Back when Dean was leading in the polls, some Dean supporter here introduced the theory of the 72 years. That is, every 72 years, our country has been blessed with a truly great leader (Washington, Lincoln, FDR), who has gotten us through the really challenging times of our history. 2004 would be another 72-year election, so the thinking was that Dean would be our great leader.
Since Dean conceded, a lot of people have talked about how to make sure Kerry attends to Dean's issues. I'd like to go further and talk about what we can do to make Kerry into a great leader.
It's not just that I'd like Kerry to be a great leader to fulfill that neat little 72-year rule. It's that we need him to be great--we may be entering into a crisis period every bit as dire as that faced by FDR. Like FDR, after all, JFK2 will be inheriting an economy that has not created any net new jobs in 4 years. The underlying strength of our economy is poor, too--consumer and national debt are at unsustainable levels, the housing bubble that has made consumer debt possible is at risk of breaking, and we can't seem to find goods or services that our trade partners want to buy. All of this threatens to destabilize the US--and world--economy in a catastrophic way.
At the same time, we seem to be suffering from imperial overstretch. We're having a difficult time sustaining the commitments we currently have--we don't seem to have enough troops to complete the Iraq job properly. We certainly don't have the money to spend $500 billion/yearly on military commitments. But to mitigate the economic problems sketched out above from happening, we either need to sustain our military adventures (if for no other reason than to maintain our preferential access to oil) or drastically change the way we do business. I'm no fan of military states, so I'd really prefer to do the latter. Which will take a great leader to pull off.
Here are some thoughts on how Kerry can be supported to become a great leader.
First, a biographical reflection.
Kerry in his early career clearly had the makings of a great leader. By all accounts (well, all but one), he was an effective leader as commander of a Navy swift boat. He was decisive, courageous, and heroic.
His activities in Vets against Vietnam were pretty inspiring too. They showed he had integrity, courage (again), and pretty good political instincts. While some might fault him for some of his actions (throwing other people's medals), he seemed to understand how to focus attention on an issue, and he seemed to understand the limits of effective activitism (by recognizing when his group was going off the deep end and getting out of it, for example).
He still seemed to have lots of those qualities when he sniffed out Iran-Contra during his early years in the Senate. Think about it. He did a lot of the work on Iran-Contra that Woodward and Bernstein did for Watergate, identifying a lot of the underlying issues and uncovering some of the more sordid aspects of the scandal. He was thorough, dogged, and willing to risk political capital in the name of integrity.
I think that began to change with his BCCI investigation. While David Corn thinks this was still a great accomplishment--"The report was, in a sense, an indictment of Washington cronyism"--a longer Boston Globe article is not so complementary. It shows Kerry soft-pedaling the questioning of democratic fundraiser Clark Clifford:
When he finally got the 84-year-old Clifford to the witness table during a Senate hearing that fall, Kerry seemed conflicted, pulling his punches and allowing the elderly statesman to claim a loss of memory. During a recess, his aides urged him on. "He's an old man. He couldn't remember. I'm not going to humiliate an old man," Kerry barked,
(Neither account explains whether or not Kerry was involved in getting Kissinger and Associates redacted from the final report on BCCI.)
Now I'm not dismissing the work Kerry did on BCCI (his work formed the basis of the more successful case taken by NY's AG, so it led to the dismantlement of BCCI). But I think it's a case when Kerry exchanged courage for politically-expedient caution. And I think that polically-expedient caution is one of the traits that has hurt him in recent years.
One of the biggest gripes I had with Kerry during the primary was his (non) vote on the Energy bill. According to his staff, he was in DC the morning of the vote, prepared to vote. He wouldn't announce before the vote which way was he was going to decide. But guess what? He never voted!! I find this--of all of his "missed" votes--particularly troublesome. The most original part of Kerry's plank is his call for energy independence. The issue on which Kerry has best been a leader has been the environment. Yet he declined to use the opportunity of this vote--an abomination to the environment and precisely the opposite of energy independence--to explain why it was wrong, why our country needed to take a different approach.
This incident, though, provides a nice way to segue (finally) into my discussion about how we can make Kerry great. I think this issue (energy independence) is a strand that we can pull that will bring Kerry back to his earlier days of courageous leadership. Here are my suggestions--I'd love to hear yours:
Make energy independence the central issue of this campaign
I recommend this because 1) it's a sincere part of Kerry's stump already, 2) it distinguishes, better than almost everything else, what is wrong with this administration and right with Kerry, 3) it provides him with a positive theme to mobilize the country, and 4) it addresses the core issues of the dire situation I sketched out above. I think we can encourage Kerry to foreground this issue more by lobbying for it, perhaps even using the power of groups like MoveOn and DFA to push Kerry in that direction.
Push Kerry to combat the injustice of the Republican slime machine in principle
Honestly, Kerry already knows how bad the slime machine is, and he has surprised a lot of people in how well he has responded to it. Kudos to Kerry! What I'd like to see, however, is him starting to base his response to the slime machine in principle, rather than just on details (I agree we need to refute their crap, in detail, as well, but I'd like the words coming from Kerry to be about principle). What I hope is that, by having to fight Republican slime for 8 months, Kerry will return to the principled, fighting habits so evident in his youth. This will frame him as a principled leader for his Administration, which will help him avoid the Bill Clinton treatment and, hopefully, position him to explain the principles beind some of the problems we face.
Challenge his vision for foreign affairs by pushing him to "fix" free trade
Foreign affairs is one of where Kerry most scares me, because he seems totally committed to the existing DC paradigm (that's one of the reasons to start with energy independence, because it should demonstrate a route by which he can rethink the dominant paradigm). I think the best way to get him to rethink his current beliefs on foreign affairs is by pushing him to "fix" free trade. Now, I'm not advocating abandoning free trade--that risks causing a worldwide depression like that of the 1930s. But if Kerry were forced to think of a way to make trade truly benefit workers here and abroad, he might see some of the problems with the current dominant paradigm (which relies on using trade as leverage to get countries to do what we want). He might recognize that the free trade he espouses, the one that really does bring greater benefits to all people, is not one where one country uses its military force to get preferential access to the most important commodities. Anyway, this one will be tough, but it's crucial. And thanks to Gephardt and Edwards, it's already an issue. Moreover, it's an issue that could make the difference in turnout in key states (OH anyone??). So I really think we need to push Kerry to move beyond his "Benedict Arnold" sound bite to a real consideration of changing the underlying conditions that undermine the promise of free trade.
Whew! This is long, sorry about that. But if you've gotten this far, I'm really interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions. What can we do as active D's (or D-friendly voters) to push Kerry in ways that will enable him to step up to greatness?