I awoke in torpor this morning (just west of de la Cruz...) at how successfully the Democrats had toned their rhetoric. It was perfect -- they fired up the base with comments like President Carter's "John Kerry showed up for his military service," and "[Truman and Eisenhower] did not get us into optional wars..." no sound bites for the GOP, yet the delegates could infer their own red meat. You could see it in their eyes.
Follow it up with a great speech from President Clinton. They will, indeed get a 15 point bounce this week. This is a great convention for the Dems.
A little shadenfruedic consolation at least is provided ny John Fund in the WSJ Political Diary today:
Give Democrats credit for a tightly scripted convention that puts strict controls on Bush Bashing from the podium. The president's name was barely uttered yesterday. The speakers were warned that not a single unrehearsed, unchecked syllable would be tolerated. Al Gore had to rip up his speech and start over because it tested for venom at intolerable levels.But several Democrats were unhappy with the script control. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell admitted to NBC's Andrea Mitchell that convention honchos had taken some of the best lines out of his speech. "So why the thought police? Is this the white bread party?" she asked. Mr. Rendell responded that he had wanted to accuse George Bush of having an energy policy "written by Big Oil, of Big Oil and for Big Oil." Ms. Mitchell was aghast: "That line was too tough for the Democratic Party?"
She then accosted Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, with a question about why "35% of the delegates who don't agree with Kerry's positions" were holding back and swallowing the moderate tone of the Kerry platform, especially on Iraq. "They (the delegates) want a victory so much they will lessen their expectations on the platform," he replied.
The natural response to one extreme is, the other extreme. But the extremism that the Democrat party presents a moderate version of is a reaction to their PERCEPTION of extremism on the Right.
The chief threat they perceive is from things like tax and entitlement spending cuts. The cuts themselves are miniscule, in proportion to the whole. But the perceived extremism is the growing popularity of these ideas. For this we can thank talk radio and the blogosphere for liberating these natural, individual ideals from the egalitarian prison the Dems have kept them in for fifty years.
Posted by: johngalt at July 27, 2004 01:41 PM