Joho the Blog
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July 29, 2004
I didn't see the Edwards speech on TV, so I'm not entitled to have an opinion about it. Worse, I had to follow along in the transcript in order to parse the few sound waves that managed to drag themselves up to the 7th floor Valhalla where the bloggers sit in judgment. Nevertheless, I hereby judge him absolutely, and in four categories: 1. Content. I like the Two Americas theme and the recognition that race matters in this country. With these, Edwards uttered truths we all know but that need to be said flat out instead of studiously ignored...as with Kerry's focus on the middle class. And I appreciated the few policy details Edwards served up; at this point, I am duck-billed by the platitudes. 2. Role. Edwards role was, it seems, to help the Party step into its asbestos underwear, including laying the Negativity Trap for the Republicans. Since the entire campaign is focused on the Undecided — come on, people, what more do you need to know?? —I wonder if the Democrats really can win without going negative. I dunno; I'm just a nosebleeding blogger. I thought he and the Convention overall have done a good job neutralizing the Democrats-are-girlie-men meme. 3. Performance. Eh. He's not a fiery orator that yokes your ankles to a chariot of rhetoric and drags you around the arena three times. He's an intimate speaker, and you can only achieve intimacy in a 7-story sports stadium by being a sophisticated phony. So, I sort of don't care. But I do care if he can reach those Undecideds in whose hands my children's fate rests. And I don't understand those folks at all. What, are they in a coma? Are they too thoughtful? Perfectionists? Slightly retarded? Will someone please explain it to me? 4. Swim suit. Oh yeah. A perfect face in which you can read nothing. No clothing can do that face justice and makeup can only detract from it. Every night before I drift to sleep, his is the face I see. It's a tragedy what being VP will do to that punim. Posted
by D. Weinberger at July 29, 2004 09:40 AM
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Comments
Undecided is a misnomer. Like the majority of the population that won't vote, that slim margin of voters which will decide the election is simply uninterested at this point.
These folks, at some point, will turn their attention to the election and make a decision on what they see, but until then, they'll be mistakenly known as "The Undecided".
Posted by: Balham | July 29, 2004 09:59 AM
There are a whole bunch of people who do not see how this election effects them. Really. Honest.
I was one for a long time. Then I started looking at the local folk and that got me interested in the Presidential election. In times of national/international conflict, the President has a more easily perceived direct impact on our day to day lives. Otherwise, you know, he's just been a guy in a suit. Who cares. He sounds just like every other guy in a suit. And, in the end, he cannot really improve or worsen my life...even if he sends me $300.
Posted by: AngloBaptist | July 29, 2004 10:54 AM
Here is one reason why some are undecided.
Posted by: AngloBaptist | July 29, 2004 11:02 AM
I share the bafflement.
Balham may be right, but why so many should be uninterested in survival, either personal or at least as an exemplary nation, depending on one's degree of alarm, escapes me.
But AngloBaptist sounds more likely to be correct. I assume that, now that Anglo is listening, the difference between what the suits are saying is detectable (certainly it seems to be to the people at the site he links to, in spite of their exasperation). But the messages that the powerful have preached for centuries, "Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain," and "Things will always be the same," seems to be increasingly accepted. That was what seemed to hold back the South America I worked in decades ago, and it seems to summarize what is happening here, now.
Posted by: johne | July 29, 2004 03:29 PM