I was watching C-span the other day randomly and I happened upon the Kerry kids (the guy was a Heinz kid but I prefer alliteration over accuracy any day) bombing horribly in front of a bunch of high school kids. At one point the Heinz kid noted their lack of enthusiasm and blamed it on the fact that it was their last day of school for the term. But the daughter told what was supposed to be a funny joke-story about her dad to answer the question: Why should young people get involved in the Kerry campaign?
Nobody transcribes these things so I'm just going to retell the story from memory in my own voice. Hopefully my timing and delivery (and commentary at the end) will be better than Ms. Kerry's because the kids just didn't get it. Here goes:
So apparantly John Kerry's a big kite surfer. He likes to go out on the water with his surf board and big fancy kite and tool around. It's his new hobby. So one day the Kerry fam's at the beach [Nantucket or the Vineyard, I'm sure. She didn't specify] and young Ms. Kerry sees her father walk up to him wearing a full length wet suit with big hawaiian shorts over top. "Dad," she says, "what are you wearing? You look like a total dork."
"What are you talking about? The guys down at the surf tell me this is cool."
"Dad, they're trying to make a fool out of you. You look like a joke."
"I'm telling you this is cool. Trust me. I got style. I'm hittin' the waves"
"Oh man," she thought, "they're all going to make fun of him. I hope there aren't any photographers on the beach."
She goes down to the beach and sees her dad paddling out in his body suit/bathing suit combo and all the other surfers are pointing at him and saying, "Dude, nice shorts!"
That's it. As she said to the school kids, "you're supposed to laugh at that point. But whatever, moving on."
I guess the point was that Kerry's hip and cool even though he can seem lame. I don't know exactly. As an answer to "why young people should support Kerry" it fell flat for me. As lame an anecdote as it is, I think it's a nice allegory of the Kerry campaign:
Kite surfing => Kerry's style of campaigning. A rich man's pasttime requiring lots of expensive advice from the guy's at the "surf shop"
Hawaiin Shorts => Kerry's war vote. The part that just doesn't fit with the rest of the ensemble. The part that the people who sold him on kite surfing told him to wear. The part we all point at and say, "what were you thinking?"
Kerry's refusal to listen to his daughter => Kerry's total out-of-touch-ness with people who would be natural supporters.
"Dude, Nice Shorts" => Kerry's refusal to believe that he's become the laughingstock/shame of this campaign. Obviously the surfers were making fun of him, but he and his daughter want to spin it like he's on the vanguard of some trend. Needless to say, if you can find a picture of a pro-Kite surfer wearing a full length body suit and a big baggy bathing suit over it, I'll give Kerry's campaign five bucks.
Then the final analysis really sank in:
For John Kerry, running for President is just a midlife crisis.