I just caught John Kerry’s latest biographical ad, and it’s pretty damn good. As a positive political ad, they’re coming at the right time and they have just the right tone.
Bush is going to have one hell of a race. Then again, given that Kerry’s numbers are still in the toilet, and he’s still running just ahead of a severely weakened Bush, it’s nothing to cheer about for the Kerry camp (not as though that will stop them). Kerry isn’t ahead because Kerry is doing well, he’s ahead because Bush is being battered by bad news from Iraq. Still, if Kerry can get his numbers up, he could easily pull ahead of Bush by a wide margin. If I were Karl Rove, I’d be praying the situation in Iraq gets better before Election Day.
I’ve seen that ad for a while in Florida, and it gets old fast, although I admit it did come across pretty good at first.
Notice also that it tries to recast Kerry’s life: not one mention of Massachusetts, his real home state and the one he represents in the Senate. Instead, the ad mentions his birth in Colorado, where his father was stationed at the time.
Notice also how it claims he cast the “deciding vote” on legislation that “created 20 million jobs.” First, if a bill passes by one vote, every Senator voting for it can claim to be the deciding vote…Second, it is not a bill that creates jobs, but the private sector. Third, what bill are we talking about…the one for the Clinton tax increase?
Another Thought, yes, he’s talking about the Clinton tax increase bill. While only “swing voters” would be dimwitted enough to fall for misleading rhetoric about Kerry “casting the deciding to vote to create 20 million jobs”, the Clinton Economic Stimulus Package, tax cut and all, was nonetheless the single most important piece of domestic legislation passed in this country in decades. Without it, the Republicans wouldn’t be in a position to bankrupt the country “in the near future” through their delusional borrow-and-spend worldview…they would have already gotten the job done.