Will Kerry let Bush frame him as an inconstant,effete elitist who lives in a lah-de-dah neighborhood, speaks a foreign language, keeps changing his mind on everything from Vietnam to Iraq, can't be trusted to be resolute on terrorists and has no John Wayne simple thoughts - a policy wonk that only speaks, giving out policy details, in 3 comma sentances?
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/15/kerry_must_reframe_bush____and_fast/Kerry must 'reframe' Bush -- and fast
By Robert Kuttner September 15, 2004
<snip>... the ordinary citizen is gulled by the stagecraft and numbed by the details. And if Kerry tries to explain the particulars, he plays policy wonk to Bush's John Wayne.
Bush and Cheney keep grabbing headlines with ever more outrageous lies. Just this week, speaking in Michigan, Bush described Kerry's health plan as "a government takeover of health care." In fact, the plan would have government compensate private health plans that faced excessive insurance losses because they had sicker-than-average members. The political press, rather than explaining Bush's lie, played the story as mere attack and counterattack.
In an ideal, civics book democracy, citizens would explore the details and vote based on the merits. But in our frantic, overworked daily lives, where talk show rants pass for public discourse, the truth gets buried by the rhetoric, and the imagery of leadership wins the day.
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."
So what on earth is John Kerry to do? He cannot possibly win a hearing to challenge all that is fake about Bush and his policy particulars unless he first changes the frame. First, he needs to reframe Bush by pounding on all the ways that Bush is a fraud, and he needs to do it with grace and wit. Second, he needs a clear, simple vision of a secure, prosperous America more compelling than Bush's vision.
If Kerry doesn't have the nerve to take on Bush, voters will conclude that he lacks the nerve to protect America. Kerry has about two weeks to break the frame before the election freezes into a lock.
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