Managed Kerry
Another Democratic Debacle in Duval County
by Shelton Hull
Jacksonville, FL – It was hardly surprising that the two top local news stations buried their coverage of John Kerry’s visit beneath lengthy digressions on the weather, a subject that had occasioned a rare bit of national publicity for the region. Both WJXT-TV4 and WTLV-TV12, as well as their competitors, were on the scene when the Democratic nominee hit the scene on September 21, and both stations’ representatives were there to witness the disturbing dynamic underlying this disturbing election: Mr. Kerry appears either unwilling or unable to engage the local media of Florida in even the most perfunctory manner. Whether this is relevant to the state’s voters, who knows?
The press release touting Kerry’s appearance was written the night before; it was faxed to intermediaries in Washington at 8:43 pm, but “Embargoed Until 2 AM ET,” according to the document. This is apparently common practice on the trail, and to their credit, the Kerry camp didn’t bother trying to add any local “flavor” that would have exposed their business. Local media, being unschooled in the ways of big-time politics, might have viewed the document with suspicion or amusement if they had been given the thing. Their version of the seven-page release was exactly the same, but for two changes: it followed a three-page description of the new Kerry-Edwards commercial, and the “Embargoed” line was gone, replaced by “For Immediate Release.”
The original version of the release was passed out by volunteers in an anteroom of the Prime F. Osborn Convention Center, shortly before Mr. Kerry conducted what Carl Cameron of Fox News described to this writer as “his first press conference in two months.” (42 days, to be exact; the last one was held in Grand Canyon National Park on August 9.) Pity “Campaign Carl” and the other pool reporters, who had to get by for so long with so little access. It’s the sort of thing President Bush is often (rightly) criticized for. That two versions of the same press release – whose only variation served to undermine the freshness of the whole exercise – would be handed out within seconds of each other to professionals trained in the scrutiny of paperwork is suspicious, especially during a week that has so far turned on the scrutiny of paperwork.
With such sloppiness emanating from his staff, perhaps it is reasonable that no local media were permitted to say one word to the candidate as he toured the city, touting his openness and accessibility. The press conference was off-limits to locals. “National media has paid for this room,” said Connie LaRosa of Kerry’s PR department, who had the unenviable task of filtering out the interlopers, some of whom may be familiar to local news junkies. But by the time she was pulling folks away from their plates of pasta salad and cups of weak, creamy coffee, the damage had been done.
The press conference was being held to reassert the differences between the two candidates on the ongoing occupation of Iraq. The fact that many voters see no perceptible difference between the opposing positions acts against Mr. Kerry’s ambitions, and so he has been slowly moving away from his hawkish stance of Fall 2002, when he voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. Never mind that most of the information that has been subsequently used to undermine Bush’s case for war had been widely disseminated before Kerry made his vote, and also never mind that, after the war he voted for had begun, he voted against the supplemental appropriations bill (also known as “the $87 billion”) in an effort to flank the then-emerging antiwar candidacy of Howard Dean.
Although the pool reporters may have been a bit upset with their lack of access, a lack that is all the more curious because Kerry is running an insurgent campaign, they dutifully stayed on message. Every question asked during the press conference touched in some way on Iraq policy– every question but for one. Columnist Anthony Gancarski of the local Folio Weekly asked Kerry about his plan to deal with the massive debt-load that America has run up over the years. That is one of those subjects best avoided in polite company, especially if you’re not welcome to begin with.
Counting myself as among the first to raise this issue as a regular topic in my own columns, I was pleased to hear Kerry confronted with the estimate of $72 trillion coming out of the Brookings Institution, which Kerry had spoken favorably of (in the context of their Iraq information) just a few minutes before. I felt slightly deflated to discover that Kerry had no real answer to the question, beyond talking up his efforts to help President Clinton “balance” the budget for a couple of years in his second term. The Democratic position is that Bush was left a surplus, which he promptly wasted on tax cuts and an unnecessary war in Iraq. The Republican position is that most of the losses incurred were the result of 9/11, and that the economy was faltering before Bush entered office. Both parties assert that the economy is really not in such bad shape, that a few years of this policy or that initiative will reverse the recent trend. Neither party is being responsible on this point, but Kerry was briefly given the chance to distinguish himself, and failed.
After the press conference was over, Ms. LaRosa informed Gancarski and myself that, not being part of the “traveling press,” were in breach of protocol and had to vacate the special room with the special people. “You can’t do that,” she said as I unwrapped silverware from its red, white or (in my case) blue cloth napkin. “You have to leave. You have to leave now.” At least one local TV personality witnessed this, and although she was with a camera crew that had been asked inside to provide local audiences with footage of the press conference, she was visibly disgusted with the segregationist nature of the whole episode. She ultimately left the event entirely, just minutes into Kerry’s incoherent remarks on health care.
The event was billed as a “town hall meeting” on health care, which is touted as one of the major issues of this campaign. And that makes sense, given how sick the American people really are. The basic health issues that all humans must deal with are, in our case, exacerbated by the poor quality of people’s diets, the continuing degradation of the environment, and the pervasive dependence on the pharmaceutical industry. The southeastern United States has the largest proportion of persons with a body mass index above 20 (which means “morbidly obese”) in the country, and this country has more morbidly obese people than anywhere else in the world.
Rather than push for Americans to address these issues in a serious, productive way, Kerry and the other major spokesmen for his party lull them to sleep with fanciful talk of prescription drug “benefits,” “managed care” and other impractical panaceas. The writings that broke the ice of discussing the debt-load, including my own, have been clear in that the situation will almost inevitably require “austerity measures” of a breadth and scope beyond the living memory of most Americans. Suggestions have included doubling payroll and income taxes, “immediately and forever,” according to Carolyn Lochhead of the San Francisco Chronicle, and cutting up to 45% from Medicare and Social Security – again, “immediately and forever.”
In this environment, which is so potentially dangerous for average Americans, the best Kerry could offer the citizens of Jacksonville was an empty pledge to “never” slash the safety net. If the whole thing simply unravels, and the people awaken one day to discover that their leaders, with cynical machinations and controlled interactions with citizens, have concealed the awesome truth from them until it was too late to do anything about – well, that’s beyond Kerry’s control, and would likely invalidate his pledge.
(The bright side: Kerry propaganda was of a much higher and more intensive quality than in his previous visit to Florida – which this writer, with an established record of vigorously defending progressive causes and values, was banned from. It is unclear if anyone on Kerry’s staff actually knows what kinds of buttons, say, are distributed under their aegis, but clearly the responsible parties are tepid, at best, about his candidacy. Gone were the “ketchup bottle” buttons that appeared to be a rib on a man whose wife – whom staffers have called “the money-in-law” – has almost tripled the inheritance from her first husband, John Heinz, and whose campaign HQ is located in Pittsburgh. The new buttons depict the tradition of “Democratic Leadership,” the “Strength and Support” of Mrs. Kerry and Mrs. Edwards, the Bergen-McCarthyesque relationship between the incumbent ticket and, of all things, a button depicting Bush’s reaction to the news of 9/11– with its implied indictment of the President for daring not to rush out of that school until his airspace could be cleared. Five dollars each, or three for ten.)
In a day of shady behavior on the part of the national Democratic Party, perhaps the shadiest of all was that the Kerry “VIP” press conference was timed specifically to ensure that local media would not be able to cover the rousing speech by the area’s leading Democrat, Congresswoman Corrine Brown. Brown is arguably the Party’s MVP (“Most Valuable Partisan”) of the 2004 electoral season.
Brown’s position as Representative of Florida’s third district (which shimmies through seven cities and eight counties, and includes a dozen colleges and universities) offers her a level of security that is envious to her peers in the post-1994 political scene. As one of the few Florida Democrats to thrive (and, indeed, to never lose an election) during a 20-year period in which the polarity of political power has shifted a full 180°, she enjoys the rare luxury of speaking freely, to often hilarious and newsworthy effect. Four years of Democratic complaints about the events of 2000 were crystallized by her infamous “coup d’etat” remark from the House floor.
The shameful lack of respect shown to Rep. Brown by a campaign that owes her big for whatever viability it has in this region bit them back hard, within moments of their transgression, as soon as Kerry’s ineptitude on economic issues was exposed to a dozen running cameras. It is highly unlikely that anyone will follow up with the real, relevant questions the American people desperately need to have asked on his behalf; unlikely, that is, unless Mr. Kerry returns soon to Jacksonville, ready, willing and able to do the right thing. At present, however, he conducts himself like he’s already lost this race. ◼
