Kerry On The Couch (Continuing)

With "Unified Kerry Theory II/Why his waffles aren't chopped liver!", Mickey puts Kerry back on the couch after a weekend spent flipping and flopping with the WaPo, the Times, and the Post again.

Mickey has an interesting point about inconstant candidates, made by a Blogger chap with puzzling links:

Flip-flopping" is an attack that only resonates in primary contests, when you are trying to convince base voters that the other guy is insincere. In general elections, it's a loser issue, the type of thing that people who don't like you and won't vote for you anyway will use to rationalize their votes.

My motivation exactly! But read my lips - a disaffected base that questions its candidate's commitment to their causes can create trouble simply by staying home. As a sometimes unwieldy alliance of special interests, each faction of the Democratic Party may wonder whether Kerry is really "their guy", and will remain so. True, he is not George Bush, and that seems to be all they need to know right now. But if doubts settle in, and energy fades, low Dem turnout will scuttle their hopes.

We see signs of this disenchantment from Marjorie Williams of the WaPo:

Kerry voted for so many of Bush's major initiatives that in order to disown them now he can only argue that they were wrongly or dishonestly "implemented." This amounts to a confession that his opponent made a chump of him for the past three years.

Might voters wonder whether the North Koreans or (sacre bleu!) the Security Council could also dupe the would-be President? Or are we comfortable with the notion that all duplicity flows from the White House (and Halliburton)?

It is on the subject of gay marriage that Ms. Williams is most unhappy:

I finally lost my grip, though, when I opened my newspaper a few days ago to read of Kerry's latest lunge in the direction of some politically feasible position on gay marriage. In general, Kerry, like most Democrats, has taken shelter in the mantra that (a) it's a matter that should be decided in the states, and (b) civil unions are the acceptable way to go about conferring equal rights on gays; marriage itself is off the table. "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman," Democrats say, as if that took care of the matter. Outside of a religious context, of course, that statement is a prejudice rather than a policy -- a prejudice that, in many cases, the speaker does not actually hold.

But Kerry was managing this footwork just fine until Feb. 4, when the Supreme Court of Massachusetts interpreted the state's constitution to require the option of gay marriage. Kerry responded by endorsing an amendment to the state's constitution that would forbid gay marriage but allow civil union. He was the only member of his congressional delegation to take this stance, for good reason: Endorsing a constitutional amendment at the state level seriously undermines the arguments for fighting an amendment at the federal level. One of the best arguments against forbidding gay marriage in the Constitution is that the spirit of the document is to confer rights, not confiscate them.

This more-than-theoretical move against gay marriage was at odds with Kerry's brave 1996 vote against the reprehensible Defense of Marriage Act, which is easily one of the most principled votes he ever cast. He was one of only 14 senators to oppose it, while Bill Clinton, ever triangulating, cynically signed it into law.

But never mind. On Feb. 27, Kerry quietly told a group of unhappy gay donors that he would work to confer full federal benefits, including Social Security survivor benefits, the right to file taxes jointly, and more than a thousand others, on gay couples joined by any state-sanctioned union -- which would of course include marriage. So while wishing to forbid gay marriage in his own state, he is promising to reward it in others.

To watch Kerry floundering in the impossible contradictions of this issue is to see starkly how little he is guided by core principle -- or even by a consistently wise sense of where his political interests lie. To respond to every unpleasant political stimulus that presents itself is to throw away the chance to make even an expedient long-term commitment to something.

Link added. Now, I suspect she agrees with him as to the long term objective on gay marriage (I suspect I do, as well). However, his positions, and the painful way he gets to them, don't quite square with "Kerry - The courage to lead". At some point, even his target base may wonder who they are bringing in to fight for them.

Perhaps a new slogan can be adopted - "Kerry - He's everywhere you want to be".

MORE: Sorry, Kerry's "states rights" position on gay marriage is sooo last week; his current view seems to be that it should be looked at as an equal protection issue under the Fourteenth Amendment. Well, fine, if "let the courts decide" is his current position, we think we get it, and it soundbites well. But why the posturing in support of the Massachusetts state amendment, which will be struck down (in Kerry's world) by a Federal judge anyway?

Comments

[Glen Reynolds]

Heh.
I’ve been linking to scores of cheap accusations against Kerry, and my pal Mickey (I’m a Democrat) Kaus, is doing his part, but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve linked to Naders donation page, and Mickeys endless slagging of Long John, yet Kerry seems to be getting stronger….hmmm….

What is happening to my omnipotent blog? I used to refer to myself as the NYTimes of blogs (heh), but now I’ve become just another smug hypocrite, slipping into yesterday. I’m a Kingmaker I tell you, a Libertarian, and a law professor no less. Someone rather snarkily put it that my 15 minutes are almost up, and that a win by Kerry will show what little influence I actually have.

Never mind record federal deficits, incompetent economic leadership, Halliburton gouging us in Iraq, blocking stem cell research, or John Ashcrofts Gestapo. Didn’t you see my breathless links to Drudge and the intern stories? Ralph Nader, bigger and better? Flip flops & waffles? I’ve got the goods… hear me roar!!!
Heh indeed.

[Mahatma]

Oh my! When did John Ashcroft get a 'Gestapo'? The problem with mindless left wing blather like the above comment is that it is not grounded sufficiently in reality that it is completely unpersuasive. You hurt your cause through your own ignorance.

But Back to Kerry's flip flopping. It is not just the flip flops. He has major substantive problems with the current version of his opinion on most issues. Chief among them is his waffling on Iraq. Failure to recognize that moderate voters see security as an issue and to address his Senatorial record of voting against weapons systems and against CIA funding is going to hurt him. He needs to do more than chant his Vietnam mantra. He needs to reasure voters that his record does not represent his current positions. Honestly saying he was wrong when he cast those votes would be a great start!

I think you nail him in his weakest area when you describe him being willing to bend to whoever is pressuring him. His position on issues is not nuanced, it is merely parroting back whatever he thinks his audience wants to hear. This is not leadership on issues, it is politics at its worse. Whatever special interest group gets to him last, has his support.

Was this the best we could do?

[TexasToast]

Just curious - are you trying to split the Democratic base, or are you trying to appeal to the undecided independent? Lets face it - the Democratic base is more diverse than the Republican base, but this divide and conquer strategy seems to keep missing the note by a half step - its either too sharp or too flat. The strong melody that I keep hearing is the unease about jobs and the economy, and, despite unhesitating support for our troops, the sense that the administration isn't quite sure what it is doing about the war in Iraq or on terror outside of Iraq. The VRWC “Vast right-wing conspiracy :)” seems opportunistic, but clumsy.

"If this wont work, lets try that."

"No? Well how about this?

"I think the first one may have worked better."

"How about we try something completely different?"

“I know, he’s a liberal!

No, he’s a waffler!

No he’s a friend of Jane Fonda!

Blah-blah-blah-blah.

I always thought Rove was a better choirmaster than this.

[JorgXMcKie]

I've never figured out why any particular campaign manager for a winning Presidential candidate should become a "big brain" just because his candidate won, let alone Karl Rove. Since one of the two *had* to win, maybe the manager of the winner was just less dumb than the other guy.

[Sports Bar]

"Heh.
"I’ve been linking to scores of cheap accusations against Kerry, and my pal Mickey (I’m a Democrat) Kaus, is doing his part, but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve linked to Naders donation page, and Mickeys endless slagging of Long John, yet Kerry seems to be getting stronger….hmmm…."--Glen Reynolds

Glenn--
Have you really changed the spelling of your name or has some desperate Kerry groupie attempted a really lame spoof? Heh.

[Alan Furman]

John Kerry reminds me of the love ballad from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "You are my everything/You're everywhere."

For the next eight months I am going to hear that replaying in my mind, over and over and over...

[Glenn Reynolds with two ns]

Sports Bar:

Desperate and lame, I'm afraid. It's not me.

[Steve Smith]

Puzzling links? Is that an insult?

[TM]

"Puzzling links" could be taken as an insult to Blogger, I suppose - the perma-link to your specific post didn't seem to work properly, which is a problem I see a lot with Blogger (I say that as a recovering Blogspot user).

[Mahatma]

I don't think the JOBS issue is nearly as big an issue as a bunch of wishful Democrats would dearly like it to be. (5.6 unemployment rate was the rate during the first-term Clinton Admin.) The rate is like to be even lower by November (5.1 - 5.2% at its current rate of improvement) Basically the economy is improving rather rapidly from the recession and doom looms on the Democrat horizon in November. I know many Dems are wringing their hands over this economic improvement, just as they were wringing their hands over the steady improvement in Iraq.

You need to keep whining about jobs lost three years ago but you will running against the economy in November not the economy last year or two years ago. You will be running against the Iraq that exists in November not the Iraq that existed a year ago. Running on issues that do not exist has never been the ticket to victory.

[steve kitchens]

democrats,Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,a republican