John Kerry at a "front porch" meeting in Canonsburg, Pa the other day:
"Everybody told me, 'God, if you're coming to Canonsburg, you've got to find time to go to Toy's (a restaurant), and he'll take care of you.' I understand it's my kind of place, because you don't have to - you know, when they give you the menu, I'm always struggling: Ah, what do you want?
"He just gives you what he's got, right? And you don't have to worry, it's whatever he's cooked up that day. And I think that's the way it ought to work,
for confused people like me who can't make up our minds."
John Kerry has a problem. Kerry has yet to define himself to...himself. Kerry does not yet know who he is or, rather, who he wants to be when he grows up. He is confused & can not make up his mind. His flip-flops cover a wide array of subjects & are well documented & available to anyone who takes the time to check them out. He is seen as coming down on both sides of an issue, sometimes within days. Thus the jokes about Flipper, etc. There is truth in jest.
Kerry may have some core beliefs - may have, that is. However, if he does, then he subjugates them to the political expediency of playing to the particular audience at hand & saying what he thinks will stroke that audience. An example is when he spoke in Michigan to auto workers & bragged about the SUV he owns. Soon after in front of an environmental group he fudged ownership of an SUV by saying he doesn't own one - his family does.
This may play well to a single-issue focused group, i.e., owns an SUV for the auto crowd, but doesn't own one for the environmental crowd. But it is dishonest. Beyond being dishonest & smacking of pandering, the parts do not add up to the whole. When seen in the whole it shows a man who doesn't know where he is at or who he is. Definitive positions have never been Kerry's mainstay.
If Kerry can not define himself or his positions without the doubletakes, without the nuances, without the shifting beliefs, then how can he expect the average voter to define his positions in a lucid manner? How can he expect an electorate to vote for him when they are unclear why they are voting for him or for what he believes? It is not enough to hope that the electorate votes only for Kerry because they dislike Bush. Betting on this alone, then all hope will fall short of the 271 electoral votes needed.
Yet, John Kerry has not learned this lesson. After flipping back & forth on his position about the Iraq war, he shocked some supporters last month when he said that even knowing Saddam did not have WMD's & knowing what he knows now, he would still support the war. But yet again, the other day he said that this is "the wrong war at the wrong time in the wrong place." It's the core beliefs, stupid, or lack of them.
Like that restaurant he spoke of, Kerry's beliefs are "whatever he's cooked up that day" which confuses not only Kerry, but the voter as well.
And this is why John Kerry will lose the election.
....from sea to shining sea