Mike Barnacle, blue collar "man's man" columnist for the Boston Globe, who has been staunchly in Kerry's corner until now (from my perspective, anyway), said on MSNBC tonight that the emotion on the street outside the convention during John McCain's and Rudy Giuliani's speeches was incredible. He told of a woman who was weeping as she related to the crowd that her youngest son had just shipped out to Iraq. At first I thought he was going to adopt the "George Bush is sending your kids to die for no reason," Michael Moore schtick... But then he observed rather matter-of-factly that Kerry has "a lot of work to do to come back now." And, he said, "they knocked the pins from under him tonight."
Kerry is in deep trouble. I've been predicting a vote margin of 20 points in November, which seems almost impossible at the moment... and feels more than a little risky to me. But a 20 point margin is actually just a 10 point vote shift, and if Bush can marshall half the eloquence of Rudy's crash course on the reasons for the war we're fighting, it's doable. That is, if Kerry ever comes out of hiding long enough to remind people of just how much they don't like him.
And there's still the outstanding matter of the 180s that Kerry refuses to sign to release his records. I can see Bush saying something like the following in the first debate: "I've decided to sign the release so that my military history is out in the open. Why don't you do the same, John? I'm sure you have nothing to hide, right?"
Right.
(Jane has some thoughts on the Guiliani speech as well.)
Posted by Demosophist at August 31, 2004 02:20 AM | TrackBackWhat great speeches. Quite healing somehow.
Posted by: Jane at August 31, 2004 08:21 AM