Yesterday I started this diary, because I felt my own realization that I am a security mom might offer some insights into what the Kerry campaign needs to do in these closing weeks to convince security moms to vote their own best interests and elect him president.
Before I continue my "confessions" and describe my reactions to the presidential campaign so far, I wanted to make two quick comments about the reaction to Part I. First of all, I was grateful to the readers who responded kindly to my confession that I had supported the Iraq war when we first went in. It was tough to make that sort of admission here, and I really appreciated the thoughful and respectful comments I received even from people who completely disagreed with me. To me, that's a true testament to the spirit of the Kos community.
I was also surprised by how many people assumed, because I admitted to being a security mom, that I was hesitant about voting for Kerry. In fact, the opposite is true. It is precisely because I am a security mom that I plan to vote for Kerry. Four more years of Bush is what makes me wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. However, I think the fact that many Democrats (not to mention pundits and media common wisdom peddlars) have ceded the security mom vote to Bush is precisely why we are struggling to win. Okay, I can see the bristling comments forming on your lips -- Kerry can't win by becoming Bush you seem poised to say. No, that's not what I mean. The whole point of this diary is to emphasize the realization I've come to in the past couple of days that the problem is not that security moms want security. It's that, so far, too many of them mistakenly believe Kerry isn't the man to give it to them. To explain how I think we can turn that around, let's go back to where I left off yesterday: the beginning of the campaign for president.
Okay, it's time for my next confession. John Kerry wasn't my first choice for president. Howard Dean was.
Now I can see a lot of you shaking your head in disbelief. The inconsistency of the woman. First she supports the war, then she supports the one candidate most opposed to the war. If this is what we have to deal with when someone's a security mom, we throw up our hands. However, it's not that simple. Let me explain.
It was sometime during the summer of 2003 that Howard Dean first appeared on my radar. As I mentioned in Part I, I was already having lots of doubts about Iraq, but they were churning in a stew of fears and concerns about terrorism, the importance of securing Iraq once we'd "broken it", and a feeling -- still simmering -- that I'd been tricked into believing in WMD that didn't exist. I read an article about Dean. I didn't agree with all his positions, but I liked the fact that he had the guts to speak about them honestly. I also liked that he'd been prescient enough to be against the war before that had been a popular stance to take. And I felt, once I'd seen him give a few speeches where he delineated his positions on the war, that I could trust him to keep me and my country safe.
Perhaps that strikes you as a surprise considering my self-designation as a security mom. Yet looking back, I realize it actually made perfect sense. I was in a state of unease and anxiety that hadn't quite coalesced into a reasoned position. Dean gave voice to my concerns and spoke with crystal clarity about why going into Iraq didn't make sense. He was the first public figure I heard to clearly state the core truth of the whole Iraq debate: Iraq was not an extension of the war on terror, it was a diversion from it. He de-coupled the Iraq war from the war on terror without hesitation and without equivocation. Also -- and this point is important and often overlooked -- he never dismissed the fact that the war on terror was necessary. It just had to be done right.
Which brings us to 2004.
After it became clear that Dean was not going to be the nominee and that John Kerry was, I shifted my support to him. However, at first, my support was tepid. At the time, I thought this was just due to residual disappointment over the primaries. Looking back, however, I realize there was something more. Because of the pressure Kerry was receiving about his vote for authorization of the war and perhaps because he felt he had to show he was different from Dean, the clarity about Iraq -- especially the clarity about de-coupling Iraq from the war on terror seemed gone from the Democratic campaign. Everyone began ceding both Iraq and the war on terror to Bush. For Kerry to win, the popular wisdom went, the subject had to be changed. It was the economy, stupid. That belief, I now think, was a mistake -- and perhaps a big one.
Spring faded into summer. The economy seemed to half-heartedly recover a bit; things in Iraq got worse. Little by little the campaign began criticizing the war in Iraq more and more. But still there was a problem. That critical de-coupling message began to emerge again, but it was quickly lost in the noise coming from the other side. Why? Partly it was the fault of the media. Enough's been said about that already that I don't think I need to rehash it here. However, part of the blame goes to the campaign -- and Democrats in general. We were happy to criticize the war in Iraq, but when we mentioned the war on terror, it was mostly in one of two contexts: how Bush had used the WoT to deceive us into Iraq or how Ashcroft had used it to mangle civil liberties. Each point by itself was useful and necessary, but neither was sufficient to persuade people that Democrats took the war on terror seriously and had a plan to do it better.
Indeed, I would go further. I think there was a significant minority of Democrats who were so outraged by how Bush manipulated people's fear of terrorism that they gave into their natural peaceful tendencies and began trying to convince themselves and everyone within the sound of their voice that the dangers of terrorism and the threat posed by Islamic extremism had not only been exploited, but also exaggerated.
Unfortunately, this was not an opinion designed to resonate with a majority of voters, especially security moms and dads. Not when scenes of terrorist violence were appearing on their television screens with increasing frequency. Scenes from Madrid. Indonesia. Israel. Moscow. Beslan This last is perhaps the most significant when you consider security moms. Beslan occurred the week after the RNC. I wonder how much of Bush's narrowing gender gap stems directly from that one event.
There is another nightly source of evidence to contradict those who claim the war on terrorism was being over-hyped. Unfortunately, it came from Iraq. The nightly reports on casualties, both U.S. and Iraqi, are a nightly reminder to all security moms and dads that the world is incredibly dangerous place. It is also, I regret to say, one reason I suspect a lot of people mistakenly believe Saddam and 9/11 are actually linked. The growing terrorist threat in Iraq convinces many that Iraq was always a terrorist haven. It also, ironically enough, means that when we point out the growing violence in Iraq as a way of showing that Bush is bad, we also inadvertantly reenforce the message that terrorism is a real and growing threat that must be addressed.
I'm sure many of you are by now screaming at the screen that there were no terrorists in Iraq before the war. I know that. Many Democratic security moms (and there a lot of us, I assure you) know that. The problem is that there are also many security moms who don't. And the more we patronize them, the more we dismiss them, the more we tell them that the fear they feel is unjustified and stupid, the more they will slip through our fingers and desert to the other side.
So what's the answer? I think Kerry has already started to do it. His speech last Friday was awesome. It not only de-coupled Iraq and the war on terror with ice-like clarity, it also demonstrated that he does take the war on terror seriously, and he's prepared to do what's needed to actually win it instead of exploit it. If he can distill the points in that speech and hammer them again and again in the debate, I believe he will win.
And what about the rest of us Democrats? What can we do to help? The answer is to take the war on terror seriously, and the fears of voters seriously. The answer is keep hammering away at all the things that Bush has done wrong in the war in terror, and then go on to offer what Kerry would do right. The answer is to de-couple Iraq and the war on terror in a way that emphasizes how Iraq has hurt the war on terror, not how the war on terror was manipulated to get us into Iraq. The answer is to ask voters are you scared? And if they say yes, ask them, "Do you feel safer now than you did three years ago?"
My prediction is that most security moms will say no.
And one last suggestion from a romance writing friend of mine. Many people patronize romance novelists for creating ridiculously alpha male heroes for their heroines to fall in love with. Yet what people rarely notice is that these alpha male protagonists are usually also smart, sensitive, good in tight spot, and ready to sacrifice all for others. She thinks Kerry has what it takes to be women voters' alpha male hero (Bush just plays one on t.v.) He just has to take off the gloves and show that he's willing to fight for himself, his country, and his people. Tomorrow night I am very hopeful he will do just that.