It wouldn't suprise me at all if John Kerry isn't muttering the Jon Lovitz line from a 1988 "SNL" episode in which he played the Democratic presidential nominee, Michael Dukakis, in a debate scene with Dana Carvey's George H.W. Bush.
That Sen. Kerry has squandered his lead over "this guy" absolutely amazes me. Like the 2000 election for Al Gore, this year's contest should be, in the words of George Tenet, a "slam dunk" for John Kerry and the Democrats. President Bush has failed at every turn. Andrew Sullivan sums it up best:
We need to hold this administration accountable for its errors and arrogance and pig-headedness. Why has no one been held accountable for the WMD intelligence fiasco? Why has the Abu Ghraib shame been fobbed off onto underlings, when real responsibility for the chaos that allowed it to happen belongs in the Oval Office? What gets me about Bush is his utter refusal to take responsibility for the consequences of his own decisions. That goes for Iraq and the way in which he has squandered our fiscal future.
Robert Kuttner expands on the idea in the
Boston Globe:
Successful candidates have seized on a big theme that carried within it both the hopes of ordinary people and the seeds of a program. John Kennedy did it with his "We can do bettah." Bill Clinton succeeded with "putting people first." The idea that people who work hard and play by the rules should earn enough to live decently combined respect for the struggles of ordinary people with the idea that government could help. Ronald Reagan turned the national pessimism of the Carter years into a sunny "Morning in America."
I've said it before, I'll say it again...John Kerry needs to buckle down and play "Reagan" to George Bush's "Carter."
Mr. Bush is a miserable failure and the fact that the Kerry campaign can't seem to grasp that fact may very well be their downfall. And any way you cut it, four more years of "this guy" spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E.
Cross posted at Wayne Mattson.