Friday, October 15, 2004
Hugh Hewitt’s Question - Why America is mad about Mary Cheney comment.
Hugh Hewitt on his website today asks, ?Why is America so upset over the Mary Cheney comment??
Hugh Hewitt on his website today asks, ?Why is America so upset over the Mary Cheney comment?? (see yesterday?s post on Lesbian Daughters). I think it is a great question ? why has this raised the ire of so many?
First off, Republicans are going to be upset by anything that Kerry says that even hints of a trick or dishonesty (which this did). The bigger issue is Democrats and Independents.
Democrats can be split up into a few categories. There are the ?Bush is Satan? group, for whom this comment is not a problem, unless it ends up helping Bush. But there are two others groups, the ?privacy? liberals and the traditional labor Democrats. The first group is highly offended by Kerry pulling into the debate someone who is not a public person. You cannot prove that you are privacy advocate when you are willing to use non-public people for political purposes. It raises concerns for them whether or not Kerry is going to be true to the protection of the individual that he says he is.
The third group, the traditional labor Democrats, do not want to hear about negatives. They want to hear what Kerry is going to do for America. When they see him have to reach into the dirty tricks bag to try and defeat Bush, it speaks loudly that he is not concerned about America people, that he has no plans, that he will do anything to gain power (and people pursuing power always concern traditional Democrats). It shows the emptiness of the Democratic party, and these traditional Democrats have been struggling with their party (as it has become more anti-American and more anti-religious). This bringing of Mary Cheney simply reveals the worst that most traditional Democrats already fear about their own party ? its vacuous in ideas, consumed with power, and without a moral core to guide it about what to do and NOT TO DO.
The Independents are another group all together. These are people who we see in poll after poll say they hate negative campaigning. These are people who see that America?s strongest value is our ?niceness.? For them talking about people in a personally destructive way, even when it is valid, will turn them off. We saw this in 1998 when the Mid-term elections swayed to the Democrats because Independents saw the Republicans as engaging in personal destruction (again, even though lying to a public officials is a crime ? ask Martha Stewart). Independents smelled on Wednesday night a personal attack for the purpose of winning an election. There response, disgust towards Kerry.
The big question is whether the response of all three groups will hold until Election Day. If they believe this shows an insight into Kerry?s character, then he will suffer (I have spoken to some Independents who believe Kerry already has a couple of strikes against him because of his failure to disavow Moore?s ?documentary? and the failure to respond in honesty to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ? who they saw as acting out of a heartfelt issue rather than personal destruction). If instead there is another event (a similar gaffe or terrorism) then this will be forgotten. We will have to see. I am waiting to see if the Kerry?s use of the ?coming draft? will add to this view of these three groups that Kerry really is willing to engage in any activity to win this election.
