kerry to White House

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Six tips to get Kerry to White House
Arianna Huffington
Thursday, March 11th, 2004

Congratulations, John Kerry. The White House is gunning for you, and party hacks are deafening you with advice. Tune them out. Here is a simple six-point plan for becoming the 44th President.
1. You may share JFK's initials, but you need to campaign with RFK's passion. Ushering Bush out of the White House will take more than a critique of his failed policies - and more than a new and improved Medicare plan. It will take a bold moral vision of what America can be. The night Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, you were on a ship coming home from Vietnam, and you have often talked about his legacy. Remember what he said: "Some men see things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'"

2. Don't pick a vice president by looking at the map. Pick someone who can appeal not just to our self-interest but to our better instincts. In other words, do not pick Evan Bayh.

3. Don't fall back on the tried-and-untrue swing-voter strategy. Fifty percent of eligible voters did not vote in 2000. Speak to them - the young, the poor, single women. Speak to those who are struggling without health care, decent schools or jobs. The dithering poltroons offering you focus-group-tested advice on how to triangulate your way to victory won't like it. But you'll feel better, and you'll win.

4. Don't run from your voting record. Don't run, as you did in the New York debate, from being called a liberal. Define it as the foundation of the great breakthroughs in American history. The Emancipation Proclamation. The 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. The New Deal, which put ordinary people back to work when the private sector couldn't. Social Security. Medicare. The Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Clean Air Act of 1970. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. These milestones represent values - liberal values - held dear by most Americans. You can be the President who leads us to the next breakthrough after years of consolidation, stagnation and - under George Bush - regression.

5. Bush Republicans control certain magical words, starting with "responsibility." Take "responsibility" back. The GOP wants the nation to believe we can carry on a worldwide war on terror and the Iraqi occupation while giving the top hats a tax cut and the drug companies a huge new prescription drug benefit without cost containment. We can't, of course. Make sure Americans realize that before they vote in November.

6. Strike a new bargain with the American people. Tell them, "You can expect a lot more of me, and I will ask a lot more of you." President Bush has used Sept. 11 to divide us - and as a handy visual for his new campaign ads. Imagine how different our country would be if he had used it instead to call on the American people to commit themselves to a large, collective purpose. Believe in us. Ask us to confront both the horrors wrought by terrorists and the horrors wrought by violence in our inner cities, woefully inadequate health care, education and housing. Ask us to share in the sacrifices necessary to build a country of real opportunity.

The generosity, selflessness and courage that emerged on Sept. 11, 2001, are still part of who we are. Speak straight to us and challenge us to live up to those intangible qualities that make our nation great.

You can be that leader, but only if you ignore all those who tell you that's not the way you win elections. Indeed, that's the only way you'll win this one.