Last night I was at a birthday party and I got into a discussion with another guest at the party, let's call him Larry. Larry is a republican lawyer in DC (although in between jobs right now) and in his late twenties. Larry and I are both friends of the birthday boy, but have never met before.
As often happens at DC birthday parties, the subject of the 2008 election came up. And I thought a couple things Larry said were interesting, especially for a DC republican. This is my assessment of what he said about some republican and democratic presidential contenders:
McCain: "I love McCain but he can't win"
Giuliani: "I love Giuliani but he can't win"
Hillary: "I hate Hillary more than anyone. I'd do anything to stop her from being President."
Frist: "I don't love Frist but would probably vote for him if he ran. I would definitely vote for him if he ran against Hillary".
All this talk strikes me as standard fare from a republican, but then Larry said something that both surprised and interested me.
Bush: "I have my reservations about Bush. The wire-tapping thing worries me. The Abramoff scandal, Cheney's response to the shooting, FEMA's response to Katrina. All these things concern me."
Kerry: "I like Kerry. I didn't vote for him in 2004 because I'm a republican, but I wouldn't have really minded Kerry being President. In fact I think Kerry would be a good President."
So in other words, this man, a DC republican lawyer and one-time Bush supporter, who I believe to be politically-interested, politically-savvy and even politically-aligned, pretty much tells me he thinks that President Kerry would have been a better president then President Bush. Why can't the talking heads be discussing this instead?
Why right now, when a year-and-a half after a presidential election the president's approval numbers are plummeting, when there's so many republican scandals that I have trouble listing them all, when were stuck in an un-justified war on foreign soil . . . why isn't any of the sentiment about who SHOULD be president being voiced in the media? Not "who can win?" Not, "who can lure red state voters?" Not, "who's the best counter to this republican or that republican", but who is really the best person for the job?
Commentators (and dare I say some Kossiaks) treat office of the presidency as if it's the trophy awarded to the team that "got the ball into the end zone" with two seconds left in the game. But it's not. The office of the President is perhaps the one single job that affects millions, maybe even billions, of lives. And any of the substantive talk about who SHOULD be President has gotten lost in the post-game recap of the 2004 election.
We've listened to too much sore-loser rhetoric and un-helpful blasting of campaign mishaps. "Kerry should have hired different consultants . . ." "Kerry let himself be branded a flip-flopper..." "Kerry didn't gain support from the south..." "Kerry should have countered the Swift Boat attacks earlier . . ." blah blah blah. But there is no question in my mind that Senator Kerry would have been a better president then President Bush.
While I see the danger of playing the "what could have been" game, I wish the talk about Kerry could at least exist in the present, if not in the future. And I also understand there are a lot of critical operations, infrastructure, and message issues that the democrats have to grapple with now, so I'm happy that's being discussed. But, I also wish that there would be SOME discussion about what President Kerry would be doing and who President Kerry would be if he were in the White House. Maybe then, instead of trying to construct substance from the democrats there would actually be substance from the democrats, and we could get more people to vote for the candidate of substance in 2008.
