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WARS 2004 |
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McFadden |
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REPORT CARDS
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About those conventions:
Some good, bad & ugly
By CHUCK McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
Scattered and random observations from a convention watcher:
THE MEDIA
Reporters, those last bastions of naiveté, did two things this convention season.
They decried the conventions as phony, staged affairs solely dedicated to presenting a television show about how wonderful the party is, and how wise and noble its candidates are; and...
They bashed the major television networks for not giving the conventions more coverage.
What in the world do reporters think the parties are going to do with their conventions? Of course they are long commercials designed to win voters’ approval. They are the parties’ best shot at convincing voters of each party’s wonderfulness. What else do reporters think this is all about? A lesson in civics?
Of course, we in the media are disgruntled because there is no longer any intrigue or suspense at the conventions. It’s been 50 years since there was any, and we miss it still. We should get over it and start dealing with reality--dull, self-serving and phony as it may be.
THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
The Dems were determined to out-patriot the Republicans this time around. But they’re going to have a tough time of it. The Bushies are amazing. They have turned a genuine war hero into someone whose service is now referred to in the media as “controversial.”
The Democrats paraded so many military types before the television cameras I thought I was watching a VFW convention. The strategists have apparently declared that the voters want a warrior. The Democrats had Wesley Clark, who gave a rip-roaring speech about national defense, patriotism and security in the age of terrorism. It was an old-fashioned stemwinder--just the kind of thing the Dems were in the mood for. The Republicans had General Tommy Franks, who is a convincing and credible man. The unprecedented question at this year’s conventions: Who’s got the best generals?
Never mind that two of our greatest war leaders--Lincoln and Roosevelt--did not have combat experience--in fact, never served in uniform. (Lincoln spent three weeks in an Illinois militia, but it’s doubtful the members even got together much.)
It is undoubtedly a result of the parties’ realization that television is the whole ball game for conventions, but I never saw so many beautiful women convention attendees before. The Kerry and Edwards daughters, the Bush daughters, the governor of Michigan. Especially the governor of Michigan.
Nuance, Schmuance. Both parties have made up their minds that American voters--or at least the undecided ones they seek to win--are pretty shallow people. They may be right.
People warm to George Bush; they don’t warm to John Kerry. It’s nowhere more evident than on PBS’s “Lehrer News Hour,” which has a practice of running stump speech clips of Kerry and Bush one after the other. Painful for the Dems.
Clinton’s speech was the best of either convention; he still has it, even if he was facing heart surgery; Jimmy Carter’s was unexpectedly savage; Kerry rose to the occasion. Barack Obama is the new star of the Democratic party, thanks to his keynote address.
THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION
The whole theme of the Republican convention can be summed up thusly: John Kerry --not simpleminded enough to be president.
If the Democrats looked like a VFW convention, the Republicans looked like the Sweet Sisters of Charity. Gone was the "you’re-a-sinner-and-you’re-going-to-hell" attitude toward the Democrats. Now they are merely adversaries, not demons who have emerged from the flaming caverns of hell to bedevil decent Christians. Now the Republicans love everyone, even Godless, unpatriotic liberals who are merely misguided.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was the hit of the convention. The GOP delegates loved him, even though he is on the opposite sides of most of the issues they are supposed to care deeply about.
From his perch above the convention floor, Vice President Dick Cheney looked like a parent obliged to attend a children’s pageant and not being too happy about it. He smiled rarely. It’s unfair, but every time I see Cheney in a news clip, he always seems to me to be a man who has contempt for anyone who isn’t an oil millionaire. Here was a man patiently enduring several days of boring nonsense.
Cheney’s demeanor didn’t change much in his speech, which was red-meat in content, but delivered in Cheney’s usual flat, assured monotone.
Ah, but soon-to-be-former-Senator Zell (Zig-Zag) Miller--now that was a different story. Miller is a stern nitwit. This was the man who heaped praise on the Democrats when he was the keynote speaker at the 1992 Democratic convention and said later that John Kerry had improved the nation’s defense posture. This year, ol’ Zell delivered the keynote speech at the Republican national convention. He as much as said that Kerry would strip the nation of its armed forces. And Republicans like to talk about Kerry flip-flopping.
New York Governor George Pataki’s speech was terrific--for the first 10 minutes. Then it descended into potboilerhood.
Bush committed a major gaffe during the convention by saying--probably accurately --on the “Today” show that the war against terrorism was probably unwinnable. I can imagine the hair-tearing that must have gone on among his handlers after that. Republicans were scrambling madly to unring the bell and so was Bush, who the next day said that the war against terrorism was indeed winnable after all, and he was the man to do it. Never mind what he said the day before in an uncharacteristic burst of candor.
It’s always fun to watch Republican blue-rinse ladies get down and make fools of themselves on the convention floor. They wear funny hats, they dance up and down, and they have a wonderful time. The Democratic women who attend political conventions are probably a little less country-club in real life, so when they dance up and down and wear funny hats, it’s not so jarring.
On television, the Republicans look more homogeneous--a little plumper than the Dems, and perhaps a little smug. (Well, their guy is in the White House, after all.) The Dems this year may be atypical, though, because they are consumed with hatred of W.
Kerry’s midnight response from Ohio to Bush’s convention speech was the kind of thing he should have been doing all along. The question for the next two months is whether he will be able to keep it simple and savage. The Republicans sure will.
©2004 by Charles M.
McFadden. The McFadden caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel.
The cartoon is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco
Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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